It Could Happen Here Weekly 61

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let
you know. This is a compilation episode. So every episode
of the week that just happened is here in one
convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to
listen to in a long stretch if you want. If
you've been listening to the episodes every day this week,
there's gotta be nothing new here for you, but you
can make your own decisions. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening,

(00:28):
good night, Hello, and welcome. So it could happen here.
It is three pm in the winter, so it's all
of those at once. So for here that is true.
That is true. It is seven here, it's regular evening time. Yeah,

(00:48):
no winter included, you know, just rain Unhot's the two
moods of the web. Yeah, which winter is it right now?
Is did rain to a hot winter? Neither? There? Winters never? Well,
I hope that winter never comes to the island. If

(01:09):
it does, I think will be in some deep ship.
You know. If you guys get snowing, its time frestle
to reevaluate our practices when that happen. Until the absolutely
that means the parrots have migrated to Alaska. Oh, God,

(01:29):
they knew a lot of movements around the evening time,
so I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to pack
up and leave us all behind. Well this is it
could happen here as as you might be aware, a
podcast about things falling apart, and today's episode is brought
to us by Andrew Hello of the YouTube channel Andrewism.

(01:52):
Just avoid confusion with other Andrews, you know, I did
not realize. Yeah, that's right, son of the Queen. Yeah,
you know, you can talk about Prince Andrew. You can
talk about Andrew teeth. You know, it's like distinguished myself,
you know. Yeah, you're the best, Andrew. I appreciate that anytime, buddy.

(02:14):
So I'd like to spend some time today tonight what
is time really and to talk about the concept of
d growth, you know, where it comes from, what it means,
what it needs, and all that other fun stuff. Are
you guys familiar with the growth US as a concept? Yeah,
a little bit. Yeah, I mean, and it's yeah, I

(02:36):
I please please. I mean it's one of those things
that gets a lot of like uh flak on one
hand for people saying that it's basically eco fascism, and
then you have folks being like, no, it's a it's
a perfectly reasonable response to the kind of endless growth
attitude that got us into the environmental catastrophe we're currently experiencing.

(02:57):
That's yeah, I think that Having released a video on
Decruth last week and having read through some of the
comments have received, um, I've come to the conclusion that's
there's no getting through to some people. Yeah. People, people

(03:22):
love to listen to like a third of what you
say and then get really angry at what they think
you said. Every time we talk about like the value
of of things like you know, the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective,
you know, hacking different medicines or training people being medics.
Somebody hops on the subred and said, I think it's
kind of able. Is that they think that, you know,
people can replace doctors with with street medics. Like, no one,

(03:43):
no one's ever made that case. That that's not a
thing that anyone has ever said. I'm going to make
it my entire life mission to only specifically make this
case some gauze and water in a bag. Yeah, doctors,
but they they must all die when the revolution comes.
They will only be replaced the street that X, it's
gonna be great. I'm texting all of this to our

(04:05):
friends cover right now, Dr Whoda. Yeah, it's just it's
just ridiculous. So people will literally project what they think
you said onto what you actually said. It's very very
obvious when it's taken place. I don't know how they
will feel embarrassed. You know, a lot of times I
barely comment on things. I barely respond to things, and
when I do, I check and recheck and re check

(04:27):
what the person has said. Then I check and recheck
and recheck what I see before I get the statement,
because I don't know how do I feel embarrassed? Yeah,
like everybody who has watched the video conceded you haven't
watched it. They've just had like a term search and
then appeared and yeah, and like, yeah, come to engage

(04:50):
you pretty much pretty much. But I mean, if I
were to be a sleeve for the algorithm, I would
say all that engagement helps, right, Yeah, yeah, I'm sure
it doesn't helps. It helps one thing for sure, Yeah,
help get us to a better place. Unfortunately, and speaking
of things that do not help us get to a
better place, I think it's the growth primarily is about

(05:15):
confronting this destructive ideology of growthism. You know, something we
see all around us, something we interact with on a
failure regular basis. You see the images of the Amazon
rainforest being cut down to be um, turning into soy
firms until eventually it's made into a cattle grease in fields.

(05:38):
You talk about the constant expansion of oil infrastructure, You
talk about the constant expansion of mining operations, You talk
about the continued rise of fast fashion. That people are
extremely defensive whenever you try to criticize it. Um, all
of these systems, all of these industries, all of these practices,

(06:00):
is uh part of part and parcel, or rather products
of this ideology of growth is um that capitalism is
driven by. And I know it may be strange for
some people to sort of deep program from this idea
that growth is like an unadulterated could uncontroversially positive because

(06:28):
you know, natures like all about growth, right. You know,
when you think of growth, you think of a plant
speaking out of the soil. You think of a baby
kitten growing up to be a cat. You talk about
like babies becoming toddlers, becoming young children, becoming older children, becoming,
you know, tweens and teens and then finally adults and
then from there Joe biden. Um. But you know, there's

(06:55):
this whole idea of growth, and that growth is like
a natural part of life. That is true. But growth
in life does not go on and on and on
and on. You know. Organisms grow up to a certain
point and then they maintain a healthy equilibrium, or at
least they try to. Um. Of course, health is not
necessarily a natural state of affairs, because viruses are just

(07:18):
as natural as the cells they attack. And then you
can also get all uh femeral and talk about personal
growth and how life is a constant journey of personal
growth and whatever. But speaking materially, we can physically, growth
has a limit. People grow up to a certain height,
certain size, and so on, and when growth doesn't stop,

(07:41):
that's when we start run into problems. As I understand,
the reason that cancer is so difficult to cure is
because your own body turning against you. It's your it's
some of the many trillions of your own cells deciding okay,
time to just grow and grow and grow without limit.
And what happens in most of those cases, and many

(08:02):
of those cases rather unfortunately people die as a result.
So our bodies and our own bodies, we understand that
growth is not always positive, and yet that's sick logic
of growth for its own sake is exactly what the
global economy relies on. So that's just think that's too

(08:24):
much growth, too much money, too much stuff. And you
have all these wealthy nations to continue to expand and
grow and attempt to hold I heard one person use
the analogy a camemberhood was um talking about how capitalism
is now attempting to the new frontiers. For capitalism is
to expand and colonize our own minds um. And so

(08:45):
every economy, every sector, every industry is expected to keep growing,
keep growing, keep growing, no matter what. One of the
responses that I got on my video on the growth
is that, oh, well you're seeing that growth is this
im growthsma is this capitalist thing. But you know China

(09:07):
and USSR, and they grew and they industrialized and they
are just as susceptible to ecological destruction as any other
capitalist country. And that is true, but that's also part
of why I would consider those countries to be um
state capitalist projects UM and not anything close to what

(09:32):
I envisioned. But of course, the moment you introduce any
idea that sounds even vaguely socially oriented, even vaguely ecologically oriented, um,
people automatically assume you're trying to go for like new
United Soviet Socialist Republic. But I think we need to

(09:58):
explore different paths to improve in quality of life, to
code and code developing. And that's a tricky subject I'll
get into a bit later. But we need to think
of way as that we can help people and help
people live better lives without relying and desperating the bias fare.

(10:22):
It's a tricky conversation to be had, um, because when
people think of growth, they think, if it as a positive,
I want you to criticize that positive. They think the inverse.
They think you're trying to make everybody degrade and go
down to like a wost quality of life, to rush
back to to like a lower life expectancy, What transform

(10:46):
a mode of production back to like hunting and gathering.
But the truth is that deep growth as a movement,
as to stem of thought, is more so about trying
to find that balance between a good quality of life

(11:07):
for all, not just this unequal quality of life that
we see around the world and the capitalism while also
balancing the fact that we live in material world. We
live on a planet that has limited resources. We need
to balance those resources. We need to consider and be

(11:27):
good stewards of you know, uh planet that we share
with other living creatures. Capitalism really is driven by this
ideology of growthism because it is structurally incentivized. Structurally, it
is a structural imperative in the capitalist system. It's not

(11:51):
exclusively driven by greed, as some people assume. I think
that's that that this idea that it's all up to
like personalities, kind of hampers people's ability to analyze systems
because it doesn't matter whether, um, we suddenly put each

(12:11):
and every CEO in a position where they are all
completely one hundreds and altruistic. It's not that they all
being driven by greed. It's because under capitalism, you know,
capitalists own capital, and capital that is stagnant is capital
that is losing its value, and so they look for

(12:33):
things to invest in so they can grow their capital.
Capital being anything from real estate, factories, machinery, intellectual property,
financial assets. What is the money that they used to
make more money? If it's stagnant, it's losing value, and
they're trying to increase its value. UM as they see gold.
Companies that have growing profits year after year, so their

(12:56):
capital will grow year after year. And if that crew
slews down, they pull out and look elsewhere to invest.
Companies that failed to grow will lose their investors and collapse.
And so companies do everything their power to maintain growth
so they can maintain the investors, regardless of how much
havoc they reach upon the world. So if any barriers

(13:16):
are preventing their growth, they had to bulldoz those barriers.
You know, Environmental protections are barriers, labor lowers are barriers, protections,
policies are barriers. The commons were a barrier, Indigenous populations
were a barrier, and so on and so forth. All
of these acts of violence open up these new frontiers
for growth, for appropriation, for accumulation, and so incomes the growth.

(13:42):
Or the French term for it is the croissant um,
and I know that I likely pronounced that incorrectly. It's
the French. We can disrespect them precisely. I think um
things to sit down, reflect on their new cluing, the
empire um. But anyway, this idea of the growth really

(14:05):
first was developed. I have to say that I appreciate
what the intellectuals have come up with. They're good at
sitting down and thinking about stuff. I'll give them that.
I'll give them that. So there's one French intellectual guy
named Andrea Course in vent two coined the tomb de

(14:25):
consin French. For the growth go has basically posed a
question that remains at the center of the growth is
the Earth's balance, for which no growth or even the
growth of material production is a necessary condition compatible with

(14:45):
the survival of the capitalist system. I would Mangae to say, no,
it is not in any way compactible with this mavel
the capitalist system, because we have seen it in this
short period of time that the capitalism has existed, it
has rapidly triggered the capital scene, or as some people

(15:07):
regrettably called the anthropocene. It has rapidly triggered the sixth
great mass extinction event um. And so I do not
believe that the Earth's balance it's compatible with its survival.
And so the Croissant movement of activists mainly flourished in
Lyon in the early two thousand's. In the week of

(15:30):
protests for car free cities, communal meals in the streets,
food cooperatives, and campaigns against advertising. It went from France
to Italy, where agreed and anti globalization activists h mobilized
against this whole concept of capitalisms, constant encroachments and expansion

(15:56):
and growth expanded into Catalonia in Spain in two thousand six.
It eventually built up to the size where I could
sustain a movement a magazine rather Crossan which currently sells
a few thousand copies a month. Around the same time,

(16:20):
in two thousand four, a research and activist named France
Swash Schneider took a year long walking tour on a
donkey to disseminate the growth throughout France and that received
some media coverage. Eventually, Schneider founded an academic collective known
as Research and the Growth along with Dennis Bayonne and

(16:43):
February Free Poo, and they eventually began international conferences went
in Paris into those and eight and the second in Barcelona.
So the English term de growth was officially used for
the first time at the Paris conference, which really marked
the booth of the international research community around the growth.

(17:05):
Following the success of the conferences in Paris and Barcelona.
Other conferences were held in Montreal in twenty eleven, Venice
and twelve, Leipzig fourteen uh and the growth as an
idea spread to groups in Flanders, Switzerland, Finland, Poland, Greece, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Denmark,
Czech Republic like guess it's a check here now, Mexico, Brazil,

(17:27):
Puerto Rico, Canada, Bulgaria, Romania and elsewhere. The growth as
an idea, as in a movement has been getting ground,
despite the criticisms that somehow that oh, well, you can't
call it something negative like the growth, because people wouldn't
be you know, happy with it or whatever. Um. And
I'll get to that criticism in a bit. But it's

(17:48):
been steadily gruin since it was first you know, developed
in the nineteen seventies. Um. At this point in time,
if you go on the the Growth website, you will
find thousands of articles and studies in their library. And
of course it's not to say that because of concept

(18:11):
has a lot of followers or thinkers or published works,
it's automatically h a, okay, ultimately correct. But at this
point in time, I think a lot of people are
looking at direction we are going in and recognizing that
we cannot continue along this path of growth, and so

(18:33):
they are actively looking for a way out, looking for
a way to find that balance, recognizing that capitalism is
not compatible with the Earth's balance. And so the Growth
ultimately rejects the illusion of growth. It calls to re
politicize the public debate that has been colonized by the

(18:57):
idiom of economism um that has been driven towards as
a social objective, economic growth. The Growth is a project
advocating for the democratically lead shrinking of production and consumption

(19:17):
with the aim of achieving social justice and ecological sustainability.
I think when some people care degrowth, despite all the
explanations out there, despite even consumers explanations, they might still
have this idea and they had the degrowth is this
thing where bunch of armed, government sponsored environmental activists roll

(19:40):
up and take your car and your house and force
you to live in a cave. Um. But de grow that.
How we de grow our economy is going to rely
on the popular um involvement of the people. You know,
It's not like you could just snap your fingers or
just decreate and make it so, Um, it's not meant

(20:03):
to be like how it is under new liberalism, where
you have all this austerity. The growth is supposed to
be all of us coming together to this to figure
out how we can live in alignment with our biosphere,
with our bioregion, with the planet, scaling down our individual

(20:25):
and our community um supply chains, and localizing our consumption
in order to reduce the reliance on this highly extractive,
highly growth dependent, cabulist global capitalists economy. The growth also

(20:45):
signifies a direction, a desired direction, one in which society
is use fewer natural resources and organize and live much
differently than they live today. The ideas of you know, sharing,
which is something we teach the preschoolers, simplicity, conviviality, care,

(21:07):
and the commons primary concepts in terms of what a
deecret society should look like. Uh. In one of my
previous podcast episodes that would have discussed the Commons a bit,
so if anyone is curious about what the Commons are,
they could check that out. Um. And of course on

(21:29):
my channel also speak about the Commons as an institution
and about libraries of things, and so the growth has
offered a sort of a framework that connects all these
different ideas, concepts, proposals UM with the criticism of growth,
with the criticism of GDP, with the criticism of commodification

(21:51):
UM the process that converts social products and socio ecological
services and relations into commodities of the monetary value. On
the constructive side, because the growth is not just limited
to criticism, do you imagines reproductive economies of care, the

(22:13):
reclamation of all and the creation of new commons man
need and natural caring for commons in communal forms of
living and producing UM, liberating our time from work and
making it available to caring for our communities and caring

(22:33):
for our ecology. Because if you think about all of
the activities that are currently so needed at this point
in time in terms of ecological restoration, in terms of
um DE growth, they're not profitable. You know, planting man

(22:54):
grooves to shore up our shows, to defend our shows
from your waning from storms is not profitable. Replanting forests
and sparking nature's processes of eclosial restoration not profitable. And
of course there is a whole sorts of ecosystem, economic, political,

(23:19):
ecosystem dedicated to these kinds of projects with all the
NGOs and government organizations involved in replanting the Sahel region
in Africa, for example, creasingly create green wall. But those
projects tend to be righte with issues and a lack
of intendence because they do not involve local communities in

(23:42):
the decision making surrounding um that process of restoration. And
on top of that, of course, these projects are not
embedded in broad ut project for the growth. So a
government a government might be planting trees, planting forests in
one part of the country and extracting and drilling in

(24:06):
another part of the country, and so there needs to
be an integration of all these different projects with a
brother push and direction towards the growth. I want to
go back around to this idea that UM the growth

(24:26):
is a critique of GDP as a concept. UM the
growth is not necessarily the same as negative GDP growth.
But when you consider how GDP is measured, as it's counted,
it's about financial transactions and not necessarily the non financial ones.
And so if we were to crean our economy, if

(24:50):
we were to DeCrow our society, UM we're not going
to be seeing the really grows. Domestic activity increases of
two or three percent. Yeah, there's there's an old like
two eleven slogan that's, uh if when the bank takes
your house, that increases GDP, Right, that is true. That

(25:14):
is true. A lot of uh, positive and constructive and
beneficial actions that people do on a regular basis do
not contribute to g P, whereas entire destructive industries contributes
significantly its every month. We started this by talking by

(25:34):
comparing kind of the quest for endless growth to a cancer,
but I almost think it's a better comparison. Is Like,
you know, there was that article early this year about
how specific kinds of people, particularly like rich weirdos in
the tech industry, are paying thousands of dollars to have
their legs broken and like lengthened so that they can

(25:54):
like that's that's that's a that's a shipload of how
act Like, Yeah, I mean it's weaker, they can never
we can never run again. But you are technically taller,
so we'll count on as growth. Yeah, go up. Much
of a coward to wear platforms? Yeah yeah, so you don't.
You don't have the hotspot to be a short king. Unbelievable.

