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October 23, 2021 197 mins

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Episode Transcript

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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 gonna be nothing new here for you, but you
can make your own decisions. God Area, Garrison takeover. I

(00:30):
asked for some grunting that was like a word, Okay,
what it was? I know lots of they could have
been here, and openings have become bastards. Openings now just
kind of opening. Robert doesn't have more than one type
of opening. There's two. There's there's grunting and then yelling
something weird that is that's basically the same learning how

(00:52):
to do your job is cut shit. Also, to be honest,
most of the time, doesn't know which podcast he's doing.
Are all what is this are we doing? Is this
the daily zeitgeist? Is this is Jack O'Brien, this is
this is it could happen here. So we're talking today

(01:14):
about the different things that are it um here being
the States this time. UM, but we're talking about basically,
over the course of the past few months, we have
covered a few different topics on the show, UM, some
of which have already kind of had some results of
had updates to what we've already covered. So we're I'm
gonna I'm gonna go through a list of like a

(01:35):
three different things that we've covered and talk about kind
of the updates in these stories. UM. You know, most
of what we've covered around these topics have been like
a mix of original reporting and interviews. So now there's
been further further work down on this and this we're
not kind of update people. If you know, they're not
as termally online as us, maybe they have not heard
that there's been changes to these stories. And I wanted

(01:56):
to kind of put together a nice, little concise thing
talking about updates to all the things we've covered. UM.
So the first thing that we're gonna be talking a
bit about is the cops City in Atlanta, and they
defend the Atlanta Forest Coalision. So I think like a
day after our episode dropped on that, UM, Atlanta City

(02:18):
Council voted UH ten to four in favor of getting
the militarized police training facility greenlit Um, nicknamed Cops City.
There was seventeen hours of public testimony. We're seven seventy
of the callers spilk out against the facility. Yeah, I
mean that we had that happen in Portland. It doesn't. Yeah,
it never matters. It doesn't matter what the vast majority,

(02:40):
especially when there's especially when this money involved. Do not
do not ever be deceived into thinking that you live
in a democracy and that you actually want to matter.
Is in any way, shape or form, this is just
not This is empirically not true. Like like sixty percent
of Texans periods support vaccine mandates in some instances, but

(03:00):
the governor just made it illegal to do them. Ever. Um,
Like it's it's it's that way across the board, across
the nation. Um. People ask sometimes because like you know,
when you get into anarchists discussions of politics, there's a
lot of criticism of democracy. I don't I think democracy
is a lovely idea. I would like to try it something.
It would be nice to get it ago, it would
be nice to experience. So Yeah, this city council voted

(03:24):
to least the acres of city owned forest land to
the Atlanta Police Foundation UM, at least eighty five acres
of which is going to be slated to become the
police training facility. UM. The facility is going to cost
around ninety million dollars. Jesus Christ, I could train cops
much cheaper than that, although training is the wrong word. Yeah,
that is the wrong word for that. UM. So yeah, no,

(03:46):
nine million dollars. It's gonna include. It's gonna include a
state of the art explosive testing facility, firing ranges, emergency
vehicle operations course, a classroom space UM, and an emergency
and an emergency proper space. So we'll probably learn to read, right,
I'm sure it's for teaching people to do bad things. UM.
There's going to be an emergency helicopter pad and an

(04:06):
entire like mock town. It is good that they have
the emergency helicopter pad because cops shoot each other with
live ammunition all the time, and that that does happen.
It does happen a lot. So yeah. The main backup
for this project UM is the Atlanta Police Foundation, which
is a political advocacy group that you know, has a
lot of funding from corporations and they try to you

(04:28):
know sway the political power of the city into giving
more power to the police. Um uh huh. So the
interesting thing about this though, is like the vote was
supposed to happen in AUGUSTUM, but it was rescheduled for
early September after there was a lot of public backlash
around this proposal. Um. Then the vote that was supposed
to happen ont got pushed back the whole day because

(04:50):
there was too many callers saying that they didn't want
the facility. So the vote got pushed back a day
in September, but it stays still voted for it. Yeah,
so thirty million dollars is going to be footed by
taxpayers and the other sixty million is going to get
paid for by the Police Foundation, which has a lot
of different like corporate donors. So that's that's that's that's

(05:12):
that um. And of course it's on you know, on
this forest land, which is like some of the biggest
forest land in any major American city. So you know,
they're tearing down all this forest to build this concrete
city to train cops in. We should also mentioned that
at the end of her interview with some of the
people resisting this, they basically said like, if the vote

(05:33):
goes through, resists is going to continue, so we will continue.
There's probably gonna be efforts to like actually try to
physically prevent the construction of this. But the next thing
we're gonna be talking about is stop line three um,
which mean there was also you know, physical efforts to
prevent that. But the type of efforts that people usually
do in you know, modern green activism usually are a

(05:54):
lot more performative or they're specifically to pressure to create
means that will try to convince politicians to veto the process.
So it's not you know, it's it's it's different from
the nineties when it was easier to like actually physically
stop the prevention of things. Now a lot of the
people who you know are trying to do this, it
is they're not convinced that, you know, doing a lock

(06:18):
box is going to actually physically prevent it. What it's
gonna do is create media coverage that truck that is
going to hopefully convince politicians to be like, hey, maybe
we shouldn't do this, and that's a hard bargain, right,
That's not there's no saying that that's actually going to
do the thing. You know, in the in the case
of stop Line three that did not stop Line three. Um.
There was a really good uh um critique of the

(06:39):
stop Line three protests posted in It's Going Down by
an indigenous anarchist who lives on that land who was
like younger, um, and they're you know, watching all of
these you know, older indigenous anarchists, you know, keep on
getting arrested and brutalized. Like, but we're not actually doing
anything in the methods that we're doing that the methods
that we're trying to like, you know, gain public support,
this isn't working in this specific context. Maybe we should

(07:00):
reevaluate what we're actually doing. I know It's going down
faced a bit of backlash for posting that critique, but
I think that I think the critique is actually worth reading.
Any any other thoughts on the Atlanta thing before we
move on to the stop line three stuff, um, No,
no other than to note that I think the best
brisket I've ever had came from Atlanta. Okay, well, I'll
probably I'll probably visiting Atlanta in the near future, maybe

(07:23):
there with you, um, in which case I'll get some
more motherfucking brisket. Yeah, it was actually the fun story.
We were road tripping through town, me and in another
friend in another car, and we were talking over radios
and a trucker got on like the channel we were
on because we were talking about where to get barbecue,
and he told us where to go. Um, it was neat.
It was like an actual nice like like moment of

(07:46):
CB radio connection. Like this guy was just scanning the
waves and found us and I was like, oh, I
can tell you where to go anyway, continue Garrison. That
was completely unrelated to stopping line three. So the next
thing is earlier, I think in September, maybe August if
it's been a while. H we we we posted two
episodes about me visiting the top Plane three protests and
the Earth First camp, and a lot of stuff has

(08:07):
happened since then. Um, so you know, the main you
know thing is that the pipe planet has been finished
now um and is basically getting is ready to be operated,
or it probably already has some operation. It's unclear how
much is being used right now, but it is done construction.
It doubles the capacity of the original pipeline. It's gonna
be doing like a seven hundred and sixty thousand barrels

(08:29):
of oil a day, so in the e carves outland
through through wet lands where people grow wild rice and
do hunting. Um So, overall the past few months police
arrested over nine hundred people, and it's there's been a
lot of like felony charges specifically for locking down, which
is pretty new because they're using felony theft charges for

(08:50):
people just locking down to equipment. Yeah, that is an
unfortunate escalation. Yeah. Um So by the time we posted
our top line three episodes, we kind of already figured
this was going to be the result that That's kind
of how he ended the episode saying there's been all
this resistance, but probably it's going to get built, and
you know, there's other things that we can learn from
this movement going on into the future. Um But the

(09:12):
new developments that have happened, um I. I did mention
in the episodes how much Enbridge was directly paying cops.
That was something we already knew that what was happening,
But there was an article by The Guardian that really
gave a lot of new information around how much police
involvement there is with like with Enbridge, Like they are

(09:32):
actually coordinating a lot. So overall, Uh, Enbridge has reimbursed
US police almost two and a half million dollars for
arresting and surveying protesters. UM, also paying for like food,
lodging gas. It's like it's they're not not just not
not just paying wages, they're paying like for extra stuff
as well. So at least at least two and a
half million dollars that's been paid from the Canadian oil

(09:55):
company um, you know, including that includes officer officer training, UH,
police patrol routes, surveillance, all this kind of stuff. UM.
The one one interesting thing that was noted in the
article is that the company at Enbridge meets daily with
police officers to discuss intelligence gathering and patrols um. And
when and when Enbridge wants protesters removed, it directly calls

(10:17):
or sends letters to police, so they they actually like
coordinate when to actually get police involved during protests, and
they have at least daily information meetings. The one other
interesting thing besides just directly paying them for food for
you know, training, equipment and the coordination between end Bridge
and people being on the ground, is um how much

(10:37):
that the Enbridge paid for uh like proactive safety patrols
and specific like specific officer surveillance following alleged activists like home,
so they would like trail specific cars for a long
time and try to like do like in person surveillance
on specific people they thought were activists. And all of
this time was paid for by end Bridge and was

(10:59):
being coordinated with Bridge. So it's not just you know,
paying for training, it's not just for paying for equipment.
It's specific surveillance of certain people. And that is I
don't know, that's something that we weren't We did not
really know the depths of that for sure, but it's
pretty it's pretty messed up. I know. We we suspected
some of this coordination before, like when we talked about

(11:20):
police showing up to the Stop Line three camp and
blocking off access to the road. Um, this was at
the same day that drilling under the river was just
being finished, and we so we suspected like, yeah, there's
like Embridges obviously talking with police to prevent people from
leaving so that they can they can finish up this
specific drilling project that was that was pretty obvious to
us at the scene. Um, And now we have you know,

(11:41):
extra confirmation that yeah, they do like meet daily to
coordinate these types of things. Um, so it's good to
have that extrame confirmation of the stuff we already like
suspected and stuff we already kind of like put together
through experience. But now we have like, you know, court
documents and records showing the extent of the coordination. All right,
well we'll talk about terrorism, but you know who else

(12:02):
is a terrorist? Oh boy? The products and services that
support this podcast are all right in a good way,
you know, like um, you know, like uh like a
kind of alright, well, it's it's complicated, all right, Do
ads just run ads stuff? Oh so it will probably

(12:23):
funnier if you bleep out the name of the terrorist organization.
This is how we this is how we pick up
from the ad brancast. You say that. So, um, Garrison,
we got some some critiques that came in to the
old news line, by which I mean people deemed me
on redditch. Yeah. I never respond, Um, I almost never respond.

(12:47):
It's nothing against people. I just don't like being communicated with. Um.
But too many, too many people ask me to send
messages to you and like, yeah, Garrison, you're not I'm
not like, that's not what I'm ricks And welcome to
the last three years of my life. Uh yeah, anyway, Yeah,
I mean, but that's funny, Sophie. Ah. Um. There were

(13:15):
people who were like, hey, I don't know if you
know this, but Earth First has a problematic history with
like eco fascism and that sort of stuff. Just like
that too. Yeah, and it's it's one of those things.
They definitely are an organization that has said things in
the past that I don't agree with. There's been specific
people who do organizing with them that don't have great
beliefs specifically around like you know, a lot of like

(13:37):
in the old Green movements has been you know, a
lot of like transphobia, some like racism. Um. It's it's
not because they're the green movements. Like all left spaces
deal with versions of variety stuff, you know, not like
respecting like indigenous people. Um. You know that that's been
that's been a thing. Um. But the specific term eco

(13:57):
fascism I believe is incorrect um because they don't advocate
for the genocide of a specific group um. And they
don't have like far right populist policies. So like you
can have bad opinions and bad ideas and you can
actually be racist without actually being fascist, especially eco fascist. Um.

(14:18):
So I feel like people throw that word around a
lot and they don't actually know what it means. Um,
But what were you specifically referring to, Robert Um. I'm
trying to find the message here. But because I got
a message saying that Earth First is bad because they're
anti natalists, that means they're fascist, which isn't definitely got that,
which isn't actually like I'm just going to disagree with

(14:39):
that because I don't think anti natalism equits fascism, especially
antien natalism. For like, antenatalism is basically saying, don't don't
make people, maybe we should maybe we should stop having
more kids right now because you have a lot of
problems to deal with and maybe we shouldn't be having like,
you know, three kids, which is it's not a take.
I'm not an anti natalist. I don't actually disagree with

(15:01):
that take though, but I think it's more in the
line of, like, the most fundamental of all human desires
for the majority of the population is to make more people,
which is kind of why I like anti natalism, because
it has that thing that's opposite to one of a
lot of humans natural reaction and like, no one's forcing
anti natalists, don't want to force you to be anti natalist.

(15:23):
Bring up this as an idea, Yeah, and I think
it's a valuable idea to discuss. And I don't think
it's I don't think you're I don't think you're embracing
like the massacre of human beings or Genesis. The way
by saying like, I think it'd be best if we
didn't make anymore not planning a arguable point. I'm not
planning to have any kids because I don't see why it,
especially when there's so many like children that can be adopted. Garrison,

(15:46):
we talked about you having kids so we could experiment
with making them blue. This is a separate conversation that
we're not talking about involving. We are not talking about
this on the plot. Will just include that tantalizing hint.
I also just think in general, when we talk about
a group that's had a long history and a specific

(16:08):
thing they're doing in the present, yeah, this has happened
in another situation, whe people like, well, you know they
did this or some one of them said this. And
there's a couple of things I feel about that. For
one thing, it's it's like it's entirely possible that the
people doing the thing in the present day have nothing
to do with the people twenty years ago. Yeah, like
most of the people out there First Gathering Gathering were
like in their twenties and around my age, Like they

(16:29):
weren't in the they weren't in Earth First Night, Like
that's not like so I feel like silly about kind
of making them be held accountable for something somebody else
said under a similar banner decades ago. And on the podcast,
I talked about how like people on the Earth First
Earth First Gathering like talked about this stuff, like the
people talked about Earth First like history and how they

(16:52):
haven't handled some issues very well. There was a lot
there was a massive effort for this gathering to like
um to like uplift and make sure everyone focuses on
indigenous voices, like they invited over multiple indigenous groups to
give talks on green resistance and like land back like that.
That was a big focus of like making sure that
this actually is something that has hurt because people know,

(17:13):
like this is, yeah, this is something important, this is
something that actually should be done, and there are I
think in general, and we talk about like holding organizations
and individuals accountable for their past. Um, what matters is
like a mix of what they did and what they're doing.
So obviously, if Earth First had been saying twenty years ago,

(17:33):
we need to wipe out all the Jews, I would
be like, I wouldn't care what they were saying. Now,
you know, it would be like, yeah, you can't really
come back from that. If you want to do a
completely different thing, it needs to be a new organization.
But they weren't. And I'm not saying that where I'm
just making an example, but like, as a rule, I
think we should embrace the fact that organizations and people
can change throughout time and be better than they were

(17:54):
in the past, um and and learn from mistakes and flaws.
And I feel pretty unwilling to condemn individuals or organizations
for the mistakes of their past, although that is dependent
upon the kind of mistake and the harm that it cost. Yeah,
and like and how they address it in the futures,
like a lot of these Yeah, because like it wasn't
like the First as an overall organization of specific people

(18:16):
they were affiliated with, like you know, specifically UM like
UM Edward Abbey has said some not great things around
different different different social issues, and his books were extremely
influential on the beginning of green resistance. But that's something
people talk about now, Like that's something that is like
discussed and debated. Um and he was and he was
like even in the eighties and nineties, he was like
kicked out of Earth First gatherings for kind of being

(18:39):
a loser, like for for having these bad views. Were like, yeah,
we probably shouldn't have you here anymore. Leave go away.
So like that was something that was even talked about
back like back then as well. That is that isn't
just a modern thing. Yeah, and I think in general,
number there's a couple of things. Number One, whenever we
talk about like an organization in a specific context they're
doing this, that doesn't mean we're embracing everything they've done.