(26:17):
Sometimes I do think that like when anthropologists on civilization
the wonder why were so fascinated about line go up?
But then they realized that the whole point of the
civilization was line go up. Like that that was oddity, truly, truly,
it's it's it's I don't know. My eyes my eyes

(26:40):
bleed sometimes thinking about how this whole system is structured
and how it just continues to chug along. But um,
that's why I spend so much time writing and reading
and talking about these issues, right, trying to find a
whee out. And so that is also what de with

(27:00):
advocates are looking to do, the looking for a way out,
you know, a way for a better life first of all,
which brings me to the whole criticism of the growth
that is essentially optics. Right. They say it's not appropriate
to use a negative word to signify desired positive changes,

(27:22):
but the growth advocates deliberately choose I mean, in my
videw I said that I'm fine with either quality growth
or qualitate post growth or whatever. But the growth advocates
have chosen the term de growth for a reason. The
use of negation for a positive project is aimed towards

(27:45):
creating that sort of um questioning, you know, towards getting
people to reconsider this idea of growth as a ultimate
could to de colonize imagination that has been dominated by
this whole capitalist conception of the future, consistent of you know,

(28:06):
line go up. Is this automatic assumption and association of
growth with better that the word the growth wants to dismantle,
wants to be constructed sod. Growth is a deliberately subversive slogan.
And of course the growth is not aimed at, you know,

(28:29):
deconstructing the most necessary sectors, the devolved in the most
necessary sectors. We're not talking about de grow and education,
de grow in, medical care, de grow in you know, well,
renewable energy is kind of a tricky subject, but DeCrow
and renewable energy, UM, it's more so about primarily and

(28:52):
first of all targets in the most duty and destructive industries,
you know, the financial sector. UM. We would prefer to
see institutions like health and education flourish rather than crew
or develop. We want to change that is qualitative, not
necessarily quantitative. You want to see a flourishing of the arts,

(29:17):
of flourishing of philosophies, a flourishing of um vernacular architectures
and flourishing of the creativity of people. And that's qualitative.
It's not about oh well, line go up, so things
more good. You know. It's not about we have ten

(29:38):
industrial outputs last year, now we have twelve. That's so good.
You know, we want something. We want quality to change that.
And if most people really sit down and think about
what they want in their life, I don't think a
lot of people are gonna are gonna think of, oh well,
I want next year's iPhone to have a twelve increase

(30:02):
in the camera quality. You know, it's more so that
you want better you know, rest um more um, connected communities,
healthier commute or healthier UM I guess city layout. UM.

(30:26):
It's more conducive to interaction. It's more conducive to small
scale movement. It's not about, like I said, you know,
it's not about trying to get line to go up. Cryptocurrency,
as I think about it, it's like perhaps the best
example or like n f T s right, like they
created a bunch of value that literally created nothing. I

(30:48):
had nothing other than exchange value exactly exactly. It's just nonsense. Yeah,
pretend money. I talk for a moment about like development
as a concept, right, because another common criticism of the
growth is that, oh, well, what about the global South,

(31:09):
what about the Third world? What about all the poor
countries and poor people of the world. You just want
to leave them behind? And from one I find it
strange because the person in question, at least the video
response that I got, simplicitly assumes that I am from
like a global North nichetion and I'm just fine sitting

(31:30):
down with my you know, um, same day Amazon delivery
and Starbucks and um, sprawling suburbs and whatever it is
that you know, they imagine my lifestyle is like. But
I think first and foremost parts of the whole move
a t growth is to consider, um, like I said, reason,

(31:55):
improving people's quality of life worldwide, which capitalism is not
interested in. Coupitism will maintain a perpetual underclass because they're
easier to exploit. And so this is whole idea of development,
right that has this baggage. Um, it's very colonial baggage.

(32:16):
But it's development is really like growth. It's meant to
have like a limit. It's an unfolding towards a predetermined end.
You know, an embryo eventually develops into a fetus, so
she eventually develops into a baby. She eventually develops into
a child, she eventually develops into an adult who then

(32:38):
ages and dies. But development for the sake of development,
with no end, with no ams, with no goals, with
no sense of um self critique or questioning, It's a
disaster waiting to happen. I can look at my own
country and from Trenon to Vigo for those who don't know,

(33:00):
and think of things that need to get better, right,
Things that would really improve people's quality of life. UM.
To think about the fact that we really need to
get rid of our reliance and cars and bring back
our training system UM that was dismantled so long ago.
I could think about the fact that we need to

(33:25):
improve our food or autonomy because we are extremely reliant
on food imports. UM. Things like that I can think
about that would improve people's ability to live well and
sustainably on this island. But those things, those aims, those
are those are cools, right. I'm just thinking, oh, development, development, development.

(33:47):
I'm thinking, Okay, there's point B. How do I get
there from point A? How are we going to meet
people's basic needs? And this whole and the whole deep
with projects is really about that whole conversation between the
globle North and the Global Salt. Right, the global North

(34:09):
needs to reduce their demand for a lot of the
resources and goods so that they're more accessible to the
Global Salt. But in making those things more accessible, places
in the Global Salt are not meant to follow the
same path that the Goloble North took that put us
in our mess. The whole ideas that we need to

(34:32):
find a different path, We need to find a different trajectory.
We need to think for ourselves instead of trying to
keep up with the Joneses in order to determine what
a good life would mean for us in our ecological niche,
in our geographical situation. Yeah, what us. It's like we did,

(34:53):
we did we we did. We did this in China, right,
like we did the entire development thing. And the product
is now like people literally sucking eighteen miles on foot
after having broken out of a fox con factory that
they've been locked in and forced to make iPhones because
someone had like three people have gotten COVID, so they
just like locked everyone in the factory. So like you
know it, Yeah, and I think it's also sort of

(35:15):
like briefly worth mentioning that like development as a concept
and the sort of developmental economics field was like this
was like specifically developed in sort of the bowels of
the American State Department as as a response to like
basically as like as a way as a kind of
like simplified capitalist version of Marxist theory they could throw
out to sort of like explain what was happening in

(35:36):
like as as as as a sort of an alternative
Demarxism for like all these sort of like newly post
colonial nations. And you know, it's gone about as well
as you would expect. I think the valles of the
State Department to be alternative department. Like, well this has

(35:59):
been fun. Um, I love I don't know thinking about capital.
I mean this is it's this is important because like
we always need to be thinking about what comes next.
This is constantly like a problem that the left has
and certainly a problem the liberals have, which is that, um,
the vision of the future is very rarely anything more

(36:21):
than fighting against kind of the demons of the moment,
as opposed to like what does it actually look like
to get ourselves to a better place, to a place
that's more sustainable, both in an environmental level and in
like in a manner of human ecology too, And um, yeah,
I think this is like, this is kind of the
hard work that people need to be thinking about. Wherever

(36:43):
you wind up landing on on d growth as either
a concept or as a term like, these are the
paths we have to start beating out of the bush,
you know, exactly. So there are many potential that already
been thought up, and there are many that have yet
to be imagined. In Ecuador, the project of Sumac, Say

(37:12):
and really the rest of Latin America, the idea of
green vivere in much of South Africa, the concept of
Ubuntu in India, the Gandhian economy of permanence. All of
these projects are more explore alternatives to quote and quote development,

(37:35):
alternats of trajectories to a good life UM that is
rooted in environmental justice, that is based in a retreat
from the narrow confines of the global norths imagination UM

(37:56):
and what that imagination has promoted worldwide and what's upon
the rest of the world. The growth requires us to
think for ourselves, to think creatively about how we plan

(38:16):
on creating a good life in the context of capitalism's degradation,
the Earth's degradation due to climate change, and what that
will mean for our future is we really need to
sit and think about what our future as a species,
what of our future as regions, our future as communities,

(38:41):
of future as individuals is going to look like, what trajectory,
what path we want to take, and how we begin
that journey. And so in the second part of this
two part series, I intend to discuss what concepts are

(39:04):
essential for the growth, the steps we can take to
move towards the growth, and how we can integrate the
growth in anarchist politics. All right, and that's going to
be the end of part one. Come back tomorrow for
part two and uh, probably more discussion of that weird
surgery rich people get to have their legs broken repeatedly

(39:27):
until they're taller. Hello, and welcome back to it could
happen here, um a show where things happen people talk

(39:50):
about it, Yes, in this present location. That's correct. Last
episode we spoke about the concept of the growth and
what it means to de grow, how the growth as
a movement came about, what inspired the critique that the

(40:11):
growth pushes, and what the growth means for those of
us who live in the Global South, how we can
go about imagining um new and different paths to a
better life within ecological limits. This episode will continue in

(40:32):
that conversation talking about what is essential for the growth.
As I discussed in the previous episode, the growth is
about striving for self determined life and dignity for all.
It means an economy in a society that can sustain

(40:53):
the natural basis of life. It means reduction of production
consumption the globe on the north and the liberation the
one sided Western paradigm of development so that the Global
South can explore their own, our own, self determined paths
of social organization. The growth means an extension of democratic

(41:15):
decision making to allow for real political participation. The growth
means that social changes organized and oriented towards sufficiency and
self sufficiency and ecological sustainability, rather than the pursuits of
a line grew up a pursuit of economic growth, regardless

(41:40):
of its impact on people, planet, and the growth of
course advocates for the creation of open, connected and localized economies,
there are several steps that need to be taken in
order to achieve a d growth society, achieve a degrowth

(42:05):
will to deeprou For one, I think that, as Jason
Hickel advocates in his book Less is More, we absolutely
need to put an end to the practice of planned
obso lessons, whether it be in household appliances and tools
and furniture and computers. We need to shift away from

(42:28):
this idea of products being produced to break down in
a certain timeline and require replacement. UM. I personally have
witnessed a lot of older technologies that continue to last
to this day before because they were invented before this

(42:49):
whole practice the plant obs lessons really came about. Yeah,
but my family, we have a microwave that is like
a decade older than I am, and it still works fine. Wow. Yeah,
And I mean in my own lifetime, I've had to
purchase multiple microwaves, so it's it's ridiculous. Yeah, That's always

(43:09):
one of the things that I always thought like there
was a real sort of like this is how you
this is how you appeal to conservative people with this
is just like hey, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna
bring back like nineteen sixties microwaves where everything is a
dial and it doesn't break every Yeah, because I think, yeah,

(43:30):
I think what's what's missing in the conversation about t
growth is a lot of people like me, they assume,
because they react to negative that everybody else will, you know,
they kind of project their own reaction to others. But
I think political spectrum aside um or political chart or

(43:51):
how are you gonna um map out the unmappable UM.
I think that people generally, as I was discussing the
previous episode, want a good life, and that requires qualitative
changes far more than it requires quantitative changes. Of course,

(44:11):
there are places where quantitative changes are needed to make
some things accessible to that population. UM. But we already
over produce a lot of different things UM, And a
lot of overproduction is completely necessary because it is based
and planned obs lessons in order to increase profits, and

(44:32):
so that needs to Once that is discarded, I think
people have will will best be able to access that
quality of life because we look at a lot of
the sudden expenses that people have to deal with. You know,
you've fridge suddenly breaking down, your stove suddenly breaking down

(44:53):
in my careave for your toolster certainly breaking now and
or you're washing machine. Um. I think in this year,
the and had to fix the washing machine three or
four times because it's just constantly breaks down. And when
instead we can save that those resources see at that time,
see that energy, see that money. Um, just produce certain

(45:18):
quality food the foods time, you know, put an end
to those deliberate manufacturing decisions and developing long lasting modular
products that can reduce our you know, material and energy
use worldwide. I think in a lot of cases, we
don't necessarily need more innovation, you know. I don't think

(45:40):
we really need like a smart fridge. I think we
just need a fridge that works for decades without breaking
down constantly. Yeah, And like like so much of the
stuff that's sort of like nominally is informatus, like it's
supposed to be. Innovation is just how how how can

(46:00):
we make this product in such a way that we
can sell consumer data about you from it? Like we
don't need to do that. We can simply not. We
can simply not. We can simply not exactly exactly. And
speaking of things that we can simply not, we can
simply not assault our senses constantly with advertisis. And because

(46:27):
advertising just continues to see this purpose of generating social divisions,
highlighting class divisions, and manipulating people into consuming stuff they
don't need. As a card carrying member of Generations Z,
I have not I do not typically watch much TV UM.

(46:49):
I used to watch TV because I'm the older gen
Z conting gent, but with the rise of streaming services
is UM, which I do not use. Yoho hoo. Is
I have to say about that? UM. I have not
watched much TV UM. But there's certain reality shoes that

(47:13):
I enjoy, like the Amazing Race UM, and so those
sense we be showing on TV. I like Jeopardy. I
like to watch Jeopardy and the constant deeply unfunny, irritating, annoying, loud,

(47:34):
flashy barrage of commercials quite aggravating. UM. Honestly, the goal
in age of crucial is being funny. Was a long
time ago and now it's just suits. One of the
things that I mentioned that in UM in the episode

(47:56):
that we had done on the Commons. One of the
things that I one of the positions are held even
before I was an anarchist, was my opposition to the
advertising industry to advertise it. I can't stand advertising everywhere
you walk, everybody, screw everything you watch and listen to,
it's also going to sell you something. Um. I would
love to be able to go outside and not see
ads all the time. I would love to use a

(48:17):
screwth of the incident without seeing ads all the time. Um.
And so getting really advertising industry getting rid of while
these ads are just pushing us to consume more and more,
um and oftentimes just promoting a lot of really harmful
societal ideas you know, um, body images, use and alcoholism

(48:43):
and a lot of our worst practices and a lot
of really terrible things of being promoted through ads. And
so yeah, tear it down and watch consumerism perish. When
you think about really history the advertising industry and how
it came about as a mass communication student, um, that's

(49:04):
something that I would spend some time looking into. Advertising
really came about in response to you know, this need
that people had, really that that that that companies had
to get people to consume. Because in a lot of cases,
you know, people would buy something and a newer model

(49:25):
would come out and it would really pay attention to
it because I already have the thing. I don't need
to get another thing. Um. But you know, you can't
run a profitable business that free. So they basically used
advertising to push people to consume more, and so we
need to get rid of the advertising industry. Another step

(49:46):
we can take towards the growth is to shift from
ownership to use. The fruct um usufruct is something that
Marie book Chin, social ecologist, talks a lot about um
in his book The Ecology of Freed Them and it's
essentially the freedom of individuals or groups in a community

(50:07):
to access and use, but not destroy, common resources to
supply their needs. The term use of fruct comes from
Roman property law, I believe, which should include use us
the right to use. Sorry, unfortunately I did not take
ladin yeah practice. It's just the right to enjoy the

(50:31):
fruit of one's property and abuse us which is the
right to destroy one's property. So use us fruct us
and abuse us um. And so use of fractice really
the combination of the first two principles. Right to access
and use and enjoy the fruit of um commonly held
property without you the right to destroy it um, so

(50:55):
that everyone can supply their needs. So instead of and
I mean two libraries already a concept that it exists
around the world, rather than a hundred people in a
community each individually order an electric drill, UM, one person
or rather one library can host or three or four
electric drills and effectively serve everyone's need for a drill