(19:00):
And number two, whenever we talk about the history of
of of of a movement or a group, I hope
nobody ever takes that as like, here is the authoritative
stance on the history of this thing. Like it's when
we talked about the Black Panthers. There's a bunch of
stuff we left out that's very important. Um My hope
with those episodes, and I hope with anything we do
is that it like inspires people to want to learn

(19:23):
more and read more, and we're giving them a basis
of understanding that they can use to expand their knowledge
on an important topic. So please, we are we are.
There's like one thing, uh collectively that that Garrison and
I have any kind of expertise on, and uh, outside
of that, you should not take anything we say as like,

(19:44):
here's the comprehensive history of of this because it's I
I understand one thing, and it's it's how the internet
makes people shitty. Yeah, so yeah, um yeah, I mean
that that was something that this whole It was something
I thought about when writing these episodes is how much
to include of this stuff? And I did not feel
like it was super important to discuss this stuff because

(20:06):
it wasn't relevant to the topic of stop lines. I
think you didn't something relevant to the topic of like
the current ongoing green resistance. If we want to do
like a history of green activism, then yes, this is
something that that would be that. Yeah, and I think
like at some point we probably should do absolutely about
just like mirror and like all of that ship. But
like that there's a kind of stuff we want to
talk about that we haven't yet because it's a daily

(20:27):
show and my God, give us some fucking time. People
speaking of Edward Abbey, you know what, huh sells quality
monkey wrenches. Okay, alright, that's fine. The maybe one of
our sponsors. It's I hope so as hardware. It's hardware.

(20:47):
As hardware sponsoring us, they do sell. You can get
some good monkey wrenches from Ace Hardware quality for fixing
your faucet, for fixing your faucet. So go get wrench
pilled and then listen to the rest of the show.
Well we're back. We just had a good discussion about
what we're gonna talk about, and we realized that it
wasn't after the ad break, So here we are. Um.

(21:08):
In in early September, we had an episodes about both
California's climate and the ongoing recall election against Gavin Newsom.
So a few days after our episodes dropped, the things
like the day the day the second one dropped was
was election day. Um we we we got the results
in faster than what I was expecting. Um and Uh
Newsome did handily beat uh Larry Elder with like yeah,

(21:35):
so people people voted sixty one no and liket yes.
Uh so he Knewsome did a decent job and pushing
off elder Um. So this, this, this whole recall processed
costed California taxpayers two hundred and seventy six million dollars.

(21:55):
It's not like we needed the money for anything else. Garrison.
Come on, Yeah, so you know a few takeaways. We're
going to spend it on fighters literally anything else. Water
giving California needs water and firefighters. Garrison coming giving houses
to people who need houses. I don't know. Um. Yeah,
so takeaways from this, The recall process still should absolutely

(22:17):
be invented. Yeah, it should require should require more than
twelve signatures at the last voter turnout. Um. And the
government should be requiring to get to if you're if
you're gonna be elected in the government, you should be
required to get a majority of votes. Um. Not not
not just a plurality of a specific you know sect.
So there's the whole we we we we talked about

(22:39):
the specific reasons why it was bad in those episodes.
Those are still those are still like, those are still valid,
those are still relevant because there's still the same issues. Yeah,
and none of the fact that this turned out well
had anything to do with the Democratic Party who very
nearly bungled it. And it and it doesn't it doesn't
really impact. It doesn't impact you know, the Californias climate

(23:00):
issues so much. And like just because new Sims in
office doesn't mean they're going to get much better. You know,
there's still things that he needs to be pushed on
to to you know, make the climate a little bit
more habitable. In the meantime, it it means that we
will continue stumbling towards a cliff. Rather than speak so

(23:21):
generally what voting for Democrats means, I will say, it's
interesting to me that it doesn't seem like you can
get the vote was rigged thing to work unless the
election is like kind of this is the next thing
I was going to talk about. Um, Yeah, because because

(23:41):
like in the week before the election, the Fox News
Republican Party and Larry Elder and even Trump, We're really
starting to ramp up this idea that if Elder loses,
that means the election was rigged. Uh. This was like
they were really pushing this hard and you know, spreading
like they were giving links to a website like before
he lost even to be like, if you know, when
I lose, use this website. I was like, okay, that's okay,

(24:03):
that's weird. Um. But on the night of the election,
Elders seems to kind of claim climb down from the
inflammatory like rhetoric around the election. In his concession speech,
he told supporters, let's be gracious and defeat um. So
he once the actual results were in, he really climbed
that down. So we can read into that. The other
thing I want us to read into here is that

(24:25):
could this could this rhetoric around if we lose, that
means it was rigged? Could that disenfranchise Republican voters from
even showing up if they believe that all elections will
be stolen from them? Well that being that they'll be
less Republican turn out if there's just if they think
that it doesn't matter. So that's the other side of things,
Like I'm not sure if if if the other side

(24:45):
effects that this that this rhetoric could have. Yeah, there's
an interesting So during during the last election like national
election cycle, there is one trement to use people who
weren't voting in Florida, And I thought it was really
interesting because there were there were several people they talked
to who we're like, yeah, I don't vote because last
time I voted was two thousands and they stole the election,
which was literally which which yeah, and and you know

(25:06):
i'd say that, yeah, Like I think it is slightly
different when like two thousands, when actually like literally but
there was there was the bricks like there there there
Roger er Stone, Yeah, Roger Stone led a riot to
stop like the votes from being counted, like whatever, weird Bush.
I think people people got like like a bunch of

(25:28):
people with like vaguely black names got like their names
struck off the like the voting roles. Like there was
a lot of yeah, but yeah, And I don't I
don't know if it'll if it if the effect can
work that strongly when it's like completely bullshit which was,
I think it's yeah, interesting, I don't know. It's it's

(25:49):
hard to say because it's it's it's unclear whether the
voter turnout on the because like you know, there were
times where they were pulling like fifty fifty between between
between newsm an Elder, and it's unclear. I think definitely
the big advertising push that corporate donors gave to Newsom
in the month before the election did help get Democratic

(26:09):
voter turnout, you know, like people voting for new getting
people scared about the governor. That not was not ineffective,
that that very much works. That did increase turn out there,
But I don't know because like with the whole election
being stolen rhetoric, that could both increase Republican voter turnout
and there's also the side effect now where maybe it

(26:30):
could decrease it because they're just disenfranchised about this concept.
But this is kind of just speculation at this point.
I don't have actual data backing up this claim right now.
This is just something that I thought about while running
this right up, I'm like, huh, I wonder if this
could be a contributing factor in the future. People really
I feel like they're always gonna lose. Maybe they just
not not even are going to bother um. But it's
hard to say. It's like, you know, the main reason

(26:51):
why Elder lost wasn't due to newsome strength. That was
because Elder is like, it's completely like he it was
like it was the most yeah, like widely unqualified and
like one of the more extreme candidates like running and yes,
he did get a lot of support among Republicans, but

(27:12):
among moderates and people you know, left of center in
terms of like an American spectrum. Uh, they're like, yeah, no,
this is gonna be a disaster if he gets elected.
And that's the main reason why he didn't. Um, it's
not due to Newsom being great. But I mean, Sophie
did mention a few things that Newsom has done since then.
Um so do do do do you want to say
the specific details just so I don't have to look

(27:34):
famously a big Newsome fans So yeah, not come on.
Uh so not to give news some credit because this
is like an obvious right thing to do situation. But um,
at the beginning of October, the Senate Bill seven was
signed into law. It was an unanimous vote and Newsom

(27:55):
signed off on it to give back Bruce's speech, which
was owned by a black family, Willa and Charles Bruce,
back in their land was illegally taken away from them.
It's a beach front plot in Manhattan Beach. And I
signed into a lot of give it back. Uh that
is I mean, yeah, yeah, more of that should be done.

(28:18):
I mean that it is kind of the basis of like,
you know, that is one side of land back, is
just giving land back to people who used to have it. Yeah,
of course this is this isn't tied to indigenous stuff.
But you know, I've seen people make that same comparison
for like, yeah, we should just be doing this more
in general to a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah, that's
a I'm glad that that was done. It's also now
illegal to remove a condom without consett in California, which

(28:41):
is wait what Yeah, you're going to have to change
a lot of things about how you have sex with Californians. Yeah,
during intercourse, that's the it's the first state to do that,
first of all. Huh. Yeah, and it's wild because under
any reasonable definition, that's rape. Yeah yeah, it's just rap. Yeah,

(29:07):
it's absolutely rape. California also now requires menstral products in
public schools, so that's a bare minimum. And that I
didn't realize that it happened. Yea. And I want to
be clear here, I'm not giving you some credit for this,
but if he had lost the recall ellection, none of
this would be happening. No, it's nice that he I'm
sure some of this was him. Kind of providing a

(29:29):
sop to the people who lined up to stop the recall,
and those are good things that were done. Yeah, And
I think I think that's sort of an important thing
to understand about when politicians occasionally do good things. It's
like they don't do good things because they want to
do them. They they they do things that benefit from

(29:50):
you because they're either in some ways scared of you,
or it's because they need to buy they buy you off,
and and that that is, you know, that is that
is a legitimate way that good things happen. Like, I've
got a couple other Uh, there's been a lot signed
in recently, So I got a couple of other ones
that I that I think are relevant to our show.
California will not streamline extend assisted death law, So that's

(30:12):
that's good. That reduces the time until terminal patients can
choose to be given fatal drugs. So starting January one,
the waiting period required time a patient makes separate oral
request for medication would drop to forty down from the
current minimum fifteen days. That is pretty rad Yeah, I mean,

(30:33):
there's just there's there's a I mean, we'll see if
it's it's hard a lot, there's a lot. It's it's hard,
it's hard to be like worse than Larry Elder. Yeah,
that's this one definitely would not get get through for California.
California Acts, a lot of strip badges from bad officers,

(30:54):
like very vaguely written, is very vague. But yeah, well
we'll see what happens to Like, No, none of the
stuff would have happened under a larial thing. And I
am surprised at like surprised that some of those things
actually got through because I'm I'm surprised that democratic politicians
would actually vote for those things we put office. That's
why I was like basicallyasically like the condom thing. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,

(31:15):
And I was not expecting that to go through some
science legislation to extend to go cocktails. Wait, all right,
that's sure, Okay, more where am I to cocktail heads? Sorry? Alright,
So at least larryl there's not in office. There's still
a lot of climate issues and maybe this rhetoric around

(31:37):
stealing the elections not gonna work every single time they
do it. Um, that's kind of the main that's the
main things that I was going to talk about, and
it is it is. I mean, one of the things
that people are talking about in a lot of the
spaces I generally agree with is like the foolishness of
voting as harm reduction. And there's been a lot of
if you want to believe that it isn't, there's been
a lot of information coming up from the Biden in

(31:59):
a the Ministry ation that will support that belief. Um.
But what we're saying right now in California's group that
can be like the these are not none of this
is going to fundamentally change the major problems that are
confronting us. But but a bunch of those things are
going to, Like life's going to be easier for some
little girls whose families don't have much money. You know,

(32:19):
life got easier for that one family who got their
land back. Um, you know, potentially it's going to be
easier to get bad police officer or to get particularly
bad police officers off the street. And that's not that's
not nothing like when we say voting can be and
I'm not saying that it usually is, but when we
it can reduce harm, that's what it means. It means

(32:41):
that like oh, some bad things that that would be
worse are not as bad because of this, not that
everything is better, A lot of stuff will be the
same and is the same in California, like ecologically, nothing
logically fundically fundamentally changed, but some ships a little easier
for certain groups of people as some stuff and specific specifically,

(33:03):
I think the getting getting more like contraceptive products and
menstrual products inside public schools is one of the literally
the best things we can do, like like for the
whole country. It is like something that if that was
required in every public school, that would make so many
people's lives better a ridiculous degree significantly reduces harm in
a specific way. And I think that just because like, yeah,

(33:25):
I mean, it's not going to stop us all from
burning up, um, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.
So those those are the three stories that I wanted
to give some updates for, um because I know, you know,
there were changes happened, you know, very soon after posting
those episodes. UM. I still think the California ones are
worth listening to because they do lay out a lot
of stuff around around California's climate, UM and the specific

(33:48):
weird stuff that it has with its specific weird things
that has with its election process. Um, I think the
line three episodes are going to be pretty good to
go back to as well. Um, and then uh, I
at the the specific Cop City thing in Atlanta, that
is the stuff that I am. It's gonna be the
most like ongoing thing stills because that's going to be
an ongoing project. So I'm sure we'll come back to

(34:09):
the Cops City at different points throughout the next few months.
So that that that that that's the updates. Um. Any
any any closing notes from either Christopher, Robert or Sophie. Yeah,
just just I do well excuse me, okay, sorright Sophie. Sorry,
just I just just remind him we've said this earlier
in the episode that like we're just giving you brief

(34:33):
brief sniffets about this stuff. There's a lot there's a
lot of really good articles online that go go deep
into these things, and we'll post our sources on the website. Yep, yeah, yeah,
we we we we do. We do a good job
I think most of the time. Yes, yes, but we
were great. Yeah, we're we're the only heroes. That's fair
to say, absolutely, But do you do not have a

(34:56):
podcast be the only source of information absolutely lot of
things like don't listen to if you think more of
a of a left perspective, that is that that goes
in some directions we don't. It's going down. Is a
lovely place to check out Margaret Killjoy's um uh live

(35:17):
Like the World Is Dying. St Andrew's YouTube channel. Um
he does some some really incredible stuff. Um. You know,
there's all sorts of good people out there. And then
also like history books more than anything, like history books,
history books for the thing that radicalized me. Yeah, if
you want to read more about the new sub notable
laws signed recently, the k c r A and Sacramento

(35:41):
did A did a really good breakdown article. Oh sorry,
so it it's okay. And and as a note, we
will be doing more episodes like this over time, as
like stories that we cover have additional things happen to them.
This is like we don't want to just be like
dropping a story and then ignore whatever happens next. Um.

(36:02):
Sometimes that don't mean following up with people that we're
talking to on the ground, but you know, we are
trying to like keep you updated on the things that
we think are important, you know, even when they end
uh in a in a broadly positive sense or whatever.
And uh, lastly, what was the name of that brisket
place in Atlantic, because I'm sure people are gonna ask
about it. Oh, I don't remember. It was some shitty

(36:23):
little place in the middle of South Atlanta. Um and
like a fucking strip mall that was really helpful. I
don't remember. So if it was like eleven years ago,
what do you I don't remember the best brisket you've
ever had, and it was but the best. Like if
you know anything about good barbecue, the best barbecue you
ever have is either cooked by like your uncle or

(36:44):
is cooked in some shitty little place with a diastern
that wouldn't pass a code inspection. That is true that
the more the more codes it violates, the better than bisket. Um. Anyway,
if you see the chef actively ship on the grill,
that means just going to be incredible. Jesus Christ, Twitter
and Instagram, what happened here? Poticles out media? Subscribe to

(37:04):
the feed and leave a five star review. That's it.
Don't don't don't shoot on your brisket grill on everything?
Alrighty Garrison, is that good? Is that the show? No?