(51:17):
when they need it, because unless you're a carpenter or
really into arts and crafts, you probably don't need an
electric drill all the time. Another thing that we're really
helping or push towards the growth will be getting rid
of car dependency, because the consumption of vehicles, the mainstenence
of vehicles, the maintenance of the infrastructure of vehicles, use

(51:41):
all of those things requires a lot of resources, you know,
concrete and oil and gas and metals and great Earth minerals.
And rather than forcing everyone to produce these things we
could consume those things, we can instead shift towards walkable
model for urban months UM so that people who do

(52:02):
need to use vehicles in rural settings, for example, can
use them, and you can use them without causing unnecessarily
unnecessary harm contributing to unnecessary harm superfluous harm on the planet. UM.
Getting rid of cor dependency would also mean that fewer
people would need vehicles, and vehicles that the few vehicles

(52:25):
that we do produce UM can be shared in common
to save needs that cannot be filled by like bikes
or you know, public transportation systems. Another element of deep
growth would really be the reduction of our energy material
use through the transformation of our agriculture systems. It is

(52:48):
true that we currently produce enough food for I believe
ten billion people. A lot of that food is wasted. UM.
A lot of food doesn't reach people. UM. It's really
an issue of alcation and not necessary production. But at
the same time that production is extremely harmful. UM. It

(53:09):
relies on a lot of damaging chemicals, relies on the
stripping of our top soils, relies on the overuse of antibiotics,
relies on the abuse of animals. UM. The way that
we currently feed the world is deeply unequal, extremely inefficient,

(53:32):
environmentally degrading, and energy wasting. We cannot continue to treat
our farms like factories. We need to find we used
to feed ourselves densely and compatibly within the amounts the
living world. Scaling down to localized proma culture can help

(53:53):
change of based agricultural systems. Community supported agriculture, urban god aquaponics,
cultured meats, aquacultures, and exploring other more traditional forms of
food raising will need to be the route that we take. Already,

(54:16):
we are killing our soils, we are running out to
the fossil fuels that UM, the agricultural industry relies on.
And if we continue along the trajectory, we have a
big storm coming. Yeah, probably the greatest famine the plant
has ever seen on its way. If we do not

(54:39):
aim to build food autonomy, aim to rewild our ecologies,
aimed to reconfigure our consumption patterns or food production and
consumption patterns two see quester more carbon to allocate two
more people to use healthier foods UM and to really

(55:03):
to recover the earth. Another important stuff we can take
in the growth would be to get rid of what
scale down to, especially destructive industries. There is, of course agriculture.
There is UM, the fossil fuels industry, the arms industry,

(55:24):
private jet industry, the automobile industry, the airline industries. All
of these industries must either be slimmed down or gotten
rid of UM because, as the pandemic has showing, very
few of the jobs that are currently undertaken around the
world are truly essential to maintain in the bare bones

(55:47):
of life. And of course we do need to reconfigure
the way that we live or ways of life. You
don't have to reflect ecological limits. But even with that reconfiguration,
I think we know why industries needed and what on. Um.
I always find it strange, This is, I guess a tangent.
I always find it strange that politicians are celebrated for

(56:13):
bracken about creating new jobs when in reality, I believe
and really the vision was in the twentieth century that
we would reach a point where fewer and fewer people
needed to work, and that we need to work for
less time. Um. And so that really is part of

(56:34):
the aim of the growth, reviving that pursuit, reviving that
goal because we have reached the point where we can
um scale on the amount of time each Polson has
to work, skill on amounts of jobs that aren't necessary. Um.
If you've read Bullshit Jobs by David Greeable, you'll see
that a lot of particularly service economy jobs ah practically worthless. Um.

(57:00):
And I actually saw kind of funny video talking about
how at this point office culture is more of a religion.
Yeah that's so good. Yeah, so that going and going around.
We can surrounds and Twitter. That was really funny. Um.
But yeah, we just move around. A bunch of people
move around and round numbers. If you've seen, um, the

(57:22):
show Succession, that Succession sufferance. Have you seen the shows Sufferance? UM,
it's it's pretty much like an our slash anti work
type show. UM. And so I think one more people
are coming to the realization that hey, this kind of

(57:44):
sucks the fact that we have to work this much.
So we need to reduce the amount of time we work, um,
the type of work we need to change, type of
work we do. So it's a quantitative and qualitative shift
um and something I spoke about in my view on
anti work or post work, whatever you want to call it.
These changes, these steps to scale and total energy use,

(58:07):
can be taken by a broad range of organizations, groups,
mass movements, popular assemblies, unions, co operatives, not waiting for
the state, but going beyond it. I think we've seen
by now. I think if you have not seen right now,
it needs open your eyes. The state is not doing
enough or in some cases not doing anything at all,

(58:27):
to respond to these crises, and we need to take
it into our own hands to do so. UM. I
have a video in store UM for December that as
one of my patrons jokes might have the alphabet agencies
after me. But there are a lot of different actions

(58:52):
that we can take UM to integrate the growth, to
move towards a decro society, to de grow our economies,
a combination of acts of confrontation and non cooperation and
prefiguration in some de growth challenges the dominant growth imperative.

(59:15):
It's in the name. It is intentionally subversive in its
title because it requires us to think about how we
can collectively organize the restructure of all economy and the
downscale of energy and resource use worldwide. The transition back
into balance with the living will in a safe, just,

(59:39):
an equitable way. The growth means striving for a self titude,
life and dignity and abundance for all. The growth of
mean liberating ourselves not just from the ways that the
growth imperative has shaped out technologies education. The growth who
require that we not just liberal it ourselves from the

(01:00:00):
ways that the growth imperative has shaved our technologies and institutions,
but it demands if we also reconsider education, our cultural norms,
and values or identities or mindsets or relationships. It will
be a massive shift with anarchists called social revolution um,

(01:00:27):
but it's one that is worthwhile. As some de growth
advocates would see, it's de growth by choice or de
growth by force. What's the use of de growth here?
Has being used slightly differently, the growth by choice being

(01:00:48):
like I described, collectively organized, democratically managed restructure of the
economy to bring into bounce that living will in a safe,
just nequitable way um, whereas d growth by force is
more soon combination of austaritsy and apocalypse. So up to you. Yeah, well,

(01:01:10):
politics all politicive people. So there's there's a Japanese Marxist
named koh Saito who's been writing like a bunch of
stuff recently, who basically like he's been probably the biggest
voice of the growth in Japan. And his book Capital
on the Antipathyne is finally getting translated into English pretty soon,

(01:01:32):
and so yeah, check that out when it comes out.
His stuff is really good, and he like basically has
revived both Marxism and d growth in Japan. After Marxism
is kind of like implosion after a bunch of weird fairy.
Wait we we don't need to get into the story
of the claps of the Japanese Left. But yeah, that

(01:01:54):
that that's coming. I'll check that out. Yeah yeah, I'm
looking forwards to that book when it comes out. Yeah,
me too. If you want to check out my videos
on this topic and others, just go to YouTube dot
com slash ANDREIDSM. You can also follow me on Twitter
um while Twitter still exists on discloss and Drew and

(01:02:17):
you could potentially even support on patreonatre dot com slash
sat true as it piece by could happen here. I

(01:02:44):
don't know why I did that voice. I'm Robert Evans,
host of a podcast that has many other hosts who
all are on the podcast right now. We have, in
order of them being on my zoom screen, Chris Garres
and Sharene and James. Hey, everybody, how's it going? Good? Great?

(01:03:06):
And we brought the full crew in to talk about
the worst ship. So yeah, a whole bunch of kind
of kind of not great things have happened the past week.
So we took we took last week mostly off from
work due to a series of court cases, um and uh,

(01:03:26):
thanks to an injunction we're allowed to podcast again, so
I figured it would be we had a couple of
I mean, horrifying stories break in a row, UM that
we as the people we are, kind of had specific
bits of insight on that I think might help uh
catch our listeners up to some maybe underappreciated aspects of

(01:03:46):
some of the big stories of the last week. So
we wanted to start with the mass shooting in Colorado
Springs UM specifically talking about the family of the still
alleged but you know, definitely did it shooter, James, you
want to kick us off there. Yeah, I wanted to
start out with this UM so that the alleged shooter,

(01:04:08):
it is called Anderson Lee old Rich, right, but comes
from an LDS Last Today saint family in San Diego,
And like I think everyone has probably seen this very
viral thirty second clip of his father that went around
Twitter and butt be to day after the shooting, and
his dad, just so we're super clear on this, says

(01:04:30):
some disgusting things and there's a piece of ship for
saying them. I don't want to excuse any of the ship,
he said. I also don't want to excuse the way
that that was cut because I think it was pretty
pretty shitty, Like there are people we should be really
fucking angry at, and his father is one of them.
But his father didn't excuse the shooting. And if you

(01:04:51):
look at that eight minute interview, he says that, like
what happened was wrong, etcetera, etcetera. And there are people
who have excused the shooting, right, Like I think Chris
is going to speak to something Temple Tucker Carlson, people
who created a climate where this happened and have asked
for it to happen again and are asking continually for
it to happen again. His dad didn't do that again,
his dad, His dad doesn't seem to have been a

(01:05:14):
great dad, right. His dad was was like using when
he was a kid. His dad was abusive. What is
his violence? I think we all know lots of people
who were raised in those climates who didn't go on
to shoot up a nightclub. And it just kind of
I saw something. I don't know. I was upset by
the response to that in a sense because like I
know so many people who come from from families and

(01:05:37):
homes like that, and I like being like, oh, he
was doomed to be this way because of how his
dad was just like isn't I don't know. It just
upset me. It's not the response we need, you know,
Like I think we should hold like hold what his
dad said, like hold his dad to account of what
he said, but also not like allow that to explain. Yes,

(01:05:58):
I have a couple I like, I have confused feelings
on it because his dad does go into a long
thing where he says, you know, you shouldn't there's nothing
that justifies violence. You know, these people's lives were precious,
All lives are precious. But he also was like I
taught him that violence was a great way to solve problems,
um and you know, expresses that he was glad to
learn that his son wasn't gay, And I don't, Yeah,

(01:06:22):
I don't know. I don't Yeah, I don't know how
much I want to like interpret that as he really
meant what he said about nothing justifying this in those
people's lives being precious, because that is kind of this
thing that like you get on the and this guy
is obviously not a thought leader on the Christian right,
not like he's not like a luminary. I don't think

(01:06:42):
he contributed outside of you know, the things he may
have raised his son to believe to the broader national
climate of of hate right now, there's just a study
that was released today that UM from the Armed Conflict
Location and Event Data Project Data confirms that anti LGBT
mobilization is now the leading driver or a fire right
protest activity in the US. Obviously, this guy didn't make

(01:07:04):
that happen, UM, but I noticed a similarity between like
the I there's nothing worse than my kid being gay,
but also when a bad thing gets done by a
Christian to gay people, well, their lives are still precious.
We just like hate what they how they live them. Um,
I don't know, I don't know how where to where
to go further with that, but you're right that like

(01:07:26):
that the thirty second clip is very dishonestly edited in
order to like, UM cut out a lot of what
this guy was saying, which I have a problem with
regardless of who you're doing it too. Yeah, it's just
it's bad journalism, And like I would rather we point
out rage at the people who are going to make
this happen again unless we stop them. Yeah, like this guy,

(01:07:47):
I'm this guy had the degree to which this guy
contributed to this massacre by being this dude's dad. Um,
I don't think there's anyone else he's going to push
into killing if if he indeed did that, whereas people
like to pool are going to continue to do that. Yeah.
And also I do want to say, like, like the

(01:08:07):
Mormon Church does not get a pass for this. Yeah,
like that No, absolutely believably homophobic, Like absolutely, he's a
ship super racist, like yeah, and you know a lot
of people really haven't been talking about this, and they
should because they fucking suck And yeah, this is this
is a you know, like, yeah, it turns out when
you have a bunch of people like giving sermons about

(01:08:29):
fucking musket balls, like this is what happens. Yeah, you
know they don't they don't get off the hook for
this either. No, And they're like domination of politics in
some areas, it really needs to be seriously looked at,
talking of like domination of politics. I do want to
talk about his grandfather a little bit, yep, because his
grandfather is bonkers. So his grandfather is called Randy vocal

(01:08:52):
Uh might be pronounced verpal um, but he's he was
mayor of Santi. So Santi is a town east of
San Diego. It's not not very far. He's I think
Sharenia probably familiar with Santia, right, Yeah, Santi is a
place that's that's about ye about it. People sometimes called
it clanned. He definitely like Metzka was there for a while, right.

(01:09:15):
And when Vopal was mayor in two thousand and one,
there was a school shooting in Santi about which he spoke.
He hasn't spoken about this one yet at all. He's
he's yeah, strange, that strange. He's pretty much gone, which
is not like it when this guy speaks, he uh,
he rarely helps himself when when he speaks to media

(01:09:38):
who don't agree with every position he's on. So I
want like, I want to ground like he became mayor
of Santi in two thousand. In nine, a black marine
by the name of Carlos Colbert, who was a large
corporate in the Marine Corps, was beaten and paralyzed by
five white men at Memorial Day party in Santy. Like
and that doesn't represent the whole town, but was how

(01:10:01):
people thought of that town. And in the early two thousands, right,
the place it was always a place to avoid it, like,
you don't really want to go there. I don't know. Yeah,
I have friends who still don't want to go to
Santi like um. I have friends who are like delivery
drivers who are like black people who have been told
like they used to not saying black folks deliver into
Santi like. It definitely has whether or not that's the

(01:10:24):
case now it's becoming more more diverse, I think, like ethnically,
but it certainly has a reputation of being a place
where it's not safe. And this is a place that
elects him as mayor in two thousand right too, thousand one,
they have a high school shooting, and he just kind
of continues to spout some absolutely crazy stuff. It's probably

(01:10:47):
worth noting that he's not as like, far from the
like the norm of the GOP, which is still a
long way from like good when it comes to like
l g BTQ stuff, as he is for other things
like his His probably his most famous crazy position is
that climate change is good because most of our enemies

(01:11:09):
live in I'm quoting now, most of our enemies live
in hot climates, desert climates. It will probably have a
negative effect on their environment. Most of the Muslim nations
are in hot areas of the world. Honestly, Yeah, just
absolutely incredible. Did we did we find the world's first
pro eco fascist? Yea fascist. I have met a few

(01:11:35):
anti there's people who are pro climate change because it will.
But this is this is like a whole other level. Well,
there's dry us out weird. Do you want to know
why he thinks this climate change happens? Good God. I
believe about one percent of climate change is impacted by
human beings. The rest of that should not rest in rest, buddy.

(01:12:00):
It's solar cycles, quote, the natural wobbling of the earth
and volcanic activities. Ah, this is this is the classic. Yeah, yeah,
there's there's a couple of good ones. I I personally
partial to. We didn't have enough CEO two and climate
change is the only thing that's going to save us
from the CEO to shortage that. Yeah. Notable Other vocal

(01:12:26):
bangers include I'm getting attacked out here by the Vietcong
stealing my copper, and I don't like it that. It
would be super funny if it turned out that the
Vietcong had sent like a deep cover special spec opsy
in it to California just to funk with this guy's copper,

(01:12:47):
to pull copper just uh good, Um, it's just it's
just a yeah, just a powerful example of happened? Did
you lick lead paint? Like? Just an incredible boomer. So
he was voted out in by a considerable match I

(01:13:08):
think got about thank god, sorry this this so he's
serving out. He just got voted out. Yeah, twenty years.
How many he moved in? I think sixteen he moved
into the California Assembly, so representing like this this yeah, yeah,

(01:13:33):
statewide office. This is there on the left coast California.
It is It means one thing to people who have
never been to the West coast, but have you been
to the west coast? The conservative parts of California like
the Republican Party. They're massive, and the Republican Party has
absolutely locked in control. It is very difficult to remove

(01:13:55):
to move them in places like there's there's more Republican
voters in California the most states most Yes. Yeah, if
you wanted a slice of of like eastern California, just
check out a Riverside County shore with jad Bianco's Instagram,
where he mostly just rides around on a horse and
criticizes COVID restrictions. But yeah, this is. Yeah, it's really

(01:14:18):
something incredible poster. But this is I think an insight
into like this side of California that people. It doesn't
mean that everyone who lives in this county, of course
is bigoted or racist, and there are lots of very
nice kind people in his county. I know there are
some anarchist communites out there, but um yeah, this vocal
claims he hasn't spoken to his grandson for years. But

(01:14:40):
this guy has been spouting this ship for twenty years,
right like he became mayor of Santi in two thousand.
That was when this shooter, old Rich was born. So
like for his entire life, Vocal has been saying stuff
like the conga stealing my copper. I mean it is
it is true that this this person did grow up
surroun ounded by a constant bubble of of homophobic rhetoric,

(01:15:06):
dehumanizing rhetoric, and that that does shape the person that
you are. Obviously that doesn't it doesn't mean you're going
to go do the best shooting. There's lots of people
who grow up in those environments who turn out to
be very wonderful people. Um but but but yeah, that
is definitely like the environment that you are raised in
and around obviously doesn't obviously affects who you're gonna be.

(01:15:28):
And yeah this the shooters posting like burning a Pride
flag on on his very limited social media presence, right,
and every time his granted had the chance, he's voted
against rights. Yeah, he was raised in an environment where
hatred of LGBTQ people was not just like present, but

(01:15:49):
was used as the justification regularly for like legislative action.
And he was also raised in an environment where all
of them in around him would have praised violence in
different ways, And the fact that he wound up doing
violence against the queer community is not like surprising. Yeah. Yeah,
wasn't his dad also like an m M A fighter, Yes,

(01:16:10):
UFC UFC whatever some yes, some sort of combat sport.
He's also in a bunch of playing movies, a lot
of poor movies, because I think a lot of things
were normalized that we're just like, maybe not for other people. Yeah,
that is a man who has no barrier between the
two sides of his nose due to a lifetime of
snorting every single uh chemical he can possibly get his

(01:16:31):
hands on. Um, not that there's anything wrong with that. Yeah,
his dad doesn't seem to be like entirely lucid into you.
Um well, And the other aspect of this is that
the shooter in Colorado was like a known figure as well.
He wasn't He wasn't a nobody like people had. He

(01:16:53):
did like a bomb threat last year, there was off
with the police where he was in armor threatening to
go out shooting. Yeah, that's I was really I'm really
hoping the conversation shifts more towards him as a person,
because I can only blame the family so much, you know.
I He's done some terrible things, and I think that's

(01:17:14):
getting glossed over by the fact that he has people
in his family that are questionable. And I think the
number one thing we should be pointing out, because I
also don't believe we should be focusing entirely on his
specific actions. We should be focusing on the fact that
it would have been incredibly easy to stop this guy.
He was the most obvious candidate for a mass shooting imaginable,

(01:17:35):
um and nothing was done to stop this. Like that's that.
The answer is that like whiteness is very helpful when
it comes to hate. But yeah, and with crime and
all of the time I've been following mass shooters, I
can't think of one that more directly talked about wanting
to do a mass shooting in a way that was

(01:17:55):
immediately obvious to all of the law enforcement in his
area and had already forced to response from them. There
was absolutely And again for talking about his gun control
always comes up in this. Colorado has red flag laws,
like Colorado has the restrictions people say should be but
the problem is that none of them were actually used
against him, um anyway, And I think comes back to

(01:18:18):
like again, the problem, like one of the largest problems
again with gun regulation is that you you're relying on
the police to enforce and the cops believe of the
same ship that this guy does. So you know, yeah,
they again letting these people come to pride like this,
this is gonna great, go great for you. They just

(01:18:39):
assumed he was an excitable boy and it was gonna
be you know, he just needed to get it out
of the system. That time he had a standoff with
the police over a bomb threat where he talked to
his mom about wanting to go out as a mass shooter.
Like most yeah, yeah, should we should we take a break? Yeah,

(01:18:59):
we should do you know what else? Nope, any, nope,
it's just to break. Yeah, do some insulin. We're back.
I hope everyone took insulin um everybody. It'll I don't
know what it'll do. Look very hungry to sleepy and

(01:19:20):
hungry pilled look James. As a podcaster, it's my job
to tell people to take medicine, not to have any
responsibility for what happens when they do. Well, I'm just
gonna go fly up to Canada and get some free
insulin and then come back smuggle it down that actually yeah, yeah,
maybe consider just have them fill up your car. What

(01:19:41):
are we talking about next? So I want to I
want to talk a bit about the reaction to this
on the right, because this is something okay, so like
the far right's reaction to mass shootings has never been good,
Like it's usually been like, oh, this is this is
still unfortunate that it had mental illness. This is like

(01:20:03):
the pills something like they are just pretty Here's the thing.
When I originally did this, right, I had a Timpool
tweet that I had pulled, and then he made like
every successive time we're about to record this episode, he
had he makes another even worst so here here is
here is the most recently. First, I do want to
we have to. One of the things I want to

(01:20:23):
try to keep in mind is we are more online
than a decent chunk of our audience. Tim Pool is
a guy who attained prominence uh live streaming during the
Occupy Wall Street rallies. He kind of framed himself as
a broadly progressive kind of liberal uh journalists. But he's
like a skateboarder and he's doing ship. You know, he's
live streaming a lot. He's doing, you know, experimenting with

(01:20:45):
all these like novel ways of covering the news at
the time, you know, we're talking like two thousand twelve. Um. Obviously,
people since then have pointed out that, like he was
kind of a giant dick. It occupied and I know
people who were there who fucking hated him, Like, um,
he he had a big platform. As a result of that,
he got hired by Vice for a little while. Um.

(01:21:09):
Most serious journalists who have worked with him will point
out that, like he's a giant asshole and like kind
of not good at anything, and it's not very smart,
doesn't really know what's going on, or deliberately obtuse I've
heard people like anyway, Uh, he gained prominence as he
kind of increasingly through the Trump years would lean in
on hard right stuff while still claiming to be liberal

(01:21:32):
and progressive, and just that he was increasingly lost by
the progressives who have gotten anyway, he's just gone. So
that he's he has a huge audience. He does a
lot of like live streaming. So the primary way that
like when I say that he used to do live
streaming where he would show up at a thing. He's rich.
Now he doesn't leave his his house in Maryland. He

(01:21:53):
sits there and he like plays clips from the news
and other people and then talks about them really usually
wrong for commentary on it and has millions and millions
of followers, and it's constantly and continues to platform people
who are self described fascists, uh, far right people. Um,

(01:22:15):
he's kind of he's like a he's like a vector
point in that whole. He's very large, he's fairly influential
within the social media algorithm of particularly Twitter. Um, he's
able like his his he's able to get ship trending
a lot on Twitter. So he's not someone you can
entirely ignore. He hasn't he has an impact on like

(01:22:37):
national discourse, and he's a lot of people on the
right see him as a valuable person. He's had Alex
Jones on he's hanging out with Kanye and Nick Fuintes now,
which is what we're about to talk about. But the
thing since, uh, since the Colorado Spring shooting, he's gone
kind of completely mask off about the groomery thing, and
most of his comments have been along the lines of like, well,
these people were hosting a groomer event and so violence

(01:22:59):
was inevitable. Yeah, and I mean like like what like
that's something I mean, I'm just gonna read one those
tweets to give like that that's that's not an exaggeration
or any kind of reading of subtext. Literally what he
said was quote it seems around ten pm, Club Que
posted that they were having an all ages drag show
the next day. About two hours later, the shooter came in.
People keep calling for wood chippers, and this is what happens,

(01:23:19):
like open like and this has been this a been
a thing across the entire right, Like they're just there's
openly either like very very openly celebrating this or you
get you know, like this is one of like one
of the things that because the gays are so degenerated,
like Jimmy fucking Door has gone like just completely like
like I literally started with like it started this thing

(01:23:40):
on this with a giant rant about how like how
like disgusting it is that like drag queens around kids.
It's like they they are just openly into full scale
just openly into the like we need to get these
people killed. In some ways the most horrifying instant like
this because this is the first time that the reaction

(01:24:03):
widely on the right has been either this was a
good thing, or this was this this obviously was going
to happen because gay people are evil and are grooming children,
so violence has to happen against them, and like that
is that was That's such a popular sentiment on the
right in the aftermath of the shooting, whether it's whether

(01:24:24):
it's implied and whispered or whether it's just said completely outright,
like it was a very clear consensus that this is
what the Republican reaction was going to be, and anyone
farther right of the Republicans like it. It wasn't it
wasn't even just like a Nazi talking point it was
just like regular Republicans in office, we're talking about this
this style of rhetoric in response to the shooting. And

(01:24:48):
for that reason, it's kind of the most horrifying instant
we've had, um because you know, like in the aftermath
of like the Pulse shooting, we did not have rhetoric
like this mainstreamed in way that it is happening for
the club Que shooting. It was a very very different
response to the to the Pulse shooting. Also probably because
the shooter there wasn't white, um, so they had yeah,

(01:25:15):
they'd be like, no, the problem here was immigration, right,
and no for this, like he's like, he is obviously
a white dude. Um, his lawyers are pulling bullshit to
get his hate crime charges pulled, but like it's obviously
it's it's obviously this white guy. And the rights responses, Yeah,
he was probably justified in doing what he did. And

(01:25:35):
I feel like they're setting him up to be the
next Kyle Rittenhouse where like he's just gonna become like
this kid celebrity that I don't know if we're there yet. Yeah,
partly because he got the ship kicked out of him. Um,
but I finished, no, not by police by a translator,
and yeah, I think you've made a good point. Like

(01:25:57):
what they did get away with some ship with Written
House that like I think they would not have pulled
even five years before that, Like I think you wouldn't
have found in people being like, yeah, he shot people
in the street and this is good fuck them And
it is like the slippery slipt fallacy isn't always a fallacy,
but like you know, once you start there, I don't

(01:26:18):
think it's a massive leap to being like, yeah, this
kid shot queer people in the nightclub and that's what
they had coming, even if they don't make him a hero,
Like I do think that that like the Overton window
moved with Written House and it's moving again with this
little fucker. Yeah, I think he's slightly too toxic to
to go through that same celebrity status that Written Houses. Um.

(01:26:40):
He also I can't speak. I think he's been like
in his court appearances, he's like not capable. I think
he's saying got eaten very badly to ship, which is
the thing that you get the thing that scares me
as like a potential Written House event, but kind of
in the in the antique weird mesh shooter vibe is

(01:27:00):
like you have some father or something who's separated from
the kid and their other parent takes them to a
drag queen event and dad shows up and start shooting,
and like that's a thing that's a lot of easier
to get the right to pile on. Yeah, that's that's
the instance where that person now becomes a cultural figure
in this way. That's more similar to what has happened

(01:27:23):
with Rittenhouse. Um, and that just is like the hell scenario.
And I think the other important thing is like they're
deliberately trying to incite this, Like this is this is
deliberate and like and there's an interesting thing like Nick
Flints had this interviewing. I mean this is partially just
this is just who fucking Nick flintys is. We had
this thing after the election where he was like, uh, well,
I'm like we we can we we we we like
we we can't we can't take power by like like

(01:27:45):
we we we can't actually get our agenda by voting.
We have to do it by like theocratic fascism, right,
and and I you know, okay, so obviously this is
Nick Flints, but I think this is part of what's
happening right now, which is that the reason that they're
doing this, right, the reason that right now, the thing
that they're trying to do was inside a jettocide is
because they're fucking losing everything. They know it, right. Every

(01:28:06):
single day, church attendance drops. It's been dropping for twenty years.
It's never coming back, like nine eleven didn't do it,
like Trump didn't do it. Nothing, Nothing is ever going
to bring people back to these churches, like unless maybe
they solve their sexual assault problem, but that's not like
they structurally can't do that, right, So, you know, every
single day religiosity drops in this country, every single like
every single day, very slowly, and we have been doing

(01:28:28):
this roughly for about fifteen years. Now we are winning,
and this is what they're fucking terrified of, right, They
have to move right now, like exactly in this moment
is the is the moment they could exterminate us. If
they wait any longer, they're fucked because they're you know,
the base for this kind of sort of like like
this specific kind of of Christian fascism isn't going to
be there, like there will be other fascisms, but you know,

(01:28:51):
every every every single day that they fucking wait, like
another person leaves the church, and so you know, like
right now, and you know, and they can't do it
all totally right. We just saw that they got fucking
destroyed trying to lean into the ship. Because and then
this is the ever thing, right, like the everything that's
been happening since the two thousands. And this is the
thing that's very different about this moment than any other
moment that has happened in US history is that the vast,

(01:29:14):
vast majority of people are are are pre pro crew wides,
are prology bt Q or pro game marriage game marriage
polls consistently in about right. And even with the ship
that that hasn't moved in needle on it, right, they
know that they have to right now, right, they have
to fu kill us. All they have left is this
solely have left. They they have they have no work
action basically like it's like and they see no other

(01:29:37):
viable way to mainstream this. And that's why we have
hours after the shooting, lives of TikTok posting about queer
events in Colorado, because they're they're trying to get this
thing to happen. They're trying to do more trying to
press the attack. Yeah. But but but but I think,
I think, I think this is this is like the
only thing, like this is a sign of their weakness, right,

(01:29:58):
And and they're like, again, the the number, the physical
number of people who are pushing this ship is not
that large, right and and you know again like this
is this is you know, I've I've I've talked a
lot about how the silent majority in this country doesn't
agree with this ship and like they're literally are not
that fucking many of them. We can stop them, like
this is an actual thing, Like you know, like there

(01:30:20):
there there there's a limit to which we can even
sort of talk about this. But like, okay, we've been
doing community self defense like as as sort of like
the big principle of the left sense of Trump era.
We have reached a point where like, you know, we
can defend ourselves, but if well, if we're limited to
just defending ourselves, they're going to kill a bunch of
us first. And that means that we like we actually

(01:30:42):
have to start taking the fight to these media platforms
where we have to start taking the fight specifically trying
to get these people sucking off air and then you know,
failing that, like fucking showing up and like blowing a
fucking air horn in try a right checks like ear
every single time she leaves her house. Right, because all
of all of these people sucking, their entire lives depend
on our labor. Right, Every single fucking uber they take,

(01:31:02):
every single meal they eat, is all prepared by us.
And you know we can fucking find them, and we
can we can make their lives fucking hell if this
is what they're going to do to us. Garrison, do
you want to do? You want to talk about Focus
on the Family? It talks and Colorado. Oh yeah, there
was speaking of the kind of direct action Chris was
talking about showing up where these people are and making

(01:31:22):
it very clear that they don't get to pretend anymore
to not be complicit in in murder. Um that that's
a story. Yeah. Some some people did did show up
at the Colorado Springs Focus on the Family headquarters. Um
did a did a graffiti left some left some messages

(01:31:43):
out front and posted a community ca of sorts. I
think they called them debotic, which is pretty funny remembering
the message written. The thing right, that is a weird place.
It talked about how Satan this can the sky is
himself as an angel light. That's that's talking about the

(01:32:03):
types of like self righteousness that these Christian fascist groups
put on and in but in effect they're all kind
of murderous snakes. Um. That was people trying trying to
use the Bible against these guys, which is funny in
an ironic way. And I don't think they actually care

(01:32:24):
because they don't atually care. I don't think they actually
care what the Bible sets. They don't don't give a
about what the Bible says, they give a shit about. Yeah,
but that's showing. But showing up and and and doing
doing a little thing outside outside their headquarters is definitely
a good first step. When when me and James went there, um,
you know, like in terms of this is just an

(01:32:45):
interesting an interesting comment, like police did not help at
the club queue shooting at all, and they came back
towards and they held and they you know, as as
they usually do, they'll they'll they arrest the person who
who who helped who help stop the match shooting. Um.
When me and James went to the Focus on the
Family headquarters last summer, Um, there was a Colorado police

(01:33:09):
officer inside the building the entire time, um constantly. They're
mostly watching me because I was the obvious, obvious outcast
inside there. But that police are stationed at Focus in
the family all the time to make sure nothing bad
happens there. But they're not going to do ship to
help queer people getting murdered. But they're gonna stay. They're

(01:33:31):
gonna have a police car outside of the Focus in
the family building and have have an officer inside all
the time because that's what the police actually do. Yeah,
I mean, it's it's like it is increasingly obvious if
you have been paying any attention in the last decade.
The only consequences that exists in this world as us,
and you know it is in our hands to decide

(01:33:54):
what the consequences for these people fucking attempting to inside
a genocide are all that's gonna do it for us here.
It could happen here until next time. Uh, I don't
know until next time. Hello everybody, and welcome back to

(01:34:26):
It could happen here a podcast about things falling apart
and occasionally about how to put them back together again.
And today we have a special episode we're gonna be
talking about a place where things did in fact fall
apart and people are you could say, still in the
process of putting them back together again and trying to
do it in a way that is much more equitable

(01:34:46):
and better than things have been before the collapse. That
is Rojaba in Northeast Syria. UM. I'm going to introduce
kind of that concept in I'll do it right now
basically if you if you don't anything about this, you
might check out our podcast The Women's War UM. But
it is a it is an autonomous region, not a
state in northeast Syria that is not under the control

(01:35:09):
of the Assad regime UM or of any other state
in the area. It's an independent UM community that is
based on some pretty radical it's you know, it's organization
is based on some pretty radical political philosophies UM, in
large part ones that were sort of initially explored by
a man named Murray Buchin, who is an American social

(01:35:30):
theorist and anarchists anarchist political philosopher UM and some of
his ideas were adopted by the leader of a militant
group in the region called the p k k UM.
And the leader of that group was a guy in
a Turkish prison named of Doula, a Gelan who was
you might say, a Kurdish freedom fighter. Um Augelon encountered
bookstions ideas and started writing his own books of political

(01:35:52):
theory that we're kind of based off of them. And
then when uh two thousand thirteen, you get the Syrian
Civil War reaches its kind of high, Isis becomes the thing.
Suddenly the government's not in this area that has a
large Kurtish population, Northeast Syria, and you know, people who
are followers of Augelon takeover and start as they're fighting.