(37:34):
Just keep going? Though Okay, well it could happen. Here
is the show that A tonal noise is my introduction
this week because I'm a hack in a fraud. Who
isn't a hack in a fraud? Is is our guest
this week. St Andrew. St Andrew, you are a solar
punk anarchist from Trinidad. Um. You have a YouTube channel,

(37:58):
UM where you talk about solar punk. Um you talked
about stuff like seed bombing. Yeah. I'm just very excited
to have you on the show because I'm a big
fan of YouTube channel. Thank you, glad to be here,
big fan of your work as well, Andrew. I kind
of wanted to start with why this Why solar punk
is important? Because, um, I think it's easy for folks

(38:20):
who just kind of skim it to see it. It's
just like, oh, it's an aesthetic. It's maybe an art
style or a fiction style. UM. Maybe something that's neat,
but not something that has like a lot of inherent
value to people trying to change the world. And obviously
you disagree with that. I disagree with it to UM.
A quote I keep coming back to again and again
is one from Werner Herzog in the nineteen seventies and

(38:41):
it was something along the lines of I think that
without better myths, were destined to go the way of
the dinosaurs. Um. Actually of I forget his name right now,
But there's this excellent, excellent book called The Truth About Stories,
and I think what it really emphasizes is throwing the
book is the importance of stories, on how stories impact

(39:04):
how we navigate the woot, which is why I sort
of embraced the punk you know, as a story that
we can work with green forward. Yeah, I think, Um,
I think it's incredibly important to have better stories, better
myths because for one thing, I think where the Left
falls down a lot is not having is accurately diagnosing

(39:27):
the problems without providing a better look at at the
at the future, you know. Um. And when the problems
are when the people who do kind of propose solutions,
it's often um not in a way people can feel.
One of the benefits that that that the right has,
that fascism has, is that they they're very good at

(39:49):
providing people with myths and providing people with kind of
a fictional look at at their idealized world that draws
people in. You know, you can laugh at the right
you know, they have lot of people that work on
like meta narratives and that's very, very core to their ideology. Um, So,
I guess where I'd like to start with you, Andrew,

(40:10):
because this is kind of the first time I think
we've really talked about solar punk on on this show,
even though from the beginning before any of these episodes dropped,
this was always a central part of our discussion about
what the show was was going to be. Um, would
you kind of provide an introduction to to what solar
punk is for our listeners? Sure? Sure, So I would

(40:33):
say that solar punk is a vision of the future
that places emphasis on the existing world and how we
get to that future from where we are now. So
it emphasizes the need for environmental sustainability, for self governance,
and for a toronomy and social justice. It emphasizes the
need for you know, human and ecocentric ends to really

(40:58):
be in sync, and it aims to really heal the
current rift between humanity and Nietzsche. It also recognizes, of course,
that there isn't this binary between climate change happens and
climate change doesn't happen. Rather, it understands that how we
navigate it, we Uh, have a variety of consequences and

(41:24):
some of the positive, some of the negative, but it's
up to us to really shape that. Yeah, and it's UM.
I want to drill into a couple of facets of that.
But I want to quickly plug one of your YouTube
videos for folks who kind of want a more involved
um explanation and background. You have a video called what
is solar Punk on your channel Saint Andrewism like Andrew

(41:46):
I s m UM that I think is a fantastic
introduction not just to like the aesthetics of solar punk,
but some of the practical some of the practical kind
of expressions of it. And and two of the ones
you lists like examples of here's here's what this is
is like actual practis you know, and not just an
aesthetic is seed bombing um. And then you talk about

(42:07):
this this very interesting kind of like terra Cotta air conditioning,
which I think is I think it's neat because it's
it's one of the problems that I think with kind
of some versions of of of particularly kind of on
the more liberal end of of of solar punk imagining
is just sort of like ways of replacing um, ways

(42:27):
of gaining the same kind of consumptive benefits that exist,
I guess not even not even like greenwashing, right, greenwashing.
Like here, let's get the same consumptive benefits we get scrapers, yes, skyscrapers,
the same level of consumerism, same level of you know,
destructive extractive practices. But we have some flowers and some trees.

(42:50):
So yeah, and that's not enough. But at the same time,
there are things that aren't. Like air conditioning is contributes
massively to climate change. It's also not a luxury. Like
if you live in a place where it's a hundred
and twenty degrees a lot of the summer, that's not
a luxury. Yeah, this is going from someone in a
tropical country. Yeah, definitely a necessity. Yeah, So I wonder

(43:13):
if you could talk about kind of those two, I mean,
or if you have different ones you'd like to pick,
but just kind of what you see is sort of
the practice expressions of solar punk, sort of beyond the aesthetic,
although we're going to drill into the aesthetics some too,
because I also think that's important. Right, So, I think
some of my favorite manifestations of the punk in a
practical context, things like um, gorilla gardening. Grilla gardening is

(43:36):
probably the biggest one because it's one that someone could
literally pick up and do today or tomorrow, you know,
as soon as they hear about it, doing about it.
Just get some clay, get some seeds, you know, and
put those things together. Then as you're walking home or
walk into the store, just toss them wherever there some
free dude. UM. So that's a fun one. There's also,

(43:59):
of course things like little bit one involved, like community
gardening and particularly forest gardening, because that will provide a
level of food autonomy and agency for people who have
been healing it for a long time from the process
of food production. UM. They're also practices like compassing or

(44:22):
corpach ng and it's like a way to produce lumber
without chopping down a whole set of trees, so you
are able to get the wood from the trees, but
the tree remains alive. UM. There's also things like, of
course solar powered technology, whether it be algae based UM

(44:48):
windows that you know extract energy from the sun, or
solar sales or solar ovens uh or like the terra
cotta deconditioning, which, by the way, I learned recently contrary
work in a human environment. Yeah, but yeah, there are

(45:09):
a lot of difference opportunities there also there are things
like you know, tool shares and make up spaces and
seed libraries, all different ways to sort of bring it
into fruition that is. Yeah, and I uh, I think
a lot of that's really valuable. UM. I'm interested in

(45:32):
in parts sort of your your attitude on UM what
let me think about how to phrase this, UM, what
do you think are kind of the things as we
talk about sort of the things that can be at
least potentially replaced UM with with less extract of less

(45:53):
consumptive methods. Is sort of an example of solar punk
practice is replacing those things. There's also things that we're
not going to be able to have if we actually
want to live in a more sustainable UM future that
that doesn't contribute to some of the nightmares that we're
all going to be increasingly facing. UM. You're you know,

(46:14):
and again, I think it's it's telling that so much
of kind of the future fantasies of that are written
by people who come from you know, my part of
the world. United States focus on like kind of post
scarcity methods of of guaranteeing the continuation of consumption just
through in some cases like fantastic methods um you know,

(46:35):
magical three D printers and the like. Um, you come
from a very different part of the world, very different perspective,
what do you see as the things that like, we're
going to have to give up? Coming from a country
that is actually reliant on oil and natural gas production,
we have to get rid of cause we definitely absolutely

(46:55):
have to get rid of cause um free to ships
as well, and really the whole way that you know,
global supply chains are structured right now. Not to say
that they won't be any sort of global um sharing
of resources in the future, but the way that it's
happening right now, it can't continue to go on. We

(47:18):
can't continue to structure our cities and our lives around
cause you know, and other methods of gas guzzlin transportation
because we're literally going to run out. And we've known
this for a long time, but it's nearing. The day
is nearing, CLUSI and clusa, and yeah, we we have

(47:40):
to find a way to do without it. Yeah, and
it's it's I think tell like, there's a couple of
things that are important. One of them is you can't
just say we have to stop global trade because in
global travel, because the people have have sought and done
that for as long as there have been people in
one form or another. It's it's a fundamentally human thing.

(48:03):
But there are aspects of it, like you know, expecting
that every kind of fruit and vegetable will be available
year round, which is certainly thing that we in the
United States expect. Um. That doesn't that that's not part
of a realistic future. Um. And if it's part of
the future, then it's only going to be part of
the future for an ever shrinking chunk of of the country.
And you can see that in sort of um or

(48:25):
of the of the West, and you can see that
in kind of um the like what we're dealing with
right now with like the supply line shortages and failures,
and like one of the I think the symbols of
how far we have to go in my country is
the degree to which people are freaking out by the
fact that Christmas presents might be late. Um. Let alone
being like, yeah, you might not be able to buy coffee,

(48:46):
um um ever, or all the time you know, you
might not be able to get tomatoes in December. Um,
which UM, I think one benefits too for the gattening.
And that's what's in my inset is as you learn
to so you also learn to reap. Right. So a
lot of people who get into grilla gardening also end

(49:07):
up getting into foraging, and they are absent stuff you
could download that allow you to, you know, learn how
to identify plants in your area. And we surprise the
number of plants in your area that are you know,
useful for tease or for salads or for whatever purposes
that can be used as replacements. I'm not sure if

(49:29):
they could replace coffee, but they could be beneficial, um,
in recognizing how we have to live with our local ecosystems. Basically, yeah,
and a big you know, when you talk about living
learning how to live with our ecosystem stuff like planting
um forest gardens and the like or food forest I

(49:51):
think is the term. UM. I think something that has
to be discussed is the matter of indigenous sovereignty, especially
when we're talking about you know, it's not just you know,
North America, a lot of chunks of the globe indigenous
people had spent you know, in some cases thousands of
generations setting forests up in order to sustainably produce food. Um.

(50:17):
And when when colonialism arrived, that was often just seen
as like, oh, this is this is these are wild
places for us to for us to extract or tear
down and replace with monoc cultures, you know, single crops. Um.
And so a big part of actually building back that capacity,
the capacity of us to to survive off of the

(50:37):
food that can sustainably grow where we live is is
looking back to those indigenous methods and and also um,
you know, giving back land in a lot of cases, um.
And yeah, that's something you talk about in your videos
that I think is really important to um to to
to to explain to people. Yeah, I mean there's there

(51:00):
really is no way to separate the violance and oppressive
institution of clunealism with the equosido Nietzsche of modern states.
You know, those two are deeply intertwined, deeply married together.
And so you can't fight climate change without addressing the

(51:21):
issue of severeignty of indigenous sergnity and land back. Yeah.
It's um, it's really interesting. I've been I've been up
hunting on mountain Hood with a friend who is who
went to school for like forestry management. And as we
were driving way to drive through a chunk of the
reservation in order to get to the BLM land where

(51:41):
we're able to hunt, and he pointed it out, and
once he did, it was immediately obvious just how different
the land under indigenous control looked from the land, you know,
just feed away that was being managed by the federal
government in terms of like how much better the forest
management was, how much how much smarter it was it
was managed in order to reduce the chances of like

(52:03):
a ladder fire that that actually kills you know, the
trees and whatnot. There's this whole thing blowing up on
Twitter right now where you've got a chunk of Marxists
tour are trying to frame land back as uh, just
like shifting ownership of resources, which I think is really
missing the point. But I find interesting about Twitter is

(52:26):
the exact same discourses are repeated over and over and
over again. So I remember this exact conversation happening around
this time last year, around April last year, um earlier
this year as well. It's just the same discourses get
recycled over and over again, and it's reach a point
for me I realized that these people don't want to

(52:48):
learn about land back or what it really means because
they are invested in the structure as it exists and
they don't want to have to interrogate that. So, Yeah,
this will out to be an interesting thing of knowing. Yeah,
and it's UM, it's it's it's frustrating. UM. I guess

(53:10):
that that acts as like a general uh description of
Twitter discourse, but certainly does. Yeah. I think it's I
think it's telling the degree to which people, even on
the left treat it as a fantasy as opposed to
dogged lye pragmatic um and and proven so like proven

(53:33):
by like like you know, like you can read you
in reports that will that will essentially say land back
in the space of a five page you know, study
on how indigenous land management functions a great deal better
than UM than a lot of the stuff that's like
centralized by the federal government, where we're like, our federal
government is terrible at land management. UM, And it's part

(53:54):
of the it's part of the problem. I think one
of the things that that excites me about solar punk
as anesthetic and idea is getting back to this relationship
with the land as opposed to talking about just preserving
it um as talking about managing it. Because because none
of our none of the land that people live on
is like wild in the sense that people mean it

(54:16):
as it's been cultivated. And that's that's the thing, right.
The whole philosophy of you know, um land preservation as
was taken up by the US government with the whole
um you know, you can stop forest fires kind of
thing ended up leading to more forest fires downline, because

(54:36):
they we have a rule in the ecosystem not just
there to stand back from a far and to observe it.
So we don't do our part to manage the underbrush
and whatnots and clear to we and exercise you know,
controlled fires, but we end up in the situation we're
in today, you know, cultivation not just sterile preservation. Now.

(54:59):
One of the things that you talk about well because
because one of the more frustrating discourses this is not
just a Twitter thing, this has been going on for years,
is the discourse around GMO crops. And usually I would say,
like the two most commonly heard sides are GMOs are
bad because you know, monsanto cancer whatever, or GMOs are good.

(55:19):
Um end end thought. Um. And the thing that you
point out, which is I think the accurate take is GMOs.
The preponderance of evidence says that, like, there's nothing inherently
dangerous about genetically modified crops, but the way in which
they're often used in order to create these massive mono
cultures is really toxic. So there's a lot of promise

(55:41):
um for GMOs in terms of keeping our our existence
on this planet sustainable. But what's not sustainable is the
kind of industrialized agriculture where you have ten thousand acres
of one thing which just doesn't happen in nature exactly exactly.
And if you look at how genetic modification and to
please prior to you know, all advanced funds in genetic

(56:03):
modification technology, um, I'm not so how many people are
familiar with the dozens upon dozens, if not hundreds of
varieties of just corn that were present in the Americas
prior to colonization. A lot of those varieties were wiped
out or was suppressed in fear of these mono cultures.
But if we're able to culturally diversity of these crops

(56:26):
and really bring some of them back through jestic modification,
that would really help us with, you know, food resilience
in a world with an increasingly unpredictable climate. Yeah, yeah,
I think that. I mean, I think you said it perfectly.
I want to move back to kind of what I
introduced the episode with, which is talking about the value

(56:48):
of of fiction and myth making in a in a
very pragmatic sense. I guess I'll start by saying, I
think one of the clearest signs of the danger that
we're in and how toxic our society has gotten. Um
And I am speaking from a primarily US centric standpoint here,
but I don't think it's unique to the United States.
Is the extent to which trust me um as as

(57:10):
the saying is when the US sneeze, So anytime there's
some phenomenon happening in the US, there are the coffee cuts.
And I do think this is pretty global. I mean,
you see it in like South Korean films and all over.
What you're going to say, yeah, the obsession with apocalypse

(57:31):
and when we when we go to the future, it's
always a dystopia. Um. There's a degree to which we've
almost forgotten how to imagine utopia, or even not just utopia,
just a way of living that is an improvement in
a lot of ways of future that's better. We've forgotten
to do both utopian fiction and any just kind of
like positive fiction in a lot of ways, because yeah,

(57:53):
it's understandable because the world is kind of terrible right
now in a lot of in a lot of ways.
But there's also that's been utopie being fiction inside other
terrible worlds as well. I think just the modern interconnected
media sphere has really rewarded this type of like dystopian
and collapse based apocalypse fiction. Yeah, and I'm sure that's
that's worth interrogating. Why but it is a problem that

(58:15):
needs to be solved. Yeah, and it is. And and
you're I think it's important. It's not entirely based in
how fucked up things are, because like when the first
Star Trek came out, we were at like the height
of the Cold War. Things were terrible. There was a
lot of utopian fiction during World War Two. During World
War two, UM, I will always be impressed by the
fact that Gene Roddenberry saw it as incredibly important both

(58:38):
to be like, Okay, well in the future, like in
the middle of the civil rights movement, in the future,
we will have overcome like racism, but not just that,
but like I'm gonna I'm gonna stick a Russian on
the bridge too, because nations are going to end as
a concept and like this stuff won't matter, um, and
that just that kind of utopian fiction, at least at

(59:00):
this at the scale of popularity that you know, Star
Trek wasn't its time just isn't present anymore. And I
that's tremendously worrying to me. And I see a lot
of hope in in Solar Punk for that, um. And
I guess for starters, I'm interested in in your thoughts
on this, and you're interested in Andrew, what you think
is like the pragmatic value of of of positive a

(59:24):
fiction that that that imagines a better world. Yes, so
I've done probably I think I've done like two videos
on Sola Punk soufar Um, two major videos on Sula Punk,
as well as a smaller video two other smaller videos. Um.

(59:46):
And what I've seen in the comments and in the
general social media reaction again and again is sol the
Punk saved my life. You know, Sola Punk has given
me hoop. You know, I was slipping into the spare,
but this video really give me a jump start to
try something new and to start a fresh and to

(01:00:06):
pursue action as opposed to justest lying down and taking
whatever comes next, and that that is it for me.
You know, I think the fact that sulapunk offers like
an energizing vision. It's not just a vision, it's an

(01:00:26):
energizing vision because in every step with the way, it
shows what you can do. You know, when you show
when you look at sula punk art or um, you
look at the small but growing genre of sulapunk literary media,
or you know, you look at but there's don't have

(01:00:47):
many silopunk video games right now, but hopefully there will
be in the future. When you look at the various
forms of silopunk media that are coming out and people's
responses to them, you see that it's not like as
all mentioning like Star Trek, where it's all this far
out technology that we can only aspire to for now.

(01:01:09):
You know, sol the punk is something that you can
literally put in your backyard or your balcony or your home,
or your school or your community. You know, you could
put these things in place like from now, you know,
and you can incorporate it into your politics as you know,
as they are, and they could also help to push
your politics forward, you know, because through solar punk, we

(01:01:31):
can open up discussions about Okay, so how do we
ensure that people live comfortably within the parameters of you know,
the Earth's carrying capacity? You know, you open up a
discussions about indigenous sovereignty, you discussions about, um, the relationship

(01:01:52):
between the google North and the global South, and responsibility
with regard to our response to climate change. Well, you
open up a lot of different discussions through the realm
of sulla punk. It energizes people, as I said, and yeah,
I think that is its progmatic purpose. It doesn't stand alone,

(01:02:13):
of course, but it is a driving force. Yeah. Would
you kind of give out a list of if people
are you know, if this is someone's first introduction to
the concept of solar punk, what is some reading you
want to draw people towards. What are some fiction like
I know you mentioned The Dispossessed by Laguin, right, um,

(01:02:36):
which often gets cited. Um. Yeah, I'm interested in kind
of other other recommendations you might have for our listeners.
Are that right? So? Um, I'm still getting into the
genre myself. So I don't have too many UM recommendations.
There are some UM decent short story collections UM like
sun Vaults by a couple of different authors. They as

(01:03:00):
well so multi species Cities, so the punk urban futures UM.
And the one I read most recently was Ecotopia, which
is quite as much older than all the others. It's
actually a book that was published in the UM and

(01:03:20):
not all aspects of its politics things I agree with,
but I think for a first UM it was one
of the really the first of its kind in that
sort of eco utopian genre that really laid out what
the society would look like. UM. The book is structured

(01:03:42):
in a series of novel entries and notebook reports by
a journalist from the United States who has gone to
this country called Ecotopia, which is sort of where the
Pacific Northwest States are, and he's basically breaking down he's
going to different parts of the country and breaking down

(01:04:02):
how they have lived and how they have decided structure
their lives. UM. And even though not every aspect of
it is one that I would want to see implemented,
I still think that it really sparks the imagination, really

(01:04:22):
gets you thinking, well, maybe I wouldn't do it this week,
but how else could this be done? And I think
the capacity for sulpunk stories suggest generate that thought and
generate one's imagination is very useful in a world where
we don't really get to use our imagination as much,
not really since childhood, you know. And um, yeah, I

(01:04:51):
I think it's often understated the degree to which using
your imagination is vitally necessary part of actual a radical politics. Um.
And I think there's a lot of people who consider
themselves radicals, you know, some of these some of these
not to you know, slam every Marxist Leninist on the planet,

(01:05:12):
but certainly some of the ones who were coming up
with these bad faith criticisms of land back. It's like,
you're not a radical, You're a conservative who wants to
go back to a different kind of problematic thing. Um.
It is more the fact that the Soviet Union poisoned
like the largest body of water in Europe. You know,
all the different things that the Soviet Union did that
were horrible for the environment and extractive. And it's interesting that,

(01:05:35):
you know, these people who call themselves radicals, but the
very foost um encounter with a radical idea, their fuost
instinct is to shut down. The whost instinct is to
just pushed back against it, whereas not to my own

(01:05:56):
corn or anything. But you know, when I see an
idea that I haven't encountered before that may seem strange
to me, that challenges my precontinutions, my first reaction is
not to shout about how this goes against everything then
and said, you know, my first reaction is to investigated

(01:06:18):
and to open space for it in my mind, to really,
you know, tune it around and imagine what it might
look like and how it might fit with what I
have learned about before. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, I mean I
think that's that's that's great advice for radical politics. It's

(01:06:39):
also just good life advice, Yeah, especially for engaging with
ideas that you are less keen on at the moment
or or or just unaware of. H I mean, my
whole thing is if I have like a strong gut
reaction to something, it might be because it may be
hitting a pot of me that might be benefiting from

(01:07:05):
that system, you know. I mean, I don't benefit from
the system in a lot of respects, you know, as
a black guy from the Caribbean, but as a man
as in as a c SIS headman, you know, I
do have privileges that I must be aware of, and
I can't just like be so quick to shut down

(01:07:27):
you know, something that might even a bit uncomfortable. You know, yeah,
I think that's such a valuable thing to keep in mind,
especially as a a more or less SIS white guy
like a you know, a significant number of people listening
are if you're uncomfortable by a new idea? Is it?
Is it because the idea is bad? Or is because
it strikes at an area in which you may not

(01:07:49):
even have, like thought about being privileged, Like I'm I'm
uncomfortable I have even though there's no I have no
intellectual argument against it, with the idea of of INDI
our use of cars as they exist, because I love
I love to drive. But that's also heavily rooted in
in in tremendous privilege on my behalf, um a culture,

(01:08:11):
and so yeah, and um, you know, we we we
we did talk about that a bit and the opening
episodes of season two, the idea that like a more
you know, when we we kind of had our little
utopian ending, the idea that like, well, maybe you'd have
a car that's communally owned and used for certain tasks.
But you know, the idea of of of car culture
as the center of a city is um is death.

(01:08:35):
It's just death. When we talked about getting past cars,
is not to say that like people will never use
vehicles that move again, Like obviously we will. They're necessary
for something and all going back to horse drawn buggies.
I think one of the last things on like solar
punk and kind of tying into the whole kind of
nature of the shows, I really liked enter your point
on like how solar punk is like an energizing force

(01:08:57):
and I feel like we have very few of those
on the left and especially on the anarchist left. Um,
Like i've i've, i've, i've, I've had my decent stint
of like anarcho nihilism. And the problem, like the problem
with that is like it's very easy, Like anarcho nihilism
is one of the easiest ideologies to grasp onto because

(01:09:20):
it solidifies all of your bad feelings. Um. But it
also it's most the people who I know who are
like real into anarch nihilism, they're generally not very happy
people because it's kind of it's kind of miserable all
the time. Um, and sure they like scoff at like
solar punk is like some like greenwashed yogurt commercial, like

(01:09:42):
you know, like utopian thing, but also like it's actually
lots of solar punk that we've talked about. It's like
actually about doing specific things, Like it's actually like actually
going to do something rather than just being an insurrecto
kid um or just just you know, talking about nihilist
znes and books on Twitter for all day. And I
think one of one of your one of my favorite

(01:10:03):
videos of yours is your video on the psychology of
collapse UM, because I think that's one of my favorites
as well. It's it's, it's, it's it's it's really just
like a masterpiece. And how deep you get into every
different type of collapse thinking. It's not just on the rights,
not not not not on the left, it's not just
whether you're you know more you know, anarchist, more authoritarian,

(01:10:25):
it's like you get into every specific type of thinking
that plays into this idea around collapse. And I think
if I recommend everyone check out your channel, especially watching
your solar punk videos, but specifically on the topic of
collapse you know, part of our show we were trying
to kind of be a little bit like anti collapse UM.
And I think your your video really shows the depth
of that topic, UM and how to approach this, because

(01:10:48):
collapse is a feeling, like it's a feeling we all have,
and it needs to be interrogated. And I think your
video is just a magnificent job interrogating that feeling, right,
thank you. I can't over emphasize how important that is,
because I I one of the major failings. There were
a number of victories for kind of anarchist thought, particularly
within the United States during the the insurrection last year,

(01:11:12):
one of its tremendous defeats is that it has become
characterized in a huge number of people's eyes as breaking
windows and and starting fires um. And yeah, that's a
lot of that is because the media is trash, um,
and it's trash it reporting on on all of this stuff.

(01:11:32):
But some of it is because a lot of people
have let that be their primary praxis UM. And that again,
I don't care about people breaking windows, I don't care
about people lighting dumpster fires. But if that's what you're
presenting to the world as your practice, that doesn't appeal

(01:11:53):
to people, and you have to um, because yeah, anarchism
is not just destructive, it is also construct Yeah, the
constructive part we need to be boosting more than And
there were some, you know, from the context of Portland's,
some really strong examples of that last year. The incredible
amount of mutual aid that was was put together afraid
of time. Yeah, during the fire relief was was incredible. UM.

(01:12:15):
And the Red House, the the eviction defense occupation was
a really good repost to you know, the disaster that
was the Chaz in Seattle. That this was like, this
was an area that was temporarily autonomous from the police,
that did not collapse into violence, that succeeded in its goal,
and that cleaned up after itself and presented an option
for people like this is how it can look when

(01:12:37):
we try to evict people. You know, this is what
can happen. UM. So I think they're I don't want
to like be too negative, but I think that a
lot of folks because of for a variety of reasons,
you know, the there's been so much focus on kind
of the insurrection, not even that because I think that
building can be insurrectionist. I think that can be can

(01:13:01):
be profoundly insurrectionists. It's like, destruction has an immediate result
of making you feel better, right, it has an immediate
of endorphins and hormones. It makes you happy when you
do it. It's it's it is, it is an exhilarating act,
and you feel like you're accomplishing something. What's harder is
to like have that same feeling by doing seed bombing, right,
but by actually like improving your community slowly through these

(01:13:24):
types of like so the park ideas, they don't have
the same immediate emotional reactions. So a lot of people
like when they you know, think about what insurrection is,
they can a default to this destructive tendency, which destruction
has its time and place. Um, but if that's your
only practice, we're not gonna improve the world at all,
Like right, that's that's not going to do anything helping

(01:13:46):
through you know, giving out food, helping through giving out
socks and clothes, helping through all of these solar punk ways.
These are things that actually like are going to improve
things on a tangible level, and they and they're gonna
make more people be like, oh hey, what what are
these anarchists doing? That's actually interesting versus Oh, what are
these anarchists are doing? This is stupid? Ignore everything they say. Yeah,

(01:14:07):
people have to remember as well that, Um, you know,
there's seeds a sort of funk in Kirp Hootkins writ
things you know, from the conquest of bread to mutual aid,
and those are sort of things that should be just
as emphasized as the destructive, exhilerating aspects of anarchism. Yeah.
There's a line in a Frank Turner song, a couple

(01:14:28):
of lines actually in a song called nineteen thirty three
that I go back to a lot, But one of
them is you can't fix the world of all you
have is a hammer. And that's I guess what I
see is like the primary practical benefit of solar punk,
just as an aesthetic as a piece of fiction, is
getting people to expand their toolbox. Yeah, get yourself a trowel,

(01:14:52):
you know, some some screwdrivas, you know. Yeah, keep the hammer,
you need that sometimes too, But what's grab some other tools?
Expand the toolbox thing isn't really great metaphor type of thing. Yeah, yeah, Um,
I think that's most of what we're going to get
into today. Um, there's a couple of pieces of things

(01:15:12):
I would want to read. One of them Isn't. This
isn't directly I think it predates the solar punk, but
it it I think feeds into some of what I
think it emotionally feeds into a lot of we're talking
about here. It's an essay from David Graber called The
Shock of Victory UM, which I think is really useful
to me. Yeah. Um, And I would also recommend um.

(01:15:36):
Corey doctor O's new fiction novel walk Away Um, which
I think is a really wonderful piece, was a wonderful,
wonderful book. I should have included my recommendations. It was
really great. Yeah. I read it recently and it made
me Um. It made me feel the way like as
a fiction writer that a good piece of fiction should,

(01:15:56):
which is like I felt bad, Uh, felt bad about
some of the things that I had written. Because there's
there's there's such there's so much more courage because I
wrote a piece of fiction that has some solar punk elements,
has some quasi utopian elements in the dystopia, but I
didn't have the courage to kind of go as far
as as Corey did and to imagine a kind of

(01:16:19):
passivism that he he has the courage to kind of
put into the into the hands of his his protagonists.
Like I, I I really respect that about the book.
I mean, the book goes in something very interesting eye
directions as well, but it's it's got some great ship um.
And I always enjoy Corey's Corey's leve of burning man

(01:16:41):
um of what it could be as kind of what
the what what some of it's turned into. But yeah, um, Andrew,
is there anything else you wanted to get into before
we we close this out? I just want to remind
people to check on your friends. M you know, um,
we're all going through various stages of collapse. As I

(01:17:04):
outlined in my video. You know, we shift between them
from time to time, so try not to go through
it alone. You know, there's no there's no eye in
Sula Punk. Yeah yeah, um check out st Andrew on
YouTube at st andrews Um. Um, Andrew, is there any

(01:17:26):
anything else you wanted to kind of plug from your
own your own personal work. Yeah? So, um, other than
the you know, the Sula Punk videos and the collapse videos,
I want to remind sorry, rather I want to shout
out my video on black anarchism. I think that is

(01:17:46):
a pretty essential look into, uh the history of black
anarchism in the United States and in the world. I
also want to recommend um my video on the psychology
the authoritarianism. I know a lot of people have family
members who are conservative or on the right, it will
may be leaning fascist, and I think that can be

(01:18:09):
helpful for you know, helping them to or rather helping
you to understand where they mindset sade m hm. And also,
you know, check out my video on puma let sing.
I think that was a pretty fun one as well.
It breaks down a lot of it break breaks down
how you can go about implementing food forests or puma

(01:18:33):
culture gardens wherever you find yourself. Awesome, Um, thank you
very much for being on the show. Andrew, thank you
all for listening. We'll be back tomorrow or if this
comes out Friday, we'll be back, you know, another day.
We'll be back at some point. You know, you know
how this works. You understand podcasts ahcast. All right, Chris,

(01:19:09):
you go, so welcome, Welcome to it could happen here
a podcast that I think for the first time is
just me and Robert. This is this is the very
first time that this is happening. You're you're all here
at a moment of legendary significance and historic importance. So
try to try to face it with the requisite all

(01:19:30):
that's all I ask, yes, And another thing that, man,
this is a terrible transition. Something else we're facing with
requisite awe is weird shortages of goods and price increases.
M So it's fucking rad. I was just at the
Asian market today, um, and they did not have the

(01:19:51):
snack chips that I most prefer now officially a calamity. Um,
we've entered crisis of historic proportion. Yeah, I think I
don't think we're going to live through this one. Nope,
we're doing We can't look at that without the action
snack chips Like it's the ones that are like they're
like pieces of seaweed, but that have been tempered, fried
and temper a batter's completely out tragic, absolutely tragifying. I

(01:20:17):
think there's a couple of things. I mean, you've got
a script, so I'll probably just let you do that
in the not too distant future. But one of the
things that's frustrating to me, although maybe it shouldn't be,
because I'm probably partly responsible for this, is that this
is being um this is often kind of being talked
about with by people online, is like, oh, it's a
sign that like society is crumbling. And what they mean

(01:20:39):
by that is that like, oh, well, we just don't
have stuff, like we're we're not able to like keep
up with with demand and like the ability to produce
these things is crumbling. And it's actually much more complex
than that and a lot less rooted in a lack
of specific resources and more decisions made under capitalism about
how the supply chain would work. And it's I don't know,

(01:20:59):
I think it's important because it is you can say
it still is like a situation where this is an
example of the system falling apart. But it's not falling
apart because we don't have the paper to make toilet
paper with. It's falling apart because decisions were made in
order to increase the stock prices of companies by reducing
the amount of products that they kept on hand. And

(01:21:20):
that's led to an incredibly fragile system that that did
nothing well but maximize profits. And I think, well, okay,
I think there's there's there's a couple of things with
that that we should talk about. Yeah, because there's a
lot of different explanations they're floating around for why is happening,
and I think some of them are good, but I
think a lot of them are missing part of the story.

(01:21:40):
And I think it's important because Okay, so, like like
my grandma like called me yesterday, like like called our
family to like talk about the supply chain problem because
someone had like she'd been like fed a conspiracy theory
that like the shortages were because American dock workers like
didn't want to open containers from China. Uh yeah, it's

(01:22:01):
like yeah, like I mean this is not that's not right,
But it's not like if that had happened, it would
be like, well, okay, that does scan like yeah, and
I think yeah, and like I think this is this
is a moment where yeah, you know, okay, think think
things are not working how they're supposed to you. And
there's a lot of sort of competing stories about it,
one which because on which are bad. And I think

(01:22:23):
most of the conventional accounts and whereber it was talking
about this, uh you know, even the really good ones,
they start with sort of the eighties Wall Street takeover
of corporate America and the transformation of sort of all
corporate management into an attempt to like raise short term
stock prices. And you know, part of this is lead
in production and this is true, and this is sort
of true, but dismisses about half of the story. And

(01:22:46):
and the part of the story that it misses that's
really important, I think is the sort of it's it's
the broader like frame in which all of this is
happening in is essentially the worry of how the working
class essentially loses the class war in the six season seventies.
And weirdly, it's also a story about the Cose boomerang.