(01:36:13):
Isis instituting this kind of radical feminist, egalitarian vision of
society which is currently under attacked by the Turkish government,
which is what we're gonna be talking about. So I
want to introduce our guests for today. First off, we
have James Stout and we have Chris on the call
from our normal Cool Zone team. And then our guests
today are Debbie book Chin. Debbie is a journalist and
author and co editor of The Next Revolution, Popular Assemblies

(01:36:36):
and the Promise of the Direct Democracy UM. And then
we also have Megan Bodette from the Kurdish Peace Institute,
where she is the director of Research. UM, welcome to
the show, Megan and Debbie. Thank you, it's great to
be here. Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Yeah,
thank you both for your time. I think maybe to

(01:36:58):
start us out, Megan, UM, would you be willing to
talk a little bit about why the Turkish government is
so aggressive towards this independent region in Northeast Aria and
kind of what the situation on the ground is now. Yeah,
absolutely so. For some background, essentially, since the division of

(01:37:19):
the Middle East into the modern nation states that exist
there today after World War One, with the agreements by
European powers, the Kurdish people have been divided between four
different states Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and all of
those states have had governments that have been ethno nationalists,

(01:37:42):
that have been repressive, that have not provided Kurds and
other ethnic and religious minorities equal citizenship rights UM, to
participate in politics and to practice their culture, to speak
their language um, in addition to denying many of these
rights to many of their other citizens of different ethnicity
and religions as well. And so as a result of

(01:38:03):
this repression and the repression in Turkey was some of
the strongest and most systemic UM. The Kurdish people in
these regions have continued to struggle for and demand self
determination and freedom in different political forms. What happened in
Turkey in the nineteen twenties and the nineteen thirties, there
were Kurdish revolts against the new um Turkish Republic, which

(01:38:27):
was a very autocratic nation state that denied the existence
of all non Turkish ethnicities. And these revolts were all
violently put down with attacks that not only targeted those
who tried to resist these policies of assimilation, but that
also resulted in um Turkish you know, mass violence against

(01:38:50):
Kurdish civilians in these regions. You had forced deportations, you
had ethnic cleansing, you had all kinds of brutal violence
against civilians in order to specifically create this homogeneous Turkish
ethnic identity in Kurdish regions. And so after this period
of time there were um there was a period wherein

(01:39:12):
there was less resistance, and I think, you know, the
Turkish government believed that the Kurdish problem had been solved
by force, they had successfully been able to kill or
assimilate all of the Kurdish people. But in the nineteen
seventies and the nineteen eighties, sort of concurrent with many
national liberation movements around the world, you had the beginning

(01:39:35):
of the PKK or the Kurdistan Workers Parties national liberation struggle.
Now they began as a socialist movement seeking an independent
and socialist Kurdish state, and they saw Kurdistan as a
colony that was occupied by Turkey, and with the colonialism
of Turkey in Kurdistan was supported by imperialist powers in

(01:39:56):
the rest of the world as well, and they sought
to write that as other national liberation movements in Africa, Asia,
Latin America many places at the time did with an
armed struggle for independence. And in responding to the PKK's
formation and armed struggle, the Turkish state once again, rather

(01:40:16):
than acceding to any Kurdish demands, they responded with brutal,
violent oppression of not only Kurds who were active in
the armed struggle, not only politically active Kurds, but on
all forms of Kurdish identity. After the military coup in
Turkey and nineteen eighty the Kurdish language was banned. Um

(01:40:38):
Kurds were imprisoned on false charges or no charges at all. UM,
torture was prevalent, show trials were prevalent. UM any kind
of publication or other public interaction in Kurdish was completely illegal.
So there was this full scale effort to repress the
Kurds and any other progressive segments of society in Turkey

(01:40:59):
that would have supported them, and as the conflict went on,
Turkey did very little to change. By the nineteen nineties,
the success of the Kurdish movement had forced the state
to recalibrate, as had developments in Iraqi, Kurdistan with Kords,
they're achieving autonomy and so you started to have the
ability of Kurdish political actors to work within the system.

(01:41:23):
We saw the development of pro Kurdish legal political parties
at that time, but there was still very severe repression
of any and all things Kurdish as they made their demands,
even of those who increasingly attempted to make demands peacefully.
So the conflict went on throughout the nineteen nineties and

(01:41:43):
the two thousands and to this day UM despite a
peace process between the Government of Turkey and the PKK
and the Kurdish Movement between twelve and twenty fifteen UM,
that process failed when Ridwan's government saw that it was
allowing for Kurds to take advantage of expanded democratic space

(01:42:07):
in Turkey organized and achieve electoral political success. The government
abandoned its commitments and sadly returned to war, and the
conflict has been going on ever since and has included,
you know, again, not only this military component, but this
component of crushing all forms of organized Kurdish political and

(01:42:28):
cultural expression. So what we've been seeing in Turkey over
the past um, nearly a decade, now more than a
half decade, is the repression of the pro Kurdish political
opposition in parliament, the People's Democratic Party or the HDP. UM,
we've seen repression of Kurdish media, attacks on Kurdish journalists, UM,
we've seen any kind of Kurdish activism, not only um

(01:42:53):
that that's explicitly political, but any kind of acknowledgment of
the Kurdish language, of Kurdish colors, of Kurtish clothing very
readily criminalized. And this campaign of attacking and repressing all
things Kurdish has of course expanded beyond Turkey's borders. So
Turkey opposes North aneas Syria because the Syrian Kurds have

(01:43:14):
created a form of autonomous governance that protects and promotes
Kurdish rights because they have done so in the framework
of the Kurdish Freedom movement that has its roots in
Turkey UM and in Ochelan's ideas, as you explained, and
because they've been able to create a successful alternative to
the very sort of nationalist project that the modern Turkish

(01:43:37):
state is based on. You know, I would say that
the Turkish Kurdish conflict, and I don't like to call
it that, but that is what most people call it
today is really a conflict now over to competing visions
of regional order with Turkeys based on the right ring
wing neo liberal nation state and the Kurdish movement's vision

(01:43:58):
of a Middle East based on self determination, liberation, equality
for women, and other values not only for birds but
for all people. So because Northern East Syria represents UM
both Kurdish success and in creating an autonomous region, and
it represents these ideas of the Kurdish Freedom movement that

(01:44:18):
challenge Turkey's nationalist project UM. Turkey has been trying to
destroy the Autonomous Administration of Northern East Syria by all
possible means for a very long time now. They've invaded
Syrian territory twice to attack the Autonomous Administration and the SDF,
the Syrian Democratic Forces, once in a frena in two

(01:44:39):
thousand and eighteen a frina Is in northwestern Syria, and
then once in two thousand nineteen after UM, you know
Trump and air Tawan's phone call that we all infamously
remember in Sarah Kanyer and tal Abiad in northeastern Syria.
So you've had these two invasions and occupations of UM
North and East Syria territory that have included not only

(01:45:02):
the terrible violence of invasion and occupation, but also all
kinds of crimes against civilians who remained. We've seen uptakes
in violence and abuse of women, ethnically motivated, religiously motivated
hatred and persecution that's driven virtually all of the non
Arab and non Muslim people living in these regions to

(01:45:22):
flee their homes. Attacks on anyone who is perceived as
having collaborated with the prior administration all being carried out
by Turkey and Turkish back Syrian militia groups. So we've
seen the persecution of the civilians in these areas with
the intent of changing demographics and installing not only a
government sympathetic to Turkey and the military structure sympathetic to Turkey,

(01:45:46):
but also removing the social base for the Autonomous Administration's project.
And then, in addition to these all out attacks on
the Autonomous Administration in these regions, Turkey continues to threaten
the territory that North Aneast Syria does have left, which
is still nearly one third of Syrian territory concentrated in
the northeast. There's been an escalating campaign of drone strikes

(01:46:08):
targeting leaders in the Autonomous Administration and the STF, as
well as Syrian civilians. Turkey is cutting water access to
northern East Syria by restricting the flow of the Euphrates River.
This is an agricultural region. People depend on that water
for all aspects of life um and certainly for the economy.

(01:46:28):
That's caused a great deal of suffering. The entire Turkish
Syrian border is very heavily militarized. When you drive by
it and you see the wall and you know, very
lit up at night with the barbed wire and everything,
and you just look at, you know, these civilian towns,
very peaceful on both sides. It's something very disturbing to
see UM. But it's a highly militarized border and it

(01:46:51):
is completely sealed border. UM. Turkey does not trade with
northern East Syria and supports an international economic blockade on
the reed En, including by pressuring its allies to restrict
the access of goods to North and East Syria. So
there's economics they're going on there. There are really every

(01:47:11):
tactic that Turkey is able to use, whether military, economic, environmental, political,
or anything else in order to crush and destroy on
with any serious political project and force the Kurdish people
and the other peoples of that region to flee so
that there is no base for such a project again
in the future. Uh. They're doing everything they can to

(01:47:33):
achieve that outcome. So the situation is very difficult and
it is a direct result of Turkeys, you know, century
old Kurdish question that it has been unable and unwilling
to honestly and in good faith a peaceful solution to UM.
And we'll get to it later, but the international community

(01:47:56):
has played a very big role in ensuring that that
conflict goes on with all of those at its consequences
for Northeast Aria. Yeah, I mean, and that's one of
the so obviously Turkey is the second largest military in
NATO UM and has you know, one of the things
that is such like so messy about this is that

(01:48:18):
on paper and on the ground, in fact, the United
States has been supporting the Autonomous Region um IN in
northeast Syria and particularly the White PG in the White PJ,
which is you know, the militia essentially um AS as
partners in the fight against ISIS. And still to this day,
right now, there's an operation going on in the Al
Whole Camp, which is where a lot of ISIS prisoners

(01:48:40):
are held. UM that is like a coalition supported operation.
At the same time that the United States is doing this,
we're selling weapons to the people who are have essentially
declared the folks that are military has been aiding a
terrorist organization UM, which is a peculiar in frustrating situation
to say the least. Yeah. And and actually the other

(01:49:03):
thing that's happening, Robert is that you know, Turkey, while
it's threatening a full scale invasion, they've been doing all
of these things that Megan described sort of on this
sort of low intensity warfare scale. A kind of military
strategy that uses a whole variety of tactics um that

(01:49:25):
are short of you know, a full scale invasion, which
still may come. And so you know, there's these extra
judicial killings of uh, some of the leaders of the SDF,
which is the Syrian Democratic Forces which is the sort
of umbrella group of the two militia Kurdish militias that
you described, and which also includes many Arab fighters and

(01:49:48):
others who have who have been central and defeating ISIS
at the cost I might add of about thirteen thousand lives,
you know, and um, you know, and the and the
use of their pro see groups like the Syrian so
called you know s N, a Syrian National Army, which
is really you know, a group of jihadi militias that

(01:50:10):
Turkey has kind of assembled and now completely is responsive
to Turkey and and is the sort of shock troops
for when they went did go into Afron and for
these other invasions, um, you know, economic pressures as Megan described.
But the point is that this kind of warfare, it
produces these sort of ongoing low level attacks, but it

(01:50:34):
keeps it sort of off the radar of the of
the bigger political and media machine, and therefore it keeps
it from getting the attention that it really deserves in
Western societies. It also has the impact of displacing hundreds
of thousands of people and and uh, you know, and

(01:50:54):
and many hundreds have also been killed. I'm sure probably
you're familiar with some of the recent bombings by drone
that have been occurring in Rojeva, which you know, including
many civilians, school children. Turkey. Turkey is doesn't care at
all about about who gets hit, and they have been

(01:51:16):
very aggressive, um, without any respect for civilian casualties as well.
So you know, So, I mean, I think it's it's
important to also just note that this democratic project is
in Syria is a deep threat to Turkey because and
and that every time Airdoan steps up these military sort

(01:51:37):
of disaggression, um, it leads him to Brice slightly in
the polls, which is something that's important to him because
he has an election coming up next year. So there's
that sort of political dimension to it. But the fact
is that that Rojeva is basically a women's revolution. Women
are involved in every aspect of running society there, the political,

(01:52:01):
the social, the economic, and Turkey is essentially a femicidal state.
You know it not only reviews women within within Turkey
is less than human where husbands can basically get away
with murdering their wives. But you know it targets girls
with drones, as it did on August eighteenth when a
Turkish drone bombed to you and supported education center for

(01:52:23):
young girls and in Herseka and Roosjeva. So you know,
it's it's very much, as Megan said, a war of
ideologies as well. Again, one of the things that's so
frustrating with this so historically, the reason why Turkey was
it was so important for NATO to get Turkey as
a member is because that's essentially NATO's eastern flank. If

(01:52:45):
you're still thinking about that big theoretical conflict between you know,
Russia and UH and the Western democracies. That was why,
you know, part of why why initially like Turkey was
such a valued partner, and then as time has gone on,
it's um primary early I'm one of the big things
is we have a massive air base in Turkey, in
sirlick Um where a number of US nuclear warheads are kept. Um,

(01:53:08):
so there's a tremendous fear cowardice might be a better
way to say it, on behalf of politicians in the
United States and other Western countries to actually engage with
the ethnic cleansings UM and with the human rights abuses
that the Turkish government, particularly under Air to one has
has continued. And one of the things that's really frustrating

(01:53:28):
about this, you know, if you think about the way
in which ISIS was discussed by US media, was discussed
by conservatives by Donald Trump during his campaign, you know,
it was this ultimate boogeyman. Well, a huge chunk of
the support for for ISIS and in fact, even logistics
for some of their fighters came allegedly courtesy of the

(01:53:49):
Turkish state. And there's some evidence for this. There's certainly
evidence of support for wounded fighters and kind of a
a lax policy that allowed a lot of people to
come through Turkey and get into Northeast Syria to fight UM.
And you know, as you noted earlier thirteen thousand, somewhere
around there fighters men and women UM in the YPG

(01:54:11):
and J died fighting ISIS in you know, UM, and
we're you know, not just fighting ISIS kind of with
the backing of the United States, but prior to getting
any support. One of the most important things they did.
The while ISIS was on the move in Iraq as
well as Syria, they were carrying out an active ethnic cleansing,
a genocidal operation in Mount Sinjar against the z ds