(01:23:09):
Yeah yeah, Dan Long, throw in, throw in, the music
clip that we've all decided is going to be the
one we put in whenever someone talks about food. Cose boomerang,
which is probably just going to be another time machine noise.
So real quick, the Cose credit to Cody. Um, Okay,

(01:23:32):
continue brief refresher on what that is. So basically the
free cost boomerang is that Okay, if if you if
if if a government does something like repressive like technology,
repressive technique or passive technology like in a colony, like
in a war somewhere. Eventually it will come back and
be used against like the citizens of that country. And yeah,
a great example would be fingerprinting was invented for the

(01:23:54):
British like policing um insurgents in Malaysia, and is now
has them back to every you know, colonizing nation now
uses finger printing, which is also deeply flawed as a technology.
But anyway, yeah, yeah, and you know, and I think
most people tend to think about this is our armored
personnel carriers. But we will eventually get to this. The
boomerang technology here is actually shipping containers hell yeah, which

(01:24:17):
have done like irreparable damage to the mankind. Alright, alright,
I'm ready for this. I don't know much about this.
Hit me, all right, I bear with you with this
because we're we're we're we're gonna talk about two threads.
They're going to seem like they have nothing to do
with supply chains, and then they're all going to tie together.
It turns out is literally all supply chains. So in

(01:24:38):
the cities and seventies you have, you know, in very
very broad general strokes, you have two kinds of class war.
The first kind is what I'm sort of very broadly
calling the war and the factories and this is this
is an enormous series that sort of strikes outright uprising
a stretched from sort of Detroit to tur into Tokyo.
And you know, the most famous of these is the

(01:25:00):
student sort of worker uprising in May sixty eight in
France and they you know, they're they're they're close enough
taking the country that like French President Charles de Gaul
like flees in a helicopter to in secret, and like
flees to Germany in secret, and you know, and that
that that that's like a big event, but it's sort
of it sort of fades. What doesn't fade is May

(01:25:23):
sixty eight in Italy. And you know that it doesn't
fade there because Italy, Italy has been in the middle
of a strike wave since two sixty four. It's the
whole sixties that basically just strik waves there and you know,
they have their own sixty and unlike in France where
peters out, in Italy you get the just incredibly named hot,

(01:25:47):
hot autumn of sixty nine, which is my bet was
a hot autumn. Yeah, it's it's great. And so basically
what happens is you get hundreds of thousands of workers
go on strike, they start seizing control their factories. Um,
and most of most of this is playing out in
in the Fiat factories. Yeah, it's a giant car factories

(01:26:10):
in Italy's industrial triangle, and you know, I mean they're
there for like, they're there for a long time. They're
into like seventy and eventually they lose. But you know,
Italy is just sort of rocked by conflict and sort
of class war stuff, and all of this reculminates in
yet another enormous uprising in en seventies seven, this one

(01:26:31):
driven like in large part by people who were basically
just like, funk this, I'm not working in the factory anymore.
It's awful, which which I think is something that like,
you know, if if you're looking at the modern political landscape,
you have a bunch of people who are going like,
funk this, I'm not going to go like die in
these factories anymore. And those people all have in a

(01:26:54):
lot of cases, safer employing situations than many people today. Yeah. Yeah,
like it's starting to get worse than which is why
people are are frustrated but likes yeah, yeah, you know,
and and this this it's sort of interesting because there
there's a kind of like Vicky Uster while I've had
on here. It calls it, it calls it like the

(01:27:15):
Monkeys Paul thing, where it's like people in the seventies
and Italy wanted like autonomy and like freedom from work,
and so what what capitalism gave them was like, oh,
we'll give you autonomy. We'll just make you all contract workers.
And now like, yeah, you don't you don't have to
like wake up every morning and like go to a
job in the factory and leave it five or whatever.
But now you just you know, you're you're a contract worker,
so you just have no stability whatsoever, and that that's

(01:27:35):
your autonomy. But you know this, this is this is
really bad for the Italian ruling class. Like they almost
lose control of Italy three times in ten years, and
after not seventy seven, they're just like fuck this and they,
I mean, they started to start doing mass arrest they
imprison like tens of thousands of people, a torture a
bunch of people, and you know, but it becomes clear

(01:27:59):
that like pure repression is like not going to be
enough to like just destroy the section of the working
class movements that you know, God help you thinks that
you should like run production for themselves, and so they
start looking elsewhere for answers. And the place they find
these answers, weirdly enough, is in the second set of

(01:28:19):
wars that are going on in this period, which are
the sort of national liberation wars. And you know, these
are the national liberation wars. Are these these are full scale,
like these aren't sort of class warm metaphors. These are
you know, this is this is giddy be Saw, this
is Algeria. And you know, importantly, for for our purposes,
the US fights two of them, which is Korean Vietnam.

(01:28:43):
Now Korean Vietnam are strategically really bad places for the
US to fight wars, like they're on the other side
of the world, which you know, it makes it more
difficult to do war crimes because you know, if you're
fire bombing of village, right, you have to be able
to move fire bombs, jet fighters and like oil and

(01:29:04):
rations to the other side of the world. And this
is hard about a lot easier when they can commit
war crimes. And like, I don't know, duloof, yeah, yeah, well,
like even even like you know, you got to commit
a war crime in Mexico. It's like, okay, you just
sign a bunch of people over the border. It would
be so easy to commit war crimes in Mexico. Yeah,
and and really really up our war crime quoti. Well,

(01:29:25):
I would say, we do do a lot of war
crimes in Mexico. It's just that like they're done based
on by proxies. That's true. But I mean we've killed like,
we've killed like a million people there in the last
like twenty years. And the war on drugs. But yeah,
you know, so the US, you know, the U s okay,
So it has this logistics problem, and logistics problem is

(01:29:46):
that it can't do war crimes enough, and so it
comes up with a couple of solutions to them. One
of them is essentially they rebuild the whole Japanese economy
in order to just use Japan's industrial base to fight
the war in Korea. And then after the war in Korea,
and they rebuild the South Korean economy in order to
you know, fight the war in Vietnam. And this works,

(01:30:06):
but it doesn't solve the problem that you know, okay,
even even even if you're you know, you're you have
of an industrial based in Japan, right, you still need
to be able to efficiently move things by sea to Korea,
and you know, you still need to still supplies you
need to move from the US, And so the solution
for this is containery shipping and continerary shipping. This is

(01:30:31):
the pivot point upon which the entire history of the
twentieth century and everything that's happening in the twenty one
century hinges on like this, this is the pivot And
you know, like I'm not even this isn't even really
an exaggeration, because it turns out that like the ability
to have uniform boxes that you can stack on top

(01:30:51):
of each other like legos and put on a ship
is like like it's like comparable to the nuclear bomb
in terms of how important it is, which is really
really used to the only way to get things from
A to B was a big wooden ship filled with
dubloons like pilet bags and stuff. Yeah, yeah, I know,

(01:31:12):
how did we, like global commerce work before shipping containers?
What did we what did we literally like you just
like sometimes sometimes you would just like physically people would
just pick up the items and put them on the ship,
or they would like sometimes they put them in boxes
or like you would like strap them to like the
top of the ship. And so with the trains a

(01:31:34):
lot they would just like strap like machinery like onto
a train car. And this was like not, this is
like really inefficient. It's really so yeah, and so the
US in order to like do war crimes in Korea,
and then you know, it's just like, oh, hey, what
if we just make metal boxes and then they get

(01:31:54):
they progressively get better and better at it because you know,
they have to go do more war crimes in in Vietnam.
And but by the time you're getting to the end, Yeah, yeah,
you know, look lots of war crimes that do you need?
You need good logistics networks to do all of these
war crimes. I mean, it makes sense that that's where
we got shipping containers, but I didn't realize. I had
just assumed it would have come out of the shipping

(01:32:14):
industry as opposed to like we got to get more
missiles over to these places. Yeah, well, this is the
interesting thing. We'll get to this in a bit. But basically,
like a lot of the logistics revolution stuff either comes
out of the military or is developed by X fascists
and and and a lot of the reason for this
is Okay, I mean this is you know, this is

(01:32:35):
the seventies. They're still are in d happening like this
still actual research and developments, but the military is doing
just an enormous amount of the research development for all
of global capitalism. And you know, and and and the
other thing, Yes, what's happening here? And you know this
this is the sort of boomerang thing is that you know,

(01:32:58):
so the container are shipping logistics, stuff that had been
used to just like obliterate the global South suddenly starts
spreading into capital like you know, just into like broader
shipping because people look at this and they're like, oh,
this is efficient. And then the contracting companies the US
is using. This turns into the solution to both sort
of the war and the factories are talking about in
in in Europe and the US and in Japan itself,

(01:33:19):
and then also to the solution of the national liberation
movements and sort of like communism in East Asia because
you know, okay, so you have this question, right, the US,
like we kind of fight to a draw in Korea,
like we kill a norm's number of people, but the
North Korea. Yeah, and like yeah, but we don't really win, right,

(01:33:41):
like we we we can't actually defeat the Chinese army
or yeah, and and you know, and we lose Vietnam,
and so the question is, okay, so like how how
are we going to stop communism? And the answer, it
turns out, is to just integrate integrate the communist countries
into the capitalist supply chain. And I mean there's a
lot of examples of this, like market Thatcher, for example,
is like very good buddies with Nikolai chessqu Ah. That's nice.

(01:34:04):
It's they could be friends despite their the fact that
they well I guess they weren't really that different as people, No,
not really, Like basically the difference is that ky lost
and thus got like murdered on state television on a
state funeral treatment. That's my official stance. They should have

(01:34:29):
for stuff we will talk about in a bit. But yes,
but you know, the archetypal example of this is actually China.
And you know, there's a lot of various sort of
skilled diplomatic work by Kissinger and also the US like
throughout the seventies, just like they're just like sending entire
factories to China like like the like they'll they'll they'll

(01:34:50):
take an entire factory, break it down, put it in
boxes and then just like ship at the China great
at the time, and yes, so yeah they're they're they're
just like sending to knowlogy of China. And the end
result of this is that you know, China goes from
like fighting American troops with like like doing bannit charges

(01:35:10):
like through the yeah yeah against the Yeah. I was
just like yeah to to you know, being an American
ally and like invading Vietnam as a way to like
stick it to the Soviets basically, and so you know,
so the uses sensely just integrates China to the global
supply chain, and they eventually do the same thing to Vietnam,

(01:35:31):
which again is another country that they couldn't defeat militarily.
But what they you know what they actually beat them
with it's a shipping container. And before the shipping container,
this would have been impossible, right, like basically it was
too inefficient and too expensive, like the cost of shipping
was too high to have all of this production. You know,
like some half your parts made in China, some of
them made India's on them made in like Japan's one

(01:35:52):
of the maid in Korean and then shipped them all
around the world, which is how the modern system works.
But with with container I shipping, suddenly shipping is really
cheap and it becomes much cheaper to pay shipping costs
it is to pay labor costs. And this is the
solution to to the sort of war and the factories.
You know, if if workers start making too much noise
about pay or like again a god forbids start talking

(01:36:13):
about like taking control of factories and running the democratically
like some kind of anarchist monsters, corporation can just move
the factories overseas, and this becomes an incredibly effective way
to just destroy the labor movement because anytime, you know,
organized labor starts making demands, you can be like, well, okay, sorry,
we're just gonna pack up and we're gonna you know,
we're gonna go to China, We're gonna go to somewhere else.
And this coincides with, you know, the thing, the thing

(01:36:36):
that gets talked about a lot in the conventional accounts,
which is the Wall Street sort of corporate takeover. Well,
the Wall Street takeover of corporate America, which is something
I think that sounds really weird to us now, But
you know, the whole the whole story here is really
interesting and extremely long, and if if you want to

(01:36:57):
like have a very detailed accounts of how this all
played out, the book Liquidated by Karen Hoe is just incredible,
like ethnography and history of Wall Street. She like she's
a Karen has an athropologist, and she like went and
worked on Wall Street and like did ethnography there for
a bit and it's very interesting stuff, but it's kind

(01:37:19):
of outside of our scope. So the very very very
short version is that the Wall Street bankers basically figure
out a way to just like buy out corporations to
raise a bunch of money and just entirely buy out corporations.
And then once they have the corporation, right, what what
what what the you know? This is corporate rating, So
they're they're they they loot all the assets, they sell

(01:37:41):
it off, and they try to sell off their stock
at a higher price. The parcels of this is sort
of complicated, but the net result of this is that
Wall Street completely takes over the corporate world in the
way they hadn't before. Like the wall streets. The wall
street like finance people are now, you know, they're there
are the people making off the decisions, and you know,
and and they're their only goal is to raise the

(01:38:02):
stock price, like that's that's the only thing they care about.
That they don't they don't even care about making money,
right if if you lose money and your stock price
still rises, like you don't care. And those guys start
looking at a lot of the things that had existed
in corporations before that, things like pensions, uh, particularly things
like research and development. They look at it and go, Okay,
why are we spending money on R and D? Like

(01:38:23):
this this doesn't this doesn't raise our stock price, This
doesn't have any immediate shorter and value. So they cut it, right,
They start cutting pensions, They start just destroying the unions,
and you know, and and because because this is happening
at the same time as corporations really like get the
ability to outsource for the first time, you know, they

(01:38:43):
lean into it and they start essentially, we're just just
slashing the amount of people who work for the company,
right and so you know, and so and instead of
having direct employees, they start working with contractors and they
start moving to the contractors overseas, and you know, and
and this is this is where we get to sort
of this whole outsourcing wave because you know, something I

(01:39:05):
don't think I talked about enough withoutsourcing is why actually
are the labor costs lower in the countries that these
people are are moving their factories to h And part
of it is, you know, people talk about development like
they're moving to undeveloped countries, and you know, part of
part of part of development is just you know, how

(01:39:27):
much technological capacity their manufacturing system has, right, and that
you know. But but the other part of it is
that if you move your production to say Columbia, right
or like you know, you're investing in sort of like
cocoa bean farming in Columbia and people try to do
you need organizing, you can hire des squads to murder them. Yeah,
and yeah, yeah, it's like you can basically just sort

(01:39:47):
of like you can you can outsource the violence and
you can you can you know, the corporate term for
it is reducing labor costs, but really what you're doing
is just like murdering people with death squads and terrorizing them,
and you know that that does lower labor costs, right,
But you know, and I think there's there's another example
of this, Like this is a lot of what like

(01:40:07):
the killing at Tienamen was really about. It was you know,
not so much in Tianna Square itself. I've talked about
this elsewere but like the workers that they kill outside
of the square, like a lot of the reason they're
doing very little about Tinaman Square other than like protesters
China government bad. The guy stands up the tank and

(01:40:28):
then yeah, yeah, yeah, I've talked about this elsewhere. More
like the very short version is, so there's a bunch
of students in the square, right, and the students in
the square itself like basically they kind of went democracy
and mostly they want like market reforms to go faster.
But then outside of the square, you know, bijings like

(01:40:49):
whole working class shows up and there's these enormous demonstrations.
They basically start like like barricading like blocks and blocks
and blocks, and like this radius outside of the street.
You get this sort of like mini commune thing ing,
and those guys are like you know, like they're they're
they're advocating for democracy and the factory like they're you know,
they're they're talking about things like like they're they're like that,

(01:41:14):
you know, they they they they they have their like
marks out and they're talking about how like they're they're
they're calculating their rate of surplus value that's being extracted
from them by the capitalists. And those are the people,
like almost everyone who dies at Chana man Is is
from those guys. Like those are the people that they
just get massacred. And you know, and and the reason
that happens is that the CCP is looking at this

(01:41:36):
and it's like, okay, this, this is this is like
this this is sort of this is the return of
organized labor, and we need to destroy it before it
like gets anywhere. And so they do, and organized labor
and China just implode. I mean it was already pretty
weak because you have a lot of stake cantual unions,
but I mean now it's just nothing. And you know,
and and and there, I mean there there have been

(01:41:57):
attempts to labor organizing and China sort of recently and
like yeah, the to be just rest everyone, right, and
so you know this, this this is how this is,
this is the price of cheap labor. Right, It's just
incredible state repression. But this is also you know, and
this is this is a sort of like macro scale
thing of why the supply chains suck because everyone talks
about like the efficiency of the supply chaine, but the

(01:42:17):
supply chains aren't efficient. They make no sense, right if
if if if what you're trying to do is move
something quickly from points A to point B. They make
no sense because you know, these supply chain are spread
all over the world, like in individual parts are being
made in six countries, right you have like people will
like for tax dodge purposes, like they'll have one part

(01:42:40):
of a component's built in one country, and then they'll
move it from another country to have another part of it,
and then they'll ship all of it to Mexico and
they'll ship it across the border and they'll have the
whole thing be assembled in the USC they can say
it was made in the US. Like there's all of
these things that are just just nonsense right there. They're
not They're not efficient at all. It's it's completely ridiculous.
It's it's this just you know, it's just completely absurd
web And and the reason why it is designed like

(01:43:02):
this is as as a giant sort of kind of
unsurgency thing. Like the reason the reason supply chains are
are just bad is because there, you know, they they
they're not designed to move things. That they're designed as
an instrument to just like solve the problem of of
of of class power right there there there. They're designed

(01:43:24):
destroy unions. Are designed to make sure that nobody ever
sort of like gets any ideas about widges, to make
sure nobody gets an ideas about like taking anything. And
so you know, but this this, this can work for
a while. The problem is again, like they're not efficient.
It's it's just it just it is not efficient to

(01:43:45):
like move have everything made in like six countries and
then you have to send them somewhere else. Yeah, And
so you know, it's efficient in the sense that it
efficiently maximizes the value of stock prices for like stock
by bags and stuff. And generally what is meant by
like efficiency in that sense is like what makes the
seventy people who actually own this company the most money.

(01:44:08):
That's the efficient thing. But it's horribly inefficient in every
practical sense of the work. And and and that this
is kind of an interesting change because I mean, you
know this this isn't to say that like the supply
chains that worked before this were like better, because they
also sucked in a lot of their own ways. But
all of the like efficiency stuff that we're about to
talk about just just in time production, etcetera, etcetera, Like

(01:44:29):
you know what isn't produced just in time? Sorry, but
it isn't add right time. Yeah, they're they're they're they're
not produced just in time anymore because the supply chains
falling apart. That's that's what that is. Our promise about
our sponsors is that, uh, they're they're not at all
in time. Who knows when they'll get your products to you.

(01:44:50):
There's no way to tell. It's impossible to know. We're back, Yeah,
we're back to talk about how, you know, having having
developed an entire network of extremely inefficient supply chains that
just absolutely suck and don't make any sense. Uh, people
tried to make them efficient. And this this is where
we go back to Japan, because Japan, you know, I

(01:45:15):
guess this is this is this is the other Forks boomerang,
which is that you know, okay, so we we we
industrialized Japan in order to like fighter colonial wars, right,
But then you know, this turns into this huge like
Pikachu face moment when Japan suddenly starts like industrializing more
efficiently than the US does. It's very funny. And then
and writes a bunch of books that are the premise

(01:45:37):
of all of them, is Japan scary? Yeah, it's very funny. Yeah,
you know, like this is interesting. Is this is an
interesting thing here, which is that like all of the
panic around China, there was exactly the same panic like
around Japan in the in like the seventies, and it's
exactly same, like right down to like a bunch of
socialists going like, hey, look this this is a model

(01:45:59):
for anti capitalism. Like people people said that about the
Japanese model, and it's like it's it's all, it's all
the same thing. It's just it's just happening again. But
you know what what what type what what Japan did,
and specifically, what Toyota does is create this thing called
the Toyota production system, which eventually becomes known as justin
time production. And this if you've read anything about sort

(01:46:20):
of the modern supply chain problems, you've almost certainly heard
of just in time production or or lean production, and
just in time and lean production are technically difference, but
the differences don't matter for us. So yeah, and and
this this stuff is derived from what Toyota was sort
of doing in the post war era. And basically the

(01:46:43):
goal of it is, you're you're never supposed to have
any inventory that's just sitting there, so that the whole
distant supposed to be constantly the whole system is supposed
to be constantly in motion. So you have parts come in,
they get put into their immediately get put into the
production line, and the finished products immediately shipped out to
the stores. And you know, the theory is that the

(01:47:03):
stores are only going to carry exactly enough product to
meet demands. And it's supposed to be quote unquote flexible,
which means that it can react to shifts in consumer
taste and demand by like increasing or decreasing production, and
it can't do this. This is what we've been seeing
for the entirety of COVID, which is that you know
that this is this is why every time there's a
run of toilet paper, everyone runs out of toilet paper,

(01:47:24):
because it turns out that these systems can't even a
ten percent increase just completely obliterates this entire system and
it just collapses and can't produce enough toilet paper. Yeah,
and again just because it's expensive to store things. It's pricey.
This is a big part of like why actually the
John Deer strike, which has the potential to disrupt the
status quote movement more than any strike in recent history,

(01:47:46):
um is so potent because John Deer tractors are kind
of a necessary part of the agriculture industry, not just
their ability to sell new tractors, but their ability to
repair the extant tractors. Like if harvest season comes around
owned and there's not spare parts to repair tractors that break,
like food doesn't get harvested, it's a significant issue John Deere.

(01:48:07):
We'll talk more about this in another date. But like,
not only did the most that they could do to
squeeze their employees to suck out pensions, to cut you know,
expenditures on wages, but they they set up their factories
in such a way that there was no extra space,
so they could not scale up any of these factories
to increase demand when they needed to. So that now

(01:48:28):
that John Deere is going on strike, if they lose
a month of productivity, they can't ever catch up. It's
impossible because they can't actually expand the productive capacity of
their factories. And because the strike is hitting, they didn't
have any extra spare parts lying around, So if ship
gets broken, they can't manufacture the parts necessary to keep
tractors functioning in a lot of American farms because they

(01:48:49):
didn't store anything, because that was not the most efficient
thing for the economic bottom line of the CEO who
gets a hundred and sixty million dollars a year. And anyway,
this is this is the funny part about this whole thing,
which is that you know, okay, so this whole supply
chain system was based around just like destroying destroying the
organized working class, right, But it's like they were so

(01:49:09):
successful at it that they've like turned around and fucked
themselves with it because like you know this this is
this is the thing about about the John Deer strike. Right.
It used to be you know, back back back if
you look at like like how how the unions were
broken in the eighties, or like if you look at
like the giant like auto strikes you'd have in the seventies, right,

(01:49:30):
and companies still do this to this day, but like
there worst at it. The thing they would do is
so okay. So you you you know, if you're a company,
you know roughly when a strike is gonna happen, right,
And the reason you know when a strike is gonna
happen is because in the US, like the way labor
law works is that like you can you can basically
only strike like when a contract is up. I mean,

(01:49:50):
you can do wildcats, but it's illegal. But you know, okay,
so they knew that the audio unions, for example, we're
about to go we're going to go on strike when
when the contract like what was coming up, and you know,
they'd have spies, and you can get a sense of like,
you know, okay, so are are how likely are they
to do this strike? And you know so so that

(01:50:11):
that that lets you do things like build up an
enormous sort of inventorio spare parts. It lets you build
up an inventory of supplies, and it lets you build
up you know it basically it lets you build up
the capacity you need to outlast a strike. But the
problem with just in times, they can't do that anymore
because yeah, they they've they've you know, they've they've completely
fucked themselves by by then the John deer situation because

(01:50:34):
they hadn't strike. The workers hadn't had gone on strike
since eighties six. They've been putting funds into their strike
survival fund for years, but the company had nothing like
has Um. It's rather and this is you know, this,
this is the other part of of of why everything
like good that's happening right now is happening is that

(01:50:55):
they they they you know, they everything has circled back
around and suddenly all of these companies are you know,
we are incredibly vulnerable to strikes again because yeah, as
you're talking about the just in time production thing, it
only works if if everything actually comes in on time,
all right, Like if if if any if any individual

(01:51:15):
part is late, the whole system starts to fall apart.
And then and then you can't repair it. And you know,
and there's there's a lot of ways that that this
this this can be very bad. Um. You know, we've
talked about the john do you We talked about the
labor stuff. The other big thing that's happening is COVID,
which has happened and continues to happen and has killed
off just enormous parts of the working class. I mean,

(01:51:38):
it's like four million dead worldwide or something. And again
that that's also probably an undercount because that's just direct.
Guess that's not like, yeah, it's probably like twice that
it's I mean, we're looking at a minimum of seven
in the US. And again that's probably a million undercounted
at least. Yeah, it's it's a horror show, right, And
and the people they killed with that, you know, like

(01:52:00):
especially in the initial phases, like it was just it
was just they took a chain chainsaw to the working class.
And those are a bunch of people who you know
that they're they're not replaceable, they're they're very highly skilled
and they do a bunch of jobs that absolutely suck.
And now you know, and one of one of the
places that this this has caused a bunch of problems

(01:52:22):
is in the ports, because ever, the other thing that
this entire supply gamb relies on is being able to
very quickly and cheaply moved parts from you know, China
to the US, from China to Mexico from like Bangladesh too,
like symbolia, you have, you have, you have you have
to be able to continuously like keep moving stuff around
in in Yeah, you have to continuously keep moving ships around,

(01:52:46):
and you also have to be able to load noneload them.
And we you know, we we we saw like there
there was the that when that ship got stuck in
the Suez, there is that whole yeah that you know
that that that was sex We're when people couldn't get
sex asses because the world's supply of sex asses for
months was on that one ship. Um, it was a

(01:53:07):
real crisis for the sex ass community. Those are plastic
assis that you have sex with if you're curious. Yeah,
it's the world appears as an immense collection of commodities,
some of which are sex asses. Yeah, most of which,
in terms of the ones that matter, are sex asses. Yes,

(01:53:28):
sex ass industrial complex is really the lynchpin of global capital.
But please continue. Yeah, well you know, but the sex
assi indictial complex falls apart, and you know, and it's
not just the ship being stuck in the Sis like
made everything way worse, right, But it was very funny, Yeah,
it was. It was extutally funny, but it was extremely funny.
The part the thing is like not very funny is
that like, Okay, so in order to getting this to

(01:53:51):
work right, you have to have a bunch of longshoremen.
You have to unload all of the ship mhm. And
you know, one of one of the problems with that
is that is happening in the sort of global supply
chain right now, is that the ships can't be unloaded
fast enough. And part of this is like this job sucks,
and people just a lot of people don't want to
do it, and a lot of people died and in
the and it's causing this huge problem, and and there's

(01:54:16):
and then there's there's another you know, if you want
to take like the macrospective about this, it's that this
whole system is relying on logistics workers and so it
also needs you know, you need truck drivers. And we're
coming back and you know in the US, is that
there's yeah, you know, there's there's a sort of a
truck drivers now because again their job sucks and they've
been like just absolutely screwing these people over for decades

(01:54:38):
and decades and decades now and turn into the subcontractors
just not paying them, and you know, and and this
and when you know, when the when the ports shut down,
like not even shut up, like when when the ports
are behind unloading stuff and when the trucks like that
are supposed to be moving this stuff, they aren't off
of them, and like the cost of that increases, it
throws off the whole system. And that's that's another big

(01:55:01):
part of like why this whole thing is is sort
of imploding. And and it's interesting because I remember this.
There was like a decade where like every other article
we'll be talking about how they were going to like
automate like truck driving. It was like, the truck drivers
are all going to go out of business because they're
going to automated. It just never happened at all. And

(01:55:23):
say the same thing with with their you know, there's
I mean there's been some port automization, but like not
on the scale that you know, actually does anything. And
part of the reason for that is, you know, I
was talking about people not investing in research developments. Yeah,
so the biggest people who aren't doing that are the
shipping companies. And that's a good time because the shipping
cup basically like container shipping, has been taken over by

(01:55:47):
was essentially just like a monopoly of two companies. And
those two companies make just an indescribable amount of money.
They have like a thousand percent profits and they just
pay it all out as dividends. And so they're not
they're not investing in any port infrastructure, they're not investing automation.
They're just pocketing the money. And that means that, you know,
we have all that and they're they're spending in in

(01:56:07):
the case of John Deere, which I keep going back to,
a bunch of money lobbying to make it illegal for
farmers to repair uh their tractors. Yeah, yeah, they're there.
You know, they they figured they figured out that like
the the easiest way to make money is just get
the state to shake people down for you. It's like
fun like investing in in making anything that we have better.
Let's just you know, like let's just turn the state

(01:56:30):
into a det collector. And and it's interesting because so
this this is the part of of the supply chain
crisis that like Biden has been focusing on. But Biden's plan,
Biden's plans great. Biden's plan is literally make the longshoremen
work harder. So his plan is here, we go, there,
we go, there, we building back better. Baby. Yeah, we're

(01:56:53):
gonna we're gonna make We're gonna keep the ports open
twenty four hours a day. Seven days a week and
like make people work weekends now, and then he also
got FedEx Walmart and ups to do twenty four hour
or seven day a week shipping. So yeah, the solution
is literally just like feed more workers into a grinder
and make them work longer, which is which is great

(01:57:16):
and and you know will not in any way backfire. No,
it's fine. I don't even think we should be talking
about it. No, it's great, it's gonna it's it's yeah,
it's you know, but I get like this is the thing,
Like this won't work, and it can't and the reason
it won't work is that, like part of the reason
there's a shortage is that you know, it's it's not
it's not just about the like the fact that people

(01:57:37):
aren't paying enough. It's about the fact that these jobs
are just awful. Like you have people, you have people
working like twelve hours shifts that start at like six
am and then they have to wake another twelve hour
shift in hours later, and that these people have them
can do this over and over and over again and
it's well, and they don't like the way that these
shifts are usually put on them is that like you'll

(01:57:58):
find out when you come in that instead of working
six am to four pm or whatever, they're actually gonna
need you to stay until eight and then they're gonna
need you to come in. By the way, you're gonna
need to come in like two hours early tomorrow. So
you're realized that like in between your two shifts, you
have a total of eight hours to get home and sleep.
And if you say no, uh uh, well, the idea

(01:58:21):
is that if you say no, like you won't have
the job. It's required. Now. The reality is that most
of these companies are also pretty desperate to have these workers,
and a lot of these manufacturing and packing firms, it
takes time to train people up and then they quit
a couple of weeks in because the work is miserable
and the schedule is fucking miserable. Um, and it's yeah,
it's all, it's it's it's it's simultaneously like deeply inhuman,

(01:58:44):
but also is leading to a situation. There's a reason
why there's so many strikes on right now is that
there is opportunity because in sort of the chasing of
short term profits, a lot of these fucking oligarchs have
exposed themselves in a in a pretty vulnerable position. Yeah,
and I think you know this this is coming back

(01:59:04):
to a sort of the other way that when when
there was a crisis in in the senties, the other
way they saw this was just authoritarianism, right it was
you know, is this is the pinos a solution, right like, oh,
like workers are using control comprom minds, Okay, we'll just
shoot them, right and yeah and yeah, and this is

(01:59:25):
you know, they're they're they're finally running into a point
where you know, this is this is the solution they've
been trying to do now with with with this crisis,
is you know, the the they're relying on the fact
that just the workplace is just indescribably authoritarian. I mean
it's it's like it's it's it's a dictatorship on a
scale that is like like even to like the most

(01:59:47):
despotic absolute monarch is just like unimaginable. Like your boss
gets to control like when you ship, like they get
a control, when you eat, they get a control exactly
what you're doing, like at all times, they get control
when you do it, they get a control like when
the next time you're going to do it is they
don't even have to tell you when it's going to

(02:00:08):
be untel like you show up and you know, for
the this is this is this has been the gamble
for for you know, capitalism, the entire existence, which is
that like you just have to take this and eat
ship or they get to take away your ability to eat,
get medical care and have a place to leave to live.
But that's not true anymore. Like you can just say no,

(02:00:30):
you can tell them to funk off. You can, you
know you can, you can, you can organize a union.
You can just fucking just leave your job, like just
leave it, fucking walk out. And this is why we focus.
I mean, this is number one why within the context
of unions, strike funds are so important, but also why
mutual aid is so important. Is it? It? It potentially
when organized well enough provides people with the option to like, well,

(02:00:52):
how are you going to feed yourself? Well, there's people
in my community who want to make sure that I'm
fed because they believe in what I'm striking for. Um,
that's the promise of all of that. That's the practical
behind the kind of high minded you know, anarchists of
just you know whatever. Theorizing is the ability that like, well,
this actually is a weapon too. Yeah, and I think

(02:01:17):
you know what else is a weapon? Chris are product.
I hope we're not being sponsored some I hope we are. Chris. Look,
I've I've said before for weapons. I'll read any ad
for a weapons manufacturer as long as they send me
some weapons. So come on, guys, get on it. You
could uh, you could be you could be in the
middle of this conversation. Raypheon, you know, send me a

(02:01:40):
couple of missile guidance chips Lockheed Martin. You know you
want to give me an F thirty five, we'll we'll
plug you. You know. That's what's that's that's the deal.
That's how it works. Baby. All right, we're back. Hopefully
hopefully you have now heard the advertisement for knife missile
to knife missile harder now with like five knives, a
thing that I and not making up. It actually exists. Yeah,

(02:02:03):
people keep being surprised that the R nine X is
a real thing. But there's another one. There's there's there's
one with more knives. They put more knives. We do
you You're not gonna look again, you can't. It's like
with Apple products, right, planned obsolescence is a critical you
have to You can't just rest on your laurels. You're
gonna run out of money. So you've gotta make another

(02:02:23):
knife missile with a couple of more knives. Yeah, just
keep keep adding knives. Nothing can ever go wrong. Do
not ask any questions about why you're developing knife missiles.
Send me one and like a drone or three. I
swear to God, I'll use it for legal purposes. Yeah. So,
I guess the last thing that I that's that's really

(02:02:45):
interesting about this moment that doesn't usually happen is that
you know, okay, so if you, if you, if you,
if you, you read your very basic marks, right. One
of the things Marks talks about is that there's this
thing called the Reserve Army of Labor, which is it's
just like, you know, there's a bunch of people who
are just always unemployed and they get along by doing

(02:03:08):
sort of like odd jobs, like you know, like my, my,
My quintessential person for this is like if you ever
go on a subway, there's you know, it's it's the
guy selling candy bars in the subway. Yeah, right, it's
people who quasi legal you know, sometimes they just kind
of like doing whatever. You know, we call them. In
the West Coast, you have a lot of those, like, yeah,

(02:03:31):
people who tream marijuana for a couple of months and
then just kind of like crashing you know, camp sites
the rest of the year or whatever. Like, yeah, there's
a bunch of those folks, for sure. Yeah. And you know,
and like the the the number of these people who
have been just like kicked out of like the formal
labor system has been increasing for a long time. But
what's interesting about this moment is that you know, every
every strike you see has a second strike behind it,

(02:03:54):
and that strike is the informal general strike, which is
just again people just quitting their jobs and leaving. And
you have this weird moment where where normally the sort
of reserve army of labor is this thing that like
capitalism can always sort of rely on as a way
to sort of solve its problems because it's like, oh, well,
all right, if if you're not gonna do this job,
we can bring another person. But you know this, this

(02:04:17):
is a weird moment where like the reserve army of
labor is like fighting on our side. M h. And
the fact that all of these people are just like
you know, they're seeing the just incredible authoritarianism of these workplaces.
That's just horrific abuse. The fact that you know they're
they're being in a lot of cases just asked to

(02:04:37):
show up and die and they're saying no is a
really sort of is a really incredibly powerful thing. And
when when when you add that to the fact that
you know, all these companies have completely screwed themselves with
how they designed the supply chains or it's it's all,
it's all come back around and suddenly all all the
supply chain stuff that they carefully laid out over decades

(02:04:58):
and decades decades is way to like break the union
movement and make sure nobody ever asked more wages. You know,
it's it's it's it's it's been revealed to be incredibly
fragile and you know, week to our attack, and that
leads us, I think, to this other tension in Biden's
plan to sort of like revive the economy, which is

(02:05:19):
that so the US technically speaking has this like very
large central planning capability, but it only has it to
like build weapons. So you know, like the army has
this incredible ability like that there there's a lot of
bullets you know it, despite the huge stress on the
bullets supply chain, it really has scaled. You know, the

(02:05:41):
prices have increased, but we're we're still still still getting bullets.
America is great at making bullets. Yeah, it's less great
at keeping tractors working, but be a problem. Yeah, then
you're like even if you remember at the beginning of
the pandemic, it was like the US just couldn't produce masks,
like we said, we we never we never like did
that right, like that, like the government never at any

(02:06:03):
point was like We're just gonna make mass given the people.
They just never did it. And so you know, our
mass supplies. All those suppli chains suck. And the only
way that like the States can intervene and get the
supply chains to work is by doing one of two things.
It's by either doing a thing Biden was doing, which
is just go to a bunch of companies and tell
them to make all of their workers work harder, which

(02:06:25):
is the thing that like, you know, totally won't backfire
or explode in his face. And then the second thing
is for Biden basically to like do all this saber
rattling about how we have to have like medical supply
chains in the US because national defense or something. And
that's the second thing he's trying to do. But you

(02:06:46):
know that just that just makes the problem worse, right
because once you once you lose the ability to outsource, you,
you lose the hammer even beating the unions with And
so you know, all all of the sort of all
of the tendencies that are you know, making things like
bad and scary right now are also weirdly making this.

(02:07:10):
You know, the fact that prices are rising, right, the
fact that there's all these shortages. It's it's it's making
this like the best moment two you know, it's it's
it's it's making this the best moment that and that
anyone's had in ages to actually try to make something better. Yeah,

(02:07:31):
and and and the important thing is we're starting to
see it happen. And yeah, and we're we're we're we're
gonna talk more about sch October and sort of the
strike wave in the coming you know, weeks and months.
But yeah, we're gonna we're gonna be hitting this pretty hard,
even just next week. Um, we have a lot of
stuff in the pipeline. Kind of wish we've gotten to
it earlier. But there's a lot of stuff to talk

(02:07:52):
about in the world happening that that's within our milieu.
It turns out when you're when you're specific focus is
things falling up a uh, you're always behind uncovering all
the things that are on the mark. But I think
it is a good time to to to drive this
to a close, to drag this episode out behind the

(02:08:12):
farm the barn, and and and shoot it and bury
it in a shallow grave and and break its bones
with the hammers that the police can't identify it. Chris, Um,
thank you for putting this together. I got anything anything
else to say? Uh, quit your job, you or you
and or unionize your workplace and or take it over

(02:08:34):
and run it yourselves, because Lord knows the people who
are telling you what to do, just literally do not
care if you die. Yeah, And I mean with with that, no, no, no, no,
I was just gonna uh, I don't know what I
was gonna do, Chris, I don't know what I was
gonna do. Do do Go go do something. You know

(02:08:54):
you're you're listening to things, Go do something. Yeah, and
and yeah, and if you want to live and to
us do more things. We are allegedly allegedly we we
we are at cool Zone media on on the Twitter
and and the you can't prove that in court, it's true.
Good luck, good luck to them and trying to prove

(02:09:16):
that we did this. Yeah, that's right, motherfucker's all right.
Uh uh excellent, Chris, that's good. That's good. That's the

(02:09:41):
kind of a tonal grunting that people have come to
express respect from the introductions of my podcast. I was
hoping it wouldn't be that, but then it was so
bad that it was great thrill. That's our brand. Now
it can't be anything else. We've we've established it. Look,
no body else is doing that. The Cometown guys, I

(02:10:02):
assume aren't a totally grunting to start their podcast. I
don't know, actually, but I assume not. I guess this
is just how we start It could happen here is
a podcast. You don't sound like you believe it enthusiastically,
Chris with feeling. This is a podcasting happening here. That yeah, excellent,

(02:10:27):
that's how we do it. Okay, what are we talking
about today? Well, one of the things that is happening here,
as we have discussed briefly in previous episodes is a
bunch of strikes, And with us today to talk about
one of these stripes, specifically the Collogue strike is Mel Buwer,
an independent researcher, educator, and freelance journalists based in Omaha, Nebraska,

(02:10:49):
where this particular strike is taking place, who has done
done a lot of journalism previously on the local Protestant
Uprising Street and is also researching writing a book on
alternative media. Hi, Hello, we'll welcome to the show. Than strikes,
strikes apparently is what's up? It is? It is Strictober.

(02:11:12):
We're doing strikes, strike wave baby. Ye. So this this
specific strike, Um, why don't can you can you walk
us through a bit about how we got to the
point where this Kellogg factory is on strike? Um? Well,
first off, it's four plants. It's all for American Kellogg

(02:11:34):
cereal plants have gone on strike. Um. The workers and
these plants are represented by the bakery, confectionery tobacco workers
in grain Miller's International Union. I do love that bakeries
and tobacco workers are in the same union. Yeah that's
rat yeah yeah. So um, their contract was up for

(02:11:55):
renegotiation in actually UM and UM due to a series
of weird things happening, they pushed the negotiations to UM.
They renegotiate their contract every five years UM and at
stake this year, UM was a sort of pushing back

(02:12:18):
against a recently introduced to tier employment system that they
company sort of strong armed the union into, which essentially
is not it's not a good deal for anyone UM.
In they pushed in this sort of two tier system
where one tier is a lower transitional tier and one

(02:12:40):
tier is a legacy or full time employee tier. UM.
And what it is is that you know, it amounts
to a difference of twelve bucks an hour and less benefits. UM. Yes, yes, UM.
Dan Osborne recently did an interview with Ax Salvarez at
Working People podcast and he really kind of talked about

(02:13:03):
exactly what was going on there UM. And you know,
there's four people who work in four plants. There's about
four employees at the Omaha plant, which has been around
for decades and UM. Essentially what this tier system does
is it's capped at their union workforce. And the whole

(02:13:23):
idea is as these full time employees retire or quit,
then these transitional employees will sort of be funneled into
the full time tier. Right over the last five years,
that hasn't really happened really at all. Um. It was
a bad deal from the start according to many of
the workers who sort of felt like they, you know,

(02:13:43):
they were backed into a wall because Kellogg's was threatening
to close the Memphis plant if they didn't ratify this
negotiated contract. So rather than experience, you know, five hundred
layoffs in Memphis, they just agreed to it. So they
you going to the negotiating table in that they were

(02:14:05):
going to try and sort of walk that back because
these workers all work in the same plant, same days
for a second third shift. Transitional workers are working side
by side with these full time employees, working the same hours,
which can amount to seven days a week twelve the
sixteen hours a day on mandatory over time, and they

(02:14:27):
are making twelve dollars an hour less and they are
not getting the benefits that these full time employees are getting.
So really, these full time employees are kind of going
to bat for the transitional employees. UM, Kelloggs wants to
remove the cap which the union negotiated, which is attent
of their workforce. They want to to do that, do
away with that so that they can continue hiring more

(02:14:48):
transitional workers, and they want to funk with the insurance benefits. So, uh,
the union tried to negotiate this. I think according to
the local union president, Kellogg's negotiators were at the negotiating
table for ten hours and they negotiated eight hours a day,

(02:15:08):
five days a week for two weeks. Ten hours there
at the table. So they weren't interested in negotiating a contract.
They had laid out their their terms and they essentially
told the union to go kick rocks. And so the
union said, you know, we have we have until October
five and then our contract is up, and if we

(02:15:29):
haven't ratified a new contract, then we're going out on strike.
And that's ultimately what happened. So they've been on strike
for this will be their fourteenth day today. I think
the fight against the two tier system, I think is
an interesting part of this because that's been a huge
part of a lot of the different strikes you've been
seeing since the John Deer strikes, is part of the

(02:15:49):
Kaiser strikes. And Yeah, I'm wondering what you think specifically
about the fact that this is like this is the
moment that people have decided to like push back against
against two or even three tier systems they were introduced
in the last really like ten or fifteen years. For
the most part, well, I think it's just, you know,

(02:16:09):
it's a divide and conquer strategy for Kellogg's or for
these other companies. And ultimately, what it looks like is
it uh destabilizes well established unions, especially at Kellogg's. UM
and UM, it pits workers against each other, you know, UM,
particularly at Kellogg's. If they're able to remove this cap
on this tier system, UM, what they're essentially doing is

(02:16:32):
they're creating a more precarious workplace for these workers. UM.
The turnover rate and the lower tier at the Omaha
plant is right around UM. And you know, prior to
you didn't really see a whole lot of people leaving
the Kellogg's plant. You know, these were These are workers
who are spending their entire careers at this plant. Their

(02:16:55):
parents work, their their grandparents work there. You know. UM,
they because they're all getting paid around the same amount
of money, there isn't this tension on the line, so
they're they're working with each other, they're helping each other,
right UM. And with this tier system, what they're doing
is they're throwing these newer workers into uh pretty uh

(02:17:19):
insane factory conditions, UM and making it really difficult for
them to uh I feel like they have any reason
to stay there. Right. A lot of these people will,
you know put in. Some of these workers were transitional
workers who weren't officially hired by the company. You know,
there aren't full time employees. They aren't receiving benefits like

(02:17:40):
the full time employees are for five years. They work
this every day, seven days a week, three months on end. Right. Uh.
They have this really you know punitive attendance based points
system that discourages you calling in sick. There's injuries that
happened in the factory all the time. You know. I
went out to the line and wrote a piece for

(02:18:02):
the Real News about this, and pretty much every person
I talked to showed me scars from accidents that happened,
injuries in the plant. UM. The union president himself got
his hand stuck in a m like a mill and
broke all the fingers in his hand. He had to
have ten surgeries on his hand, you know. UM, there

(02:18:23):
was an accident at the plant two or three weeks
ago wherein a transitional employee got both arms stuck in
a conveyor belt. You know. Um, the thing is is
these folks super proud of the work that they do,
like absolutely take this work extremely seriously. You know, they're
not even asking for changes to their overtime. They are

(02:18:47):
not asking for you know, anything that you know, from
me on the outside, i'd be fighting for more humane
working conditions. But to them, you know, it's it's not
like it's a point of pride, but they feld that
they have put blood, sweat, tears, uh, you know, fractured relationships,
time that they could be spending with their children into

(02:19:09):
this factory and Kelloggs is essentially fucking them over. Yea.
You know, they see, as we have sacrificed for this
company for years and years and years, um, and we
are asking for equal pay for all and for everyone
to have the same health care so that we can
do this job, you know, and Kelloggs is saying no, absolutely.

(02:19:31):
You know. I think the union president said that some
of the negotiators called those demands outlandish during negotiations, which
I think is just incredible, you know, just corporate greed. Yeah,
I think the other part of the story is that,
like I mean, it's kind of a weird consequence of it,
but like one of the things, one of those consequences

(02:19:52):
is sort of like rising like staple commodity price, staple
grain prices and stuff, is that Kelloggs like they're doing
They have like record they have record off its right
now and they're still just doing this ship because yeah,
they made record profits during the pandemic. They gave their
CEO pretty huffy raise bonus. Um, there was a stock

(02:20:13):
buy back program that helped happened among the c suite
folks last year. They made a lot of money, a
lot of money. And UM, you know, these workers worked
every day through the pandemic, UM continually understaffed, you know, UM,
doing their best because again, they they take this job
very seriously and they are proud that they are feeding

(02:20:36):
the American people, you know, UM, and they are proud
to work at Kellogg's. And uh, they feel that this
contract is just shit, it's just ship. And you know
the only sensible thing to do is to to walk
out on strike because you know, they've been backed into
a corner and negotiations have stagnated completely, you know, UM,

(02:20:58):
and Um, they don't want to They don't want to
back down from this, you know. Um, they and I agree.
I feel what they're what they're asking for is fair.
It's very fair. I mean, I think it's I think
asking for a lot more would be fair, but not
my place to be doing. One of the things that

(02:21:19):
strikes me about this you talk about this tier system
that Kellogg's introduced, which I can't help but think of
what happened at John Deere where they I think in
nineties six cut pensions by two thirds and then like
last year eliminated them entirely. And this kind of bid
to pitt chunks of the workforced against each other. Um,

(02:21:41):
where you have like you know, different groups making different
amounts and sort of like, I don't know, it seems
kind of like the strategy that you see in the
broader economy, like written within within the space of a company,
where you've got like some people who are getting pretty
well taken care of in their jobs and other newer
people who are who are getting more screwed over in

(02:22:01):
kind of this this attempt to create division within the
workforce so that this this kind of organizing doesn't happen.
M M. I would agree. And you also have to think,
you know, if they are able to remove this cap
on the transitional tier, but that means that this is
they'll be able to instead of say, say a full
time employee retires, they leave that space empty, but they

(02:22:25):
still need an extra space, an extra person, right, so
they can just hire a transitional worker instead of funneling
one of those transitional workers into that full time space. Ah,
what ends up happening is suddenly you have instead of
sevent full time to transitional, the it starts tipping, right,

(02:22:48):
it becomes a more precarious workforce. Then say, for example,
to do that in the next five years. You know,
now they have seventy percent of these transitional workers who
don't think the union is offering anything for them. They
can essentially just offer a better deal to these transitional
workers and kick the union out of the company at
some point. You know. Um, and these folks on the

(02:23:08):
line understand that and know that that's kind of Kellogg's plan, right,
they know that the Kelloggs, what Kelloggs is trying to
do is essentially destabilize the power of the union inside
the plants. And everyone on the line that I've spoken
with know exactly what's happening, you know, and these full
time employees are out there every day making sure that