(01:54:34):
UM and that was only really stopped because while they
were fighting a defensive war in northeast Syria, the YPG
sent fighters into Iraq to stop the genocide UM and
they were successful in this. You know you talked to IS.
I have a lot of y ZD survivors of the genocide,
and I'll say the only reason we got out is
because of you know, the YPG, UM and the PKK

(01:54:58):
and the well and that is the it is. It is,
so we should we could talk a little bit about
the p k K. They are the the y PG
and J and the SDF, which is kind of the
umbrella organization, are not recognized as terrorist organizations by the
United States or by most Western democracies. The p k
K is recognized as a terrorist organization Turkeys. Allegations would

(01:55:20):
be that the y PG and J and and other
you know militias are just p KK affiliates UM. The
reality is that they are in quite a fact, quite
closely tied um Uh and you will, you know, but
also there it's not the exact like when you're in
Rajaba and you encounter people who are p KK, people
will speak about them differently than they will talk about

(01:55:42):
other people who are kind of you know, that they're
the folks from the mountains is the term that I
here use the most. But the thing is, see, here's
the problem. The problem is that that whatever the p
k K is, history is and has been and where
more than we can get into, the p k K

(01:56:03):
made a dramatic shift in its ideology and has done
everything possible to try to restart peace negotiations with Turkey.
So first of all, you know, there are several as
Megan mentioned before, there was a peace initiative that went
on for a few years that then everyone decided wasn't

(01:56:23):
um you know, beneficial to him, so he stopped it.
But the p KK, and as recently as I think
a year or two ago, the leader of the p
KK in the Mountains, right Najamil Bayek, wrote an op
ed for the Washington Post saying, we want to have talks,
we want to have reconciliation with Turkey. We're not asking
for a separate Cornish state. All we want is some

(01:56:46):
degree of autonomy. And and uh, you know, and and
it's actually to the enduring shame of the Western media,
including the New York Times, that they continue to talk
about them as a separatist organization. But that's an other
story as well. The fact is that these um ideologies

(01:57:07):
that they both subscribe to p k K and the
YPG YPG, regardless of whether to what extent they may
be related, the political ideology is an ideology about direct democracy.
It's about empowering people at the local level. It's about
making sure that every adult and also the youth have

(01:57:28):
a say in their communities. And it's as grassroots democratic
as anything that you could ever imagine. And so really,
you would think that the United States, you know, would
understand that there's certainly no threat that the neither the
YPG nor the YPGJ has ever shown any aggression towards Turkey,

(01:57:50):
which is what makes this idea of a buff the
idea that they need a buffers own kind of a joke,
you know. So really it's it's an ideological shift that's
so profound and so empowering to local people that it's
also something that frankly, those of us who are on
the left should be much more supportive of, I think,
than than people have been so far. Yeah, I mean

(01:58:14):
the thing that is most remarkable because I spent a lot,
I spent more time, certainly in Iraq than in Syria.
And we should note here that we're talking about Syria
today and we're talking about Rojava. Turkish aggression against particularly UM,
against the p k K, but against you know, Kurd's
kind of in an ethnic sense, UM extends beyond Syria.

(01:58:35):
Turkey has illegally attacked Iraq and in fact moved troops
into Iraqi soil a number of times, escalating within the
last year, and killed a substantial number of people in
the in the Kurdish regional government territories. UM. So that
is also occurring here. Although it's it's worth noting again
because people mix this up a lot, what's happening in

(01:58:56):
Kurdish control Iraq is profoundly different from what's happening in
Rojava and the extremely different political organization. Yeah, I think
it's also worth mentioning that it's not just UM. Curtish
groups have been attacking in a rock There's been a
bunch of attacks like after these Yeah, it's killed a
bunch of those people too. It is the yeah, they're

(01:59:18):
they're doing the genocide again. Yeah, I think. Yeah, it's UM,
it's interesting, you know, I uh, it's also kind of worth.
The thing that was perhaps most surprising to me there
was the degree to which people I would meet who
were just like in many cases just like kind of
you know, terrorism police assays guys, or people who are

(01:59:39):
like working traffic checkpoints, are working in the farms. There
were people were really careful to not refer or talk
to like what the project was as a state. And
it's it's not on a state a state, it's an
autonomous region. That's one of the terms I heard the
most is the autonomous regions, which is is really interesting
to me. And it's it's hard. It's something certainly like
mainstream media writing about it. UM seems to have trouble grasping,

(02:00:02):
as you say, And it's it's interesting because obviously, Debbie
and case folks haven't put it together. You are the
daughter of Marie book Chin, who is the UM, who
is the political philosopher whose ideas formed a significant like
core of of sort of what the organizational structure in
Roja is UM. Well, I just want to say, first

(02:00:23):
of all, thank you for that. I also just want
to say that I really want to remind everybody that,
of course, you know, Abdullah Chellan read hundreds and hundreds
of books, not just my dad's, so I mean, I
appreciate that, but you know they have he has really
especially placed emphasis on the need for any revolutionary project

(02:00:44):
to have the liberation of women at its core. My
dad talked a lot about hierarchy and patriarchy, but Allan,
by making women central, has really done something unique, I think,
you know, in in the history of because in the
history of sort of revolutionary movements, because as many women

(02:01:04):
who have participated in those movements in the past can
tell you, it was always sure, fight with us and
we'll deal with the women's issue when the revolution is over.
And a Gelant turned that upside down, you know, and
he said it's got to be a women's revolution at all.
And the women in those movements over there really fought
for that themselves to UM. And one of the things

(02:01:26):
that you know, it was most interesting for me to see,
UM was when I would go into meetings there with
women in all kinds of different you know, military and
civilian institutions and different cities across the region that before
I would even bring it up as a researcher, you know,
women would say to me that if it weren't for
A Gelan's theories, we wouldn't have the organizations that we had,

(02:01:48):
we wouldn't have the political power that we have. And
they have this incredible articulation of how they use these ideas,
you know, as inspiration for their own work and also
as almost clitical cover to do kinds of things that
wouldn't be accepted in other places because they can go
to men who they work with, who might be suspicious,

(02:02:09):
but who you know, have this public stated claim to
this ideology, and they can say, well, Gelon's books say
that society can never be free without women's liberation, that
women's can have their own separate institutions. So they've been
able to really take these ideas and expand on them
and you know, push them and use them with their

(02:02:31):
own practice. UM and the way that the ideas came
about themselves. One book that I would recommend anyone interested
in the Kurdish movement UM in Revolutionary Women's movements anywhere
in the world, and really any topic related to any
of this to read is UM, the autobiography of Sekina Johnson's,
who was the only woman present for the founding of

(02:02:54):
the PKK and was really instrumental in organizing both the
armed and so billion sides of the Kurdish women's movement
in Turkey. UM. There are pictures of her everywhere in Syria.
She was assassinated in France in two thousand thirteen by
Turkish nationalists affiliated with the state, likely suspected, you know,

(02:03:15):
hoping to disrupt the peace negotiations that were ongoing at
that time. But she's remembered everywhere in northeast Syria for
her role, and you can see in her book her
talking about seeing the inequalities that, as Debbie mentioned, women
in socialist movements and revolutionary movements often faced where they
were asked to, you know, be as committed to this

(02:03:35):
struggle as their male comrades were, but we're still treated
in very patriarchal ways by men that they worked with
because of, you know, the patriarchy inbedded into these societies.
And you see her talking about organizing women to overcome
this um and when you look at the history of
the Kurdish movement moving into what you see in Northeast

(02:03:57):
Syria as well. You know, women were really able to
do so much in practice that the theory had to
move to catch up to them, and then to take
this new incredible theory of you know, women's oppression being
the basis of all oppression, UM and the form of
oppression that you know, must be addressed to free all
members of society in all ways. You know, they took

(02:04:19):
this and they continued to expand it so in a
very difficult place in context to do so. I mean
we know that in more UM, there's more violence against women,
there's more discrimination, there's more emphasis on traditional gender roles.
That this holds true across different societies and different conflicts.
So they have, UM that they face many challenges. They're

(02:04:40):
up against a lot here, certainly, you know, with all
the problems UM that they're facing in Northeast Syria because
of conflict and poverty, UM, everything that Turkey is doing
that we've discussed. So they're up against a lot and
it's not easy. But they've really you know, they've come
incredibly far UM and seeing how you know, they've taken

(02:05:03):
very high level theoretical ideas and then done so much
in practice, and how their practice and theory from each other.
Um is really one of the most incredible things to
see over there. Um. And it's another reason why Turkey
wants to destroy them, because arid Land does not believe
that women can be equal to men. Um. He does
not see male violence against women as a problem. And yeah,

(02:05:25):
you know, as we've discussed, Turkey and the Kurdish movement
couldn't be any more different on this question. No, And
it's UM, I think the thing because you know, going
over there, I went with THEE as a journalist, where
like I had heard all these things and and Rojava
has kind of become among some chunks of the left,
chunks of the left to cause celeb in part because

(02:05:45):
of you know, the achievements of the revolution in that space,
and I wanted to see how legitimate is it? And Um,
part of why you know I kind of went in
with that attitude is that I had spent so much
time in the Kurdish regions of Iraq and if if
you remember when the fighting against ISIS was at its height,
there was a tremendous amount of coverage of the female
Peshmerga and the fact that you know, the Kurds in

(02:06:07):
northern Iraq, who were the first force in Iraq that
collapsed the least when ISIS was on the advance. Um,
it's overstated how well they did. That's why the YPG
needed to rescue the z e s At sinjar Is.
The Kurdish military in northern Iraq just kind of bounced
at that point. But um, you know I had heard
about you know these that that this woman's right situation

(02:06:30):
is great in northern Iraq. It's very egalitarian. There's women fighters,
and it is it's certainly and anyone who lives there
will tell you much safer and easier to be a woman.
In the KRG, the Kurdish region like control Kurdish Regional
Government parts of Iraq than it is further south in
the country. But that doesn't mean it's it's good. It

(02:06:50):
is it is more like certain things. There's somewhat more tolerated,
there's more freedom, but it's still a very traditionalist society.
And for example, I didn't see any al Peshmerga. Um,
they did not make much of a presence on the ground,
and and there their their involvement in the fighting was
exaggerated somewhat as part of a conscious pr strategy. Um,

(02:07:11):
as soon as you cross in to northeast Syria, you
see women manning and running checkpoints stations you see as
you go in because they're like you know, they like
you get like passport and stuff like looked at and
you get like stamps and whatnot. When you kind of
come into the to the region, UM, you see a
lot of women like running that part of the operation.

(02:07:32):
You go in to the actual country itself and there's
we we visited a restaurant that was run by a
collective of women who had all lost husbands in the fighting.
We ran. We went to a farm that was all
young women who had left their families who were very
traditionalist in their religious attitude. Um, and and go on
independent and of course you see um female military units

(02:07:54):
and female we saw mixed male and female like military
policing units and stuff. And it's it's one of those
things that if who are going there kind of with
a critical eye to try and see how extensive the
revolution can be, I can't imagine not being convinced of
the reality of it, because it's it's just so stark
well also Robert. You know, first of all, just to again,

(02:08:15):
you could say a lot about what's going on in
Iraqi Kurdistan, but just to very quickly sum it up.
I mean, it is a capitalist petrol state run by
a plan the Barzanies, you know who who a crew
basically all the wealth to themselves. And you can't even

(02:08:35):
begin to compare it with with the kind of revolutionary
project in Syria. So I mean, I just want to
in case so people understand. I mean, I don't want
to use I hate to use the word socialist because
it's such a it's so fraught, but you could the
closest thing, you know, it's a it's built on a
socialist economic model, except a better one, well more like

(02:08:57):
what my father and what Abdullah Shelan have an mind,
which my father called communalism, and this democratic confederalist model
is based on cooperatives, you know, where people really do
um have the means control the means of production as
much as possible. I mean, it's obviously all you know,
still in formation, it's still growing, and it's like the

(02:09:19):
energy sector where things that you know are less like that.
But are I hope in that direction. Yeah, I mean,
obviously no, this is certainly not some kind of perfect
utopian in the middle of a war zone. But but
as you pointed out, what you see when you go
there is women so active in every aspect. I would
add to to what the great examples you gave the

(02:09:42):
women's houses to talk about that right where they are
literally resolving so many problems for both men and women,
you know, at the community level, and and so it's
it's really quite an extraordinary you know. I guess what
I want to say about it is that like if

(02:10:02):
if we all got on board of you know, one
of that that Cretan elon Musk spaceships and found a
colony you know where they were doing this, we'd be
cherishing it. We'd be going, oh my god. You know,
look at these people. They're like they have a cooperative
economy and they have women's councils at every level. Wow,

(02:10:25):
men can't overrule women on a decision that comes to
say women's bodies. Think here the Dobbs decision right on
the Supreme Court. Women only women can can decide those
issues that are related to women. And there there are
councils at every level and people sending delegates, you know,
meeting in their little villages and towns and communities and

(02:10:47):
electing delegates to the next level. It is a true
grassroots democracy, and it's ecological, and it's feminist. It's like
if Ursula La Gwyn we're writing about it and the disgust,
we'd all be going wow. So so really, you know,
it's something that I think, especially anybody who considers themselves
a feminist, you know, should be supporting. And and certainly,

(02:11:10):
and I hope all of us do, you know, And
and certainly anybody you know, I would think who's an anarchist.
To me, it's pretty close to an every anarchist's dream,
you know. And and so I think I just wanted
to make that contrast with Iraq because I think it's
really important. Really goes to why the Kurdish project really

(02:11:32):
needs very badly the support of people in the United States,
because in so many ways, the United States kind of
calls the shots about what can and cannot happen over
there if you look at the problems they have, you know,
to all of that, because of course, all of these
places are not perfect, and have you know, these serious

(02:11:53):
issues alongside these serious achievements. Every issue that they have
is an issue that any society would have if that
society had been through ten years of war. Um, we're
impoverished and blockaded from virtually all economic activity with the
outside world, if they had had to not only you know,

(02:12:13):
fight the occupation of a group like ISIS, but then
immediately turn around to fight a state army much larger
than them, you know, bent on taking and occupying their territory.
A society where people fear going outside because they don't
know if they'll be in the wrong place at the
wrong time when they'll be a drone strike on a
local military leader going around doing their job keeping their

(02:12:35):
communities safe from ISIS, or a local political leader going
around doing their job trying to you know, build this
new system. So I think when we look at the flaws,
their flaws that are the result of in large part
poverty and conflict and all of the compounding crisis crises

(02:12:55):
that the people of North Anyst Syria have to face
because of what they have gone through, you know, as
Debbie mentioned, much at the hands of larger powers. So
much of what happens in Syria is up to what
the United States wants up to what Russia wants, up
to what Turkey wants. Um, all of these countries and regions,

(02:13:16):
you know, with different priorities, different outlooks, but it somehow
happens that at the end of the day, you know,
the one thing they can all agree on is that, UM,
it's okay to sell out the autonomous administration, It's okay
to have consequences for them. You know, if the Courtish
people suffer, the zd people suffer, the people of northern
East Syria, all of these different demographics, if they're the

(02:13:38):
people who are victimized, you know, because they don't have
a state, because they're fighting for something different, because they're
challenging the status quo, it's okay if they're the ones
who faced the consequences. We saw this, you know, with
what happened with Isis. We saw this with the complete
international silence when a fren was invaded, with the you know,
piecemeal response that stopped the Turkish invasion in twenty nineteen,

(02:14:00):
but allow them to convert what they were doing to
this kind of low intensity war, um, you know, with
a terrible ceasefire, you know, with undefined lines, and with
these drone strikes being allowed in areas where Russia and
the United States, both of which have agreements with Turkey
are active, um, you know, and both of whom tolerate this.
So essentially every powerful interest in Syria can agree on,

(02:14:25):
you know, ensuring that the autonomous administration comes in last.
And as people in the US, you know, anyone who
considers themselves on the left, who considers themselves a feminist,
who cares about persecuted ethnic and religious minorities, who opposes
endless war and militarist foreign policy that props up autocrats
and you know, props up far right regimes. Anyone with

(02:14:47):
any of those values should be very concerned about the
situation in Northeast Syria right now and should be looking
at what we can do to UH, to get our
government to stop supporting some of these very harmful policies
against the region, you know, even while it claims to
be supporting their fight against isis. What can people listening here,

(02:15:08):
presumably most of you are in the United States or
Canada or Western Europe. What can people listening here, particularly
in the US, do they have an impact to help? Well,
we could talk about that, Um, we could have an
entire other podcast episode on that because there's a lot
to be done. But you know, to summarize in a
few words, the way that the United States supports Turkey's

(02:15:31):
war on the Kurdish people, all the peoples of the
region and the Kurdish National Liberation movement is through military
cooperation and support, through diplomatic cooperation and support, intelligence sharing,
and these pro war legal pretexts. So go tell Congress
that you don't want them to send weapons to Turkey.