(02:23:32):
their transitional and you know, colleagues know that that's why
they're out there because they want to not allow this
to be something that divides their workforce. It remains to
be seen what's going to happen, you know what I mean.
They've brought in scabs to get the plant up and
running again, and most recently, uh, yesterday this morning. Yesterday,

(02:23:57):
the Building and Construction Trades Council union and met with
the union president in Omaha because they have about a
hundred third party iron workers, carpenters, electricians, and skilled trades
people that are union trades people that have contracts at Kellogg's,
and they came to what Dan Osborne, the union president,

(02:24:21):
decided called was a tough decision that those union workers
are going to cross the picket line to honor those contracts.
So Kelloggs is forcing the unions in the city in
like into a bind really because they're they're you know,
uh going to lose their own contracts at Kellogg's. So

(02:24:41):
that's kind of been like the most recent development here
is that rather than just temps coming in. We have
now skilled union trades people from various Omaha unions who
are also crossing the picket line two honor their contracts
at Kellogg's, you know, um, past these striking workers. So

(02:25:03):
it's a bit of a mess a little bit, you know. Yeah,
there's so much going on right now. I'm kind of
wondering what you think are the because we've got a
number of strikes kind of all coming to ahead at
the same time, I'm wondering, specifically from the Kellogg strike,
what do you think are kind of the lessons that
should be taken from what's happened so far for the

(02:25:25):
broader labor movement. UM. I think the biggest thing that's
kind of impacted me as I've gone to the line. UM,
I've stood on the picket line, I've covered these you know,
this strike, I've talked to people, UM, is that when
these types of actions happen, they really only can be
sustained because the community comes together to support them. You know. UM,

(02:25:51):
these strike funds that are going around and folks showing
up to stand on the picket line who are not
part of the union are really sort of become you know,
they are helping support these workers who can only hold
out so long with finite resources. Right. So the big
thing to me is that past these news cycles of

(02:26:13):
excitement of strike Ober of you know, these people just
walked out today, well they may be you know, they
may be on the line for months and months on end,
and the news cycle is going to move on, and
these communities are still going to have to try and
and and back up these labor actions, right Um. You
really can't have true you know, you can't have a

(02:26:34):
labor movement without you know, support, right um. And that's
kind of been the biggest thing that has impacted me particularly.
You know this Almaha used to be a really formidable union,
tim you know, back in the eighties, it was really
really something to see that the business unions in in
the various locals here really had some of these union

(02:26:55):
leaders had more political power than the mayor, right um.
And that has gone downhill over the last forty years.
And it's really cool to see, ah, the level of
solidarity that's happening amongst the community, you know, um, in
the ways in which people are kind of coming out
to talk to and and be a part of this
strike and to remind these Kellogg's workers that they're not

(02:27:18):
operating in a bubble, you know, and that the rest
of the community really hopes that the strike will end
quickly and peacefully and with a really good resolution for
these workers. You know. Whatever thing I wanted to ask
about in in terms of sort of this this kind
of research in to the union movements, and in in

(02:27:40):
in terms of sort of communities support is the level
of violence that there's been against like against the strikes.
I've seen a lot of like stuff about people canna
hit by buses and like, and I don't I don't
know if I think I think I'm getting my strikes.
I don't don't know if they've they have been direct

(02:28:02):
car attacks on this specific picket line. But that's when
I think that it's been happening a lot and a
couple of documented cases. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I was
wondering what you think about that, and like what actually
can be done about the fact that, like, you know that,
you know, like this just the fact that we're just
seeing auto attacks on picket lines regularly, Now, I mean,

(02:28:26):
is it that's you know, it's a it's a shitty development.
You know. Um, I was out on the picket line
last Thursday, and um, they were attempting to bring in
buses at shift change past the the picketers who walk slowly.
You know, they don't want to stop in front of

(02:28:47):
the bus. It's illegal to stop and and you know
make it, you know, so that they can't pass through
the gates, but they slow them down for a little bit.
And um, one gentleman was trying, you know, was standing
there and this bus just bumped right into them. You know,
there's videos that have been shared through local news of

(02:29:09):
buses knocking down workers as they're trying to cross the
picket line. UM. And I you know there are also
personal vehicles that go through and it could be the
private security that's been hired, it could be managers. UM.
But you know they're running through these lines really quickly, dangerously.

(02:29:29):
It's unfortunate, and you know, I don't have an answer
for what the best UH solution for that is. You know,
but vehicle tax have become sort of more uh, I
don't want to say commonplace, but you see them happening
a lot both at protests last year, and you know,

(02:29:49):
I think Warrior met Cole had some bosses running through
the lines and being reckless with their vehicles. You know. Um,
the problem is is on the on the back end,
and the police don't step in when they see these instances,
you know. Um. And in fact, last Thursday, when we
had a hundred plus motorcyclists from various mc s show

(02:30:13):
up to support the strike, Um, the police were the
ones who protected the scabs and made sure that they
made it through the picket line. So you know, UM,
the answer to that not sure, you know, yeah, I
mean that's a time honored police tradition. Yeah, they historically
don't don't exist to protect laborers, with the notable exception

(02:30:37):
of of the sheriff and what was it, Mattawan and
uh during the um the coal miner strike in West Virginia.
M Well yeah they shot him so well yeah, but
it shot some people first, yeah, Um, sid Hatfield that
was the name. Yeah, I don't know. Um, I've gotten

(02:30:58):
to know some of these folks the line of the
last two weeks, and they're just fantastic human beings, you know. Um,
they are accommodating and hard working, and they come from
all age brackets and they bring their families out and
you know they're getting they're getting a raw deal from
Kellogg's and UM, so far, the community support has been
overwhelmingly positive. Um, there hasn't really been like at the

(02:31:23):
John Deer strike. They're not getting eggs thrown out them,
you know. Um, they get a lot more honking and
messages of support than they do people driving by to
yell at them for uh, you know, being a strike.
So that's been nice to see, you know. UM. And
actually this weekend on Saturday, UM, there's gonna be a

(02:31:48):
like cool vintage car show cruise around Kellogg's event that
they've got planned the fire departments bringing rigs and um,
teamsters fire department is yeah, and the Teamsters are bringing cars,
and that there's a bunch of vintage car clubs that
are going to be coming out. So you know, those
types of things have like really kind of like fired

(02:32:09):
up these people to keep them out on the line
as long as they need to be, you know, so
communities there for him. One of the things I'm continuing
to wonder about is what it takes to close the
gap between understanding that you and your colleagues are getting
screwed over by this system and understanding that you and

(02:32:30):
all of the other people striking at the same time,
and perhaps even a bunch of people not striking are
all kind of fighting the same fight. And then maybe
there's grander things to achieve than the negotiation of a
single contract, because that seems like the big leap that
is going to be the real struggle to clear. Uh yeah,

(02:32:51):
you know. Um. I will say that some of the
workers are fully aware that this is not just about
a single contract negotiation and is actually, you know, more
about struggles of the working class against corporate greed and
the ways in which the working class gets their asses
handed to them all the time, um um. And they
know that they know that at some point, perhaps at

(02:33:13):
some point in the future, someone else is going to
look at their example and be inspired by it. Right. Um.
As far as like maybe I don't know, ideologically speaking
or politically speaking, for these folks, it's uh doesn't fit
into any sort of ideology leftist or conservative or whatever.

(02:33:33):
Everyone's got their own personal politics. But they don't really
talk about it on the line. What they talk about
is working class versus ruling class. Um that you know,
that's their sense. It's corporate greed, it's um asshole. CEO
is making eleven point six million dollars a year while
they're struggling to pay their own bills, you know, UM,

(02:33:55):
and and you know that conversation is more common than UM.
Trying to fit this into a larger political movement or
revolutionary movement, if that makes sense, you know yeah, um,
But I would say that the vast majority of the workers,
regardless of their own personal politics, have a very clear
sense of where they sit in terms of class consciousness

(02:34:18):
and understand that this is one of one of the
most effective tactics to try and force the hand of
these assholes, you know, UM is to withhold work and
withhold their labor. So well, this has been great. I
mean that's everything I had to ask Chris anything else
that I have? So there is there a call to

(02:34:39):
action we could have for our listeners or pages people
should be following strike fund Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a
go fund me and there's a PayPal set up for
the Omaha strikers. I believe the b C t g
M International page has like a page of each of
the strike funds for each of the four plants. So
that might be something that you might want to share

(02:35:01):
with your listeners. I can send you an email with
that um, because it's probably going to be easier to do. Um.
But yeah, as far as I know, bct GM isn't
called for an official boycott of Kellogg's products. However, they
wouldn't be mad if you just didn't buy any right now.
There was some talk last week that some of the
picketers might you know, be flying outside of grocery stores

(02:35:23):
to try and educate the community on what's going on
with this strike. But beyond that, they also are concerned
about the quality of the food being produced by scabs,
So it probably would be healthy for you to not
by the food, you know, because I think it wasn't
what two thousand eighteen during the works a lockout in Memphis,

(02:35:45):
the same company that they brought in then that they're
bringing in now, uh piste in the cereal on the line,
and it didn't release video of that for two years
after the incident, so it ended up in someone's um,
you know, gross yikes, yikes, Yeah, I guess, but yeah,

(02:36:10):
that's pretty fun right. Um. So yeah, you know, uh,
support your local strike fund and if you are in
a city where Kellogg's plant is striking, I'm sure those
workers would love love to to hear from you fill
your support. So where and where can our listeners follow you?

(02:36:32):
I am on Twitter primarily at cold Brood Tool. I
don't know why I picked that name, but I like it. Yeah, yeah,
I got it. I haven't changed that handle since I
got into Twitter, so um. But yeah, that's usually where
I'm at. Otherwise, you know, I teach locally and had
to have a podcast that I'm developing and do a

(02:36:54):
bunch of different projects. So Twitter is the best way
to get a hold of me if you have questions. Awesome,
all right, thanks for having me on folks, Thanks to us,
Thanks for thanks for joining us. I'll be back at
the picket line, you know, talking to these folks, and
I'm going to do my best to keep this ship
in the new cycles so that they aren't forgotten. So awesome.

(02:37:14):
We've got a link to the strike Fund and some
other ways to help me in the description. So yeah,
this has been it could Happen Here pod. Follow us
on Twitter, Instagram at Happened Here pod, and at cools
on media for all the rest of our shows. Hey, everybody,

(02:37:40):
Robert Evans here your favorite podcast. Are also legally the
only podcaster that that people are allowed to enjoy on
the internet here to introduce a really exciting episode of
it could happen here. So for the last bit of time,
I've been in and out of touch with a number
of members of the Puget Sound John Brown Club. They
have provided armed self defense groups for a couple of

(02:38:03):
different protests in the Washington area over the last year
and change, UM, and we wanted to sit down and
talk to them about the ideas behind community self defense,
how to do it responsibly, how to do it irresponsibly.
We also had some discussions with them about the disasters
that happened at the Chop Slash Chaz last year. They
were not involved with that as an organization UM, but

(02:38:24):
they have some insights on the matter. UM. That's going
to be coming at you in a separate episode or
maybe even a couple of episodes in the near future.
Today we're just kind of talking about the concepts of
armed community self defense. You know, what's responsible, what's irresponsible,
how people should think about it. I think you'll enjoy
the conversation here. It is a decent chunk of the

(02:38:44):
folks listening, especially the Portlanders, will have experience with UH
and that that Garrison and I have certainly had experienced
with it is people at protests declaring themselves security, sometimes
even wearing shirts that say security and uh, picking up
a variety of what fense, often paintball guns and mace,
and using them, often irresponsibly on other protesters, on on bystanders,

(02:39:08):
in the name of of of keeping things safe. And UM,
I think we're pretty clear, and I think most reasonable
people can see that that's not community self defense. But
often those people certainly claim that what they're doing is
community self defense. UM. And I'm specifically wanting to start
by getting a kind of a range of definitions from folks,

(02:39:30):
as you are, all people who have engaged in community
self defense, UM, and particularly armed community self defense. What
do you see as the actual role of community self
defense and and how should it look as opposed to,
you know, a guy with a paintball gun yelling at
kids for tagging a window. Ray you wanna you want

(02:39:50):
to kick us off with an answer there, I do.
Community defense should be part of the a broad health
and safety infrastructure set up for or a protest movement
or a community. Being deliberately vague here, but specifically, armed
community defense deals with mitigating lethal and egregious harm to

(02:40:11):
members of a community. The goal is forced and foremost prevention,
mitigation and control of those threats. In my mind, ideally
community defense would involve no one doing anything, carrying around
a bunch of really heavy ship and nothing happening, but
deterring those from harming others. In the absolute worst case,

(02:40:32):
it means you have to actually do something that can
get messy pretty quickly. I want to circle back to
a couple of things. Actually, I do have one one
quick follow up question for you before we move on
to the next people. Ray. When you say like carrying
heavy things and whatnot, I'm wondering, what do you think
I'm interested in you and I'll probably ask other people
to follow up when it when it comes to carrying

(02:40:52):
and bringing a firearm to either a protest situation some
other community self defense situation. What it is going through
your head when you do determine what to bring, Because
I've seen people carry a variety of different guns from
like shotguns and in one case is of mos and
negot to a r S or handguns. Um, what do
you think is kind of the the logic train I

(02:41:13):
guess that you would take, Like, what is the appropriate
tool to bring like in this situation, So that depends
entirely on what the anticipated threat is and how one
plans to mitigate the anticipated threat. There's no correct answer
for that. Sometimes the answer to mitigate lethal or regious
bodily harm is not a firearm at all. Indeed, firearms

(02:41:34):
are applicable in an extraordinarily narrow range of scenarios, but
those range of scenarios are catastrophic and need extreme measures
to be mitigated. So it depends on what if you
are considering bringing firem what is the firearm good at
And then you get into the minutia of what firearm
is good for what thing, which depends on your legal

(02:41:55):
context and particular threat. But I think one has to
start with the question is is the thing I'm bringing
able to mitigate the type of harm I might see
happen to my community? And to get a little bit
less vague, there are people who think that bringing a
shotgun is a good way to stop a car speeding
into a crowd, when it clearly isn't right. So one

(02:42:16):
has to make sure that the tool, whatever they have
is you is appropriate for the task at hand and
the threat you anticipate. That was great. Thank you, Ray,
Um Katie you want to you want to give us
your answer next. I agree with everything that Race said,
and the only addition that I'd make is that, UM,
it's specifically in our in our cases generally doesn't mean

(02:42:39):
standing between protesters and police, but more guiding protesters, you know,
our activists or participants away from potential situations of harm.
It's like, we can't stand in front of police and
stop cops from doing their job. Like that just gets
you arrested and uh or worse or worse, and that's

(02:43:03):
not what we're here for. So yeah, that's all I
wanted to could you, because I have chatted with a
couple of your number about this, about um kind of
the role that that an armed contingent at a protest
can play in kind of allowing an avenue of retreat,
you know, especially during confrontations with non state actors. UM,

(02:43:24):
I'm interested in kind of what you um, you know,
you're not You're not to kind of as you did,
kind of kind of clarify this conception. You don't see
your role as standing in front of the protesters between
them and the cops and like presenting a threat to
the cops. What is the utility and kind of an
active protest situation that you've seen of of of what
y'all do. So that's a good question. And um, if

(02:43:48):
we're doing our job well, then most people think we
don't do anything at all. Um. A lot of what
we do is we're watching external potential threats to my
try to come in. The most common factor these days
is a car um but generally we're looking for folks
that might cause trouble and finding ensuring that we're not

(02:44:09):
putting ourselves in a position where we're gonna get cornered
or trapped and and really you know, just trying to
help facilitate and work with the facilitators and organizers to
keep things, you know, progressing in a safe way. So
as far as what we're protecting against threat wise, that
that ranges from everything from like angry people who are

(02:44:30):
just angry and trying to go home and getting blocked
by a protest too, people who are who are actively
looking to do harm to a movement that happens to
be involved in the protests, or you know, maybe it's
something as as as specific as a person who's looking
to specifically do harm to uh, organizers. So most of

(02:44:53):
the time it's we're focused outward and and just making
sure that our exits are are covered and that we
have way to get people away from potential bad situations. Um,
that was great, Thank you, Katie Shannon you want to
give your answer, No, absolutely, thanks. I would add there's
a really critical element to community defense that begins and

(02:45:16):
ends with the word community. Obviously, there's a big difference
between proclaiming yourself security and showing up someplace and being
there as an intentional community support where the community plays
a role in you being there and also has some
influence on that question of what are you carrying and
what is the response. I think it's just really important

(02:45:38