(02:15:54):
There's an EP six team sale right now that um,
it was really great to see the majority of Congress,
including all of the squad members, people like AOHC. Rashida Talai,
Bilhan Omar all opposed that sale. So opposing armed sales
very important something that there's momentum there for um and

(02:16:14):
that there's momentum among progressives therefore, which is very heartening.
Opposing military aid and security assistance to Turkey. You know,
I've done research on this. U S security assistance has
trained senior Turkish officials, including the country's current defense minister
and several perpetrators of the violent, repressive nineteen eighty military coup. Obviously,

(02:16:36):
we should not be training coup plotters and war criminals
that is not something I think most people learning this
want their tax dollars to go to. So calling for
an end to US security assistance to Turkey very important,
in addition to ending those arms sales and challenging the
pro war legal pretexts and designations that allow Turkey to

(02:16:59):
get this kind of Western and support. You know, a
wonderful thing that we saw a couple of weeks back
was the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization
in the US, saying that they oppose the terror designation
of the p k K and believe it it should
be delisted. That's something that progressive support very strongly. In Europe.

(02:17:19):
We've seen, you know, calls from places like Ireland and
South Africa where people know a lot about you know
what terror designations, and you know, the criminalization of struggles,
you know, can can have impacts on conflict resolution. You know,
people who participated in these kinds of post conflict processes
in some of these places saying get rid of the designation.

(02:17:40):
It's harmful for peace. You know, it will be difficult
to end this less violently without it. So that's something
where you know, it seems the international case for it
is something that's rather obvious, and where pressure in the
US on the US designation to remove it would be
an important step for facilitating dialogue and a negotiated end

(02:18:02):
to this conflict. So understanding how the US supports Turkey's
wars on the Kurdish people and opposing all of those
different policies and programs as one of the most important
things that we can do to say this war is
not in our name. We stand with the people of
northeast Syria, with the people in Turkey suffering from Turkish authoritarianism,

(02:18:24):
with the people in Iraqi, Kurdistan, uzd S and Shngal
being bombed by Turkish drones. When we say that we
don't want to support this war, we stand with all
of those people. Um And I think that that kind
of action against arms, sales, security assistance, and pro war
legal pretexts could be a really great base for solidarity

(02:18:45):
opposing endless war in the Middle East and standing up
for you know, peacefully ending this conflict. Um. And it
would align us with progressives all around the world, and
you know, people who really believe in in peace and
in ending these kinds of things. And and if I
could just add, you know, one one element to that

(02:19:06):
would also be really pressing for a diplomatic solution to
the whole so called Kurdish question, because Rojeva will remain
in danger as long as air dewan And and his
and his party think that they can basically that they

(02:19:26):
have to be fighting Kurds because you know, to them,
as Megan said before, Rojeva is an extension of their
own Kurds and of the PKK. So what But but
what really needs to happen, just as as it happened
in South Africa, is there has to be a negotiated settlement.
One of the things that would help with this, and
there are movements that people can get involved with if

(02:19:48):
they want, would be freeing a Chilan who has been
in a sitting in a Turkish jail for the last
twenty two years because he is sort of the Nelson
Mandela really of of the Kurdish freedom movement and he
should be involved in these negotiations and was even while
he was in jail. But really, you know, a jail
person can't really do that properly. So pressing for a

(02:20:11):
diplomatic solution because basically rat one uses the p K
k UM and the listing of the PKK as a
terrorist organization to basically kill all Kurds everywhere. And in
order to stop that, somehow there has to be a
break in this. And so I think that, you know, people,

(02:20:34):
there are certainly plenty of peace organizations and people who
want to work on peace, and I think this is
a really important demand that they begin that the United
States and the United States has nothing to lose by
pressuring Turkey to engage in negotiations with the p k K.
This is an hour war. The p KK has never
done anything to the United States. It would make, as

(02:20:57):
Megan said, for a lasting peace in the entire or
Middle East, and would you know, And and so what
I would say is, first of all, folks, would be
great if people who want more information about any of
this could contact the organization that I helped co found,
the Emergency Committee for Rojeva, which is at Defend Rojeva

(02:21:19):
dot org. And we have scripts to call congress Person's
resources and we even have fun monthly meetings that people
can come to. Um you know, and there's of course
a lot of information at Megan's website also Kurdish Peace
dot org. But you know, one of the things that
people could do is go out and talk to their communities,

(02:21:41):
whether it's a religious community or a labor union or
a food coop or your kids nursery school or reading group,
women's group, and sort of talk and and help. Because
there's a lot of people so surprisingly really don't know
much about Roojeva. I think maybe because there because the
Zabatistas are a little closer geographically, that that project is

(02:22:05):
a bit better known, you know, So talking to people
and getting people engaged, and for example, if there's anybody
listening from New Jersey. Bob Menendez is the chairman of
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's been pretty hostile
towards air to one and and keeping on him with
phone calls emails is a great way, you know, for

(02:22:27):
for our m As somebody who worked in Washington for
a while when I worked for Bernie Sanders, I know
that these guys listen to their constituents, you know, and
if they get enough calls, they start to pay attention
to those things that they come around. We could even get,
you know, somebody to send a letter around to their
colleagues in Congress saying, you know, it's time to start

(02:22:51):
peace negotiations. Those kinds of things do have impact because,
as I said before, unfortunately the United States is really
at the helm and so many ways of what happens
internationally in these geopolitical battles. UM. Well, thank you so much, Debbie,
Thank you so much. Megan. UM. I think that's that's

(02:23:11):
going to do it for us today. UM. Please, you know,
continue paying attention to this. UM. Did you want to
you know, Megan, did you have anything else you wanted
to kind of kind of add um or let people
know actually both of you would let people know where
they can follow you on the internet. Yeah. Well, I
mean I think that that about covers it. Look, the

(02:23:33):
only solution for peace, democracy and self determination in Turkey
and in the wider Middle East is a just and democratic,
negotiated settlement to the Kurdish question. And I think that
just as Debbie said, learn about what's going on, reach
out to your communities, talk to your local Kurdish community

(02:23:55):
if there is one, find the opportunities that there are
to engage with people in Turkey, in Syria and all
of these places, you know, working for peace and standing
up for these ideas. And then no efforts too small,
because ending this conflict would benefit everyone in Northeast Syria,
everyone in Turkey and all of us here, you know,

(02:24:16):
knowing that our government was no longer supporting this terrible,
unjust war. UM, So just get out there and do something. UM.
To see the work that the think tank where I
work UM is doing on this issue, you can go
to Kurdish Peace dot org where we have research and
analysis on everything related to do related to the Kurdish

(02:24:38):
issue from all different perspectives, and you can check out
our work there UM. And you can follow me on
Twitter UM Megan Bodette and the Twitter handle is at
five underscores m j b excellent. My Twitter is simpler.
It's just Debbi book at the the books and and

(02:25:01):
again I just want to say that you know people
we do at defend Rojeva dot org and we're also
on Twitter at defend Rojeva. We have so many ideas
and so much information about how people can get involved.
Is making said, if nothing else, no more weapons to
Turkey until they begin peace negotiations, give Rojeva political recognition.

(02:25:27):
That would be another thing people can be demanding also
that Curds have a place at the bargaining table and
any discussions about the future of Syria. So we have
all those kinds of ideas, scripts, as I said, model
emails and more at defend rojeva dot org. Awesome, UM,
thank you all for for being on and um yeah,

(02:25:50):
that's going to do it for us here. It could
happen here for the day. Thank you for having us. Thanks.
Ye hi everyone, it's James here, Welcome to It could

(02:26:15):
happen here today. It's just me and we're talking again
about the UC strike. But the audio is not great.
We had some technical issues on my end, not not
on Matt's end, but we wanted to put it out
in one the list because we felt that was very
important episode and things of developing very rapidly at the
u S and we thought that a listeners would like it.
So apologies for the poor quality of the audio. We

(02:26:36):
hope you can get through it anyway. All right, So
I'm talking today with Matthew, a literally the seven seventh
to PhD candidate in the history department. Matthew, would you
like to explain a little bit of who you are
and what you've been doing with reference to the strike
in the last three weeks and maybe before as well. Yes,

(02:26:57):
so I studied Spanish history, like you said, a free empire.
I've been at u c SC for seven years. UM.
I do research in Spain for two years during the
COVID pandemic. So there was sort of great in my
university of participation between my mind qual of buying exams

(02:27:18):
for the three years I was there, UM, and then
I left. When I came back and i'd go on.
The campus was was quite different from both from COVID
and from the increasing economic hardships UM. So in the
last few year, UH, we involved in UM targeting UM
trying to buy a new contract UM as I'm sure

(02:27:39):
all your listeners are aware by this point. Uh not
for more than a year, in eighteen months in some
cases without a successful resolution, and with I know on
bare labor practices on behalf of the UC administration. I
saw in November fifteen, I believe it was to day
we walked out on strength. I had signed up several

(02:28:02):
months earlier to be a strike captain for the history department.
I just assisted by a sort of the informable committee
of five of the younger equals, sort of due to
the pandemic of a lot of my colleagues, in my
codeboord UM and we're not able to go do their research,
so they're generally out of the country right now doing

(02:28:25):
their field research. So we have a really great department
of primarily first through third years that are participating UM
and and leading younger. I also had signed up to
be a ticket uh a ticket leader UM kind boiled
down today. What I have been really occupying myself and

(02:28:45):
saying has been uh being a food captain. So we
have been cooking for about a hundred fifty people at
our location on campus. UM. We've been getting lots of
great donations UM food and nash and even real dusting
that to feed hundred picketers. That's really cool. Yeah, I

(02:29:07):
think that's really nice to to bring up actually, because
that we were speaking about before the core right, So
many people are familiar with and supportive of the concept
of unions and unionization and workers right, but I think
relatively few people have actually been on strike and seeing
what it takes to organize and all the little things
you have to take care of. And so did you

(02:29:29):
just step into that food captain role like kind of
ad hoc Yeah, more or less night. I showed up
on the first day and I realized we had been
marching around and shouting ourselves for the grocery storey night,
and I bought a bunch of water and that's sort
of snowballed into cooking. Now we have about dat or night. Um,

(02:29:49):
we rotate shifts and fild planning. We actually used the
History of Parking graduate lounge. But yeah, you know that's
st our experience of ticketting is for all the organization
and signing up for different tasks that need to be
more in hand, hitting around and seeing what what has

(02:30:11):
needed to sustain that a level as has been a journey, Yeah,
I bet, but it seems to have been a lot
to be a successful one. Like everyone is out energetic. Um,
there have been some really impressive actions actually, like I
don't know if you're part of the village drive shut down,
I know what you want to call that yesterday, But

(02:30:33):
did you take part in that? No? I was, I was,
I was okay, yeah yeah, the people who were amazing.
Yeah yeah. We actually found a faculty spy in the
eight before who went in and asked what time that
was one game? I'm sort of uh, our window. There's
been a lot of direct action and it's been very

(02:30:55):
successful for the moral perspective and the conversation. I'm sure
you're a where we uh approached Chancellor Goldslaw yesterday the
day before and even though obviously we didn't get a
promise from him that he would raise our wages until
President Drake to raise our wages. Uh, it was you know,

(02:31:16):
very energizing for people who have you been been not
able to show up because things give me great or
involved between their people with direct nations is one of
our strong suits at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.
It is wonderful to see actually, like so many of
us spent so much of our lives like studying workers

(02:31:38):
movements and unionization and strikes, and it's cool to see
people walking the talk out a little bit also very
import What are the really great things about going on
strike with a bunch of you have the smartest minds
and in practically every feble to get you know, com
in patients that are are working on emails and erst philosophy,

(02:32:05):
you know, being phlosophers, are you know, quoting working class
movements of the past of shape our strategy. Yeah, it's
it's a cool thing to see. And I remember a
long time ago in like and when the last time
we were on strike, and yeah, it was very cool.

(02:32:27):
One of the professors I was working with with a
lit professor, and she came and read some stuff and
then you know, I made people listen to me talking
about the Ruti for a while and I enjoyed myself,
even if maybe they didn't. So yeah, I want to
talk a little bit as well about like you're in
week three now and you said, like you've been maintaining
the energy and you're feeding people, which is great. How

(02:32:51):
has obviously, like strikes come with an element of economic
hardship and that that's somewhat offset by union strike funds,
but it's given the economic procarity of people who are
graduate students anyway, it could be really tough. So how
has that been with not quite a December first yet?
Which would that be the first miss paycheck? If people
are going to not get paid, yes, uh we are.

(02:33:15):
Most of us could vince that the you see, will
not have gotten their their house in order by this point.
We were working until November fifteen, so at least you
kind to have a month to day. But because there's
no real way or you see, to determine exactly which
workers are withholding labor and exactly which workers runs right,

(02:33:37):
It seems like the majority of workers will be receiving
their first that there there no venay check UM tomorrow.
We have also been receiving the striker system the SPROM
communion w UM. We're all aware that if we do
receive our p check from the university, you will have

(02:33:57):
to return that money, so that you will you sure
uh strength assistance um and we're cutting large okay with
that uh you know thats iound out between that we'll
actually do meet for it makes me a they they
noble the strength existance sort of holiday okay, So for
this month long way or another, UM, we are all

(02:34:18):
very hopeful that will be able to make ends meet.
UH next month is is you know if the strike
does continue, um sort of which that will have to cross.
I was spoken to a lot of words and the
intitute parte who are very concerned about about this achex uh,
particularly also from the program that I teach for the

(02:34:40):
Making of the Modern World, which recruits heavily from the
history of parts has a non student t A s
and are not covered by the union and are not
uh I whish hortor strike fully their labored solidarity, but
they're very concerned that uh, you know, they're primarily working
as their full time job. That's tough. Actually, I've taught

(02:35:02):
that program to both as a student and a non student,
and it's a good program, but it doesn't pay a
ton and you don't save a lot of money living
in southern California, so it could be tough. Is there
a way to contribute people want to contribute to those
people who are sort of withholding labor and solidarity. Yes,
so we are. There is a U A W strike

(02:35:22):
hardship funds have yeah, yeah, I'll including the note people.
And there's also avent mode that we're in checting donations
for which the natural that's on the US embassy momently
that just overwhelmed with good willing si you know, depending

(02:35:45):
on how on the strike, those would definitely be something
like large protect support anything I think that the public
of large and be doing is concerning the pressure on
the to uh age. Yeah, and yeah, I hope they
continue to do so. And let's talk a little bit

(02:36:05):
about everyone we've talked to so far has been a
science or engineering person, and obviously the experience is a
little different when you're a historian or upt so humanities person.
Because you you don't go to a lab, right you don't,
your research is a bit different and your work is
a bit different. So can you explain a little bit
about the work the work that one does as a
history grad student, that the labor that one does for

(02:36:27):
the university, and and that what the differences in what
it's like withholding that labor. The differences is that we
we are the vast majority of us that are in
the industry department are A S S. We are t
A and of the majority of us teach for either
the writing programs for for the history department. UM. So

(02:36:49):
when we look at what we can contribute to the strike,
we are looking at the withholding only a grade, the
type of grading that cannot be replaced the course I
tacheen or now there's five or six E A S.
There's six hundred and fifty students. I'm responsible for sixty
of those tents. Each of those students has a weekly

(02:37:10):
discussion uh animalism five six hundred words. They have a
content analysis papers which there's now two of them arenessing.
Those are things that can that cannot be reverted to
hold choice and to writing. It's not a formula. It's
not something that be easily UH place. We are aware

(02:37:34):
that there has been some tension in terms of strategic
planning between the A S S and and S are
using in the STEM fields. UH that on the one hand,
in their in their teaching duties, UM, they are very
great that their professors will be able to co opt
the teaching process. UM, I make the exams will choice

(02:37:54):
or or something else. And I'm not how that would work.
I know that that's just not really possible. Yeah. The
uh in humanities UM. And the other the issue which
can I you don't really speak to, but I'm sure
your other contributors have explained this is we don't work
in labs. Are researching is a much more long term

(02:38:15):
We primarily that research either in uh the an absent
SIA during this warrior with external fellowships or during the summer,
whereas SR used and to be working in their labs
more or less constantly. I've heard it said that one
of the reasons that SR use are RUDD to be
less uh committed to a long term strike is because

(02:38:39):
missing two weeks in a lab since that back by
six months in their career or for the mass majority
of humanities uh A S C. S and I talked
to two weeks is is very to be picked up
if you're reading a book in hers fair time, and
it's not something that we need to be in with

(02:39:01):
buns and burners and to animals. So there seems to
be uh material conditions divide us an scus on one
an the standing humanities Faunda, Right, yeah, yeah, there were
definitely like two week periods I spent on my research

(02:39:22):
and stuff that I never used in any of my
final projects. We could trying to get an archive to
open in Spain you can often take that long. So
I think one thing I'd like to talk about is
like the as it stands now, what you're hearing from
the bargaining team and how that's being received. Like I know,
there are a lot of different demands, a lot of

(02:39:44):
different things that brought people to strike, right, the access
needs to COLA, the NFL labor practices, etcetera, etcetera. Who
what are you hearing on the picket line and how
is it being received? So the news for the first
week was on date bo the s r U bargaining
team to accept a seven percent yearly increase cerviuss he

(02:40:09):
adjustment that would be paid and I believe for the
median uh rent an increase in I think in the
most expensive cities to help working commune San Diego and
answer system UM. And to be honest, the strike was
sold to the vast majority of of the uh N
radicalized on fund educated rank and file as being about

(02:40:32):
the fifty four thousand base paying as well as the
access needs as well as uh you know, uh here
in the timer employment for some units, UM and various
different things. But there was a lot of consternation in
on day four, and I think a lot of us
became very radicalized, UM when we realized that, not only

(02:40:56):
at the SRU bargaining team, apparently the concession on day
four of what was what was supposed to be a
very powerful strike, UM, but that concession didn't really resolve
the issue of skyrocketing inflation and rent process and um,
you know, different campuses weighing in the saying beyond Santa

(02:41:18):
Cruz event went up something like sixty percent in the
last year. I'm seven black increase doesn't help us at all.
Like the University of California, the largest employer and the
largest landlord the state of California is raising you know,
their wages by a black rate, and then all the

(02:41:38):
landlords in that area will continue to raise wag of
a rent even higher. UM. So a lot of us
who were really I wasn't around for the two thousand
and twenty Cola wildcat strike. UM. But in the process
of this consternation of the s r u BT giving

(02:41:59):
up this uh whole out and space to the media
evnt UM, a lot of us we think very uh
I also disillusioned, but very radicalized and UM start looking
into it more uh HU identities. I could say that
our thinketline where we have a philosophy, literature, UH history

(02:42:22):
UM A number of other regulated departments. Who's very militant. UH.
That was the first kind of moment of uh consciousness
of awareness I think for a lot of us UM.
And over the last week is the last two weeks, Yes,
I'm kind of internal UM struggle over over tactics and strategy,

(02:42:49):
whether it's reasonable to expect that we can hold out
for our aimed the bargaining teams on our campus at
least and there are exceptions UM have had generally have
generally advanced a sort of moderate line that yeah, before
a thousand is high in the sky is great to me.

(02:43:10):
But you know, the way the bargaining works is is
you walk or something high and you can get something low.
I think we're all, you know, willing to accept that
that is how bargaining works. But we have, at least
in my figure mine, at least in the humanity has
been very uncerted by the tactical decisions to make certain
possessions at certain stages without letting the full power of

(02:43:33):
our strike take hold, especially the reholding of brains, which
is ing out this week an text week. UM. Another
thing which you know, most of us have not been
on the bargaining team, and a lot of us are
just kind of checking me in, uh to this this
very long term process. Pretty late the game, we watched

(02:43:55):
these bargaining and processions and see what you see he's
offering definitely just not seem like the bargaining strategy of
operating session or to get something else there it is
working at home. UM. I think made some compromises on
accessibility needs in the hopes that would provoke the u

(02:44:17):
SEE to offer a contragensive economic package. Last TEA included
the one white five percent increase for the s R
U S proposal and nothing for the A s C S. Wow, yeah,
that's it's a that's you're still a long way apart then,
so in both, in both the reprouple of Pola on
date four, bargaining, I think there's real concern that the

(02:44:40):
bargaining team is getting the short end of stay. Yeah,
that's tough if people don't remember from last time. By
the way, color is the cost of living adjustment that
was the initial cause of the weldcats right, YESLA is
possibility adjustment and there is a lot of um uh
really in justesting discorse from out what that people are changing.

(02:45:04):
No hola, no contracts data mind. COLA has as meetings
specifically a yearly percentage increase that is tied to exmedient
rent exmedian man, whereas party team has had argued that
a seven percent yearly increased qualify as form right, but

(02:45:28):
maybe less than inflation given certainly less in rent, given
what rent has done in the last couple of years.
And these universities are in very desirable places to live
with very high rents. They don't offer subsidut or they
didn't offer significantly subsidized housing, especially to grad students often
assescially not to all grad students, and so yeah, it
becomes very difficult to live even on what would seem

(02:45:50):
like a decent wage and unless you want to commute
a long way something like and I have the story
and I political Sciences that the vast majority of graduate
streets through report said that they were event burned to
them by signed for there anyone to meant most people

(02:46:12):
not to its more like sementins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And
you can find yourself in that situation working for the
university and with the university also as your landlord, and
you're paying the Sciences, which you know it has control
over both ends, and it's not doing much to help anyone.
Let's talk about withholding grade because that's coming up, right,
and that's kind of the next level of escalation, I suppose,

(02:46:35):
or like that the next hurdle um that's coming up.
So what do is withholding grades look like? Can and
can you explain why there's sort of a pedagogical reason
that people would be obviously like worried about doing that
or so it's this sort of barrier and what it
would do to the university and what it would do

(02:46:55):
to your students as well. Yes, so fundamentally, the with
holding grades is the withholding of the alternate finishing product
of our labor. Uh. We can talk about pedagogy and
ideology and and you know, high the Ivory Tower rush
as we want, but at the end of the day,
when when UH undergraduate at the University of California pays

(02:47:19):
their fruition, they expect to get grades and transcripts in return.
And the reputation of that, you see that makes it
one of the premier public institutions in the world is
that that grading uh is is accredited to be reflective
a very high quality and of education. We are saying

(02:47:39):
that we are not providing that old tomate. The record UM,
which any end is is you know, uh, what a
student would uh demonstrate if they were applying to graduate school, UH,
if they were um b d internship, really anything that
uh reflax their college experience, UH would be hide that great.

(02:48:04):
We are also saying that, you know, in addition to
that very brutal kind of explicit uh, the result uh
the pedagogy itself is also it's not that you know,
students are here to learn and and they might complain
in an individual class, but by largely do get a

(02:48:24):
lot from their education. And if they're not being actively
taught by their teaching assistance, UM, they're suffering. In the
MMW program that you and I vote up for. The
lectures are but they're very you know, it's a it's
a very large lecture hall. It's kind of a general
just the vast majority of instruction, both in the historical

(02:48:49):
cultural UH content of the course as well as in
the UH the writing UH aspect, which is the point
of the program to deploy skilled analytical academic writers UM,
and they are not getting that at all. That's something
that's a burden that is carried on under present by
the t A s and by holding that and UH,

(02:49:13):
it prevents the students from receiving equality education essentially. So
you're hoping that, particularly in the humanities, where our LABORI
is comply irreplaceable, UM, that will pressure the university. Now
we have been hearing that UM some universities have been
given the laterally extending the deadline for final bids. And

(02:49:34):
I believe that UH either Riverside or Irvine, and just
a message about this kind of extended January. There's a
lot of sort of confusion about what that would entail it.
You know, the strike is over and we all go back.
We then not to facto. Um. It seems like some

(02:49:56):
faculty have either in solidarity or are in uh desperation,
decided to final exam change the format of those exams.
Um we are I think that group the most afraid
that the university will uh ran some sort of doesn't

(02:50:20):
how everybody gets pass. If it would, it would theory
weaken the union's power, but it would also weaken the universities. Yea,
to require those rates to uh progress de college education
in their life, it would be a huge low for

(02:50:42):
them to receive not a letter date, Um yeah, just ape.
Yeah yeah, there would be a massive step for the
university to take in undermining their own status and the
well being of their students. Right Like if you have
a required class or required great in a certain class
to progress to graduate school or to breas to a
vocational degree, then um yeah, that that would make it.

(02:51:03):
They could have long term implications for those students, right yeah, yeah,
that would be a big step for them. So will
I suppose Yeah, that's interesting if they extend it what
are you required to go back and redo. That's a
huge amount of labor that you would then be doing
in a very compact amount of time. Two grade three
MW assignments is an endurance challenge. Great normally due in

(02:51:25):
like mid December. Is that still the case, UCSD right now?
This is this is weekend? Yeah, the clock is taking
So how does the how does this strike look if
you go past week ten? Right? If you go not
just in terms of withholding grades, but obviously campus is
very different when the undergrads aren't there. I don't think
really we have discussions about whether or not we're in

(02:51:47):
it for the long haul. We are, I think at
the moment, hedging our bets on the next two weeks
being in some ways decisive. There are a fashion uh
you know, the once finals are are over, are power
dramatically weakens. I'm certainly give the UC decided to uh

(02:52:13):
by us the rating for this seemed like that would
be a happen hosist. I'm not convinced that they would
do that. Um In I do the longer that we
withhold those rates, um the look you have the leverage,
I don't think the US will just throw up their hands.
You know, well be done to find and say, oh,
well it's right off, see you next quarter. Yeah. Yeah,

(02:52:36):
I think they have been back trying to hold you out.
I'd love to know, like to close out what you've
learned through the the three in a bit weeks you've
been on strike, and what you think like people should
take from this, Like it's an unprecedented era for workers
organization in the last thirty years. We've seen more strikes
in the last few years and we have in decades.
So what can people learn from the UC experience? Yes? Absolutely, UM.

(02:53:00):
One of the things that I have learned which is
very salient in my mind. UM, as somebody who started
organizing about three or four months before the strike, I
was approached to uh be a strikethapton and thinking later
I went to various trainings, I h sat in on
campus organizing compete meetings, UH and the the ship we

(02:53:25):
were given kind of before the strike began was that
we had an incredible amount of power the strike gratification vote,
where UH we uh more than three quarters of the
graduate students voted overwhelmingly in the many percentile to strike.
We all went in with a very powerful sense of

(02:53:47):
the historic nature of the strike and our our our
bargains power in our solidarity UM that seemed to be
treated by any of the un we d ship as
a finite resource, as something that we want of us
full to trigger on sent the workers out hope growers
part resolution and if we didn't get it, then UM

(02:54:11):
worked to wrap it up as quickly as we can.
I'm sure that I'm giving them a short shrift and
that this is probably ultimately an unfair analysis, very much
the percentagely that you know this isn't sustainable that we
are reaching our pet power. UM. Now is the time

(02:54:32):
to start UH kind of pivoting to making these concessions.
And we're all I'm saying that no, this the organizing
doesn't stop when you walk out. The organizing begins when
you walk out. And for for people like me who
you know, had some knowledge I I've experienced in organizing.

(02:54:53):
I've been occupy whom I consider myself very well educated radical,
but just at the fact of getting on the picket line,
experiencing and talking to my bellow workers across campuses, across
picket mines has been energizing and maticalizing all on its
own and don't think that the union leadership really knew

(02:55:15):
what to do with that account of language. It the
bushes where efficient or horses or whatever that a lot
of speel with the our campus MUNI leadership ought to
have done a better job with the uh the day
to day energizing UM. One issue that uh you know
a camblames specifically on a specific barbeting unit or uh

(02:55:40):
even that you U a w T suspive Um, but
it's a hunter wal comes from above is at um.
If you do not pick it, you do not actively
sign up or picket ships that you do in know
this long round, you do not get strike and um
And for a lot of us who have accessibility needs

(02:56:03):
or are are not closed to campus, or are withholding
their labor and active in the strength in other ways,
they feel like there's not really a place for them
um and and they're doing equally crucial work. Yes, it's
good to have people picketing and on that visibility. Ultimately,
if there were two people hitting and everybody else was

(02:56:24):
withholding their labor, we would still win the strength. UM.
So there seems to be an overwhelming emphasis on the
visible single of our power and our solidarity and the
concession that was made in day four was explained by
the dwindling uh amount of people who were showing up

(02:56:48):
for pickets, you know from day one to two excreation
be four um, and a lot of us tried to
push that on that. So yes, you know, it's it's
hard to sustain that physical progressing. Yeah, but we should
be also working to bolster and encourage and harness the

(02:57:08):
power of those workers many every day, but nevertheless doing
apprecial labor stop. Yeah, is this did a remote picking
option to that account? Yes, yes, there is, uh you know,
in any in any organization by uh you know, uh
massive workers. There's these growing pains and nariations in the

(02:57:32):
first in the first week of I am dueling remote
coordinators with separate lists. They resolved, and they seem to
have been resolved by now the same thing with some
delays in process things strike, pay count disbursements. Again, there's
there's no shading as happening. It's just doing this for

(02:57:52):
the first time. Um. But for but for people who
for uh you know, sort of on the fence or
not I really important this h that was a real
big stressor for them. Their their willingness to kind of
be out there. Really. Yeah, that totally makes sense, and yeah,

(02:58:12):
it's it's already a stressful time, but like you said,
these things will have people will learning the process, right,
like it's new for so many people. It's unprecedented to
have like ten percent of the graduate students in the
country with holding their labor and so like, they will
of course be growing paint. And I think often when
we look at strikes, like both you and me as
historians and as consumers of the news, we like we

(02:58:35):
see one photo of a bunch of people like in hives,
standing around a brazier, and then three weeks later we
read another story about a resolution contract, right, and in fact,
what makes a strike powerful is feeding people and being
showing up and looking out for one another. So like
that's what we're trying to document. Thanks so much, Matt,

(02:58:56):
And I wonder where people can find if you'd like
to give your own social media or where people can
find strike updates from the u S and from UC
San Diego, anything like that you want to plug. Yes,
I'm partisan in this, but I would highly recommend not
getting strike updates from the u C San Diego. So yeah,
from the campus, now from the university here, so fair

(02:59:19):
you see now dot org. Yeah, I think it's I
think it's an old on the ground. Yeah, dealing with
documents too much. A great place on Twitter has also
been very all of its current yeah to date information.

(02:59:41):
Can you tell us e venmo where people can like
hell in the true Spanish historian fashion feed? Everyone? Have
you got a giant pie out there? You like with
the spade? So I will clarify this is a This
is an uneficial Yeah, this is not the u a
WU worldwide, but the particulars on the USC campus organizing

(03:00:05):
meeting the problem lines is at UCSD dash strike nice. Yeah,
easy to remember and hopefully you get some donations. Thanks,
I'm your time, Matt, I appreciate it. Hey, We'll be
back Monday with more episodes every week from now until

(03:00:26):
the heat death of the Universe. It Could Happen Here
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You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated
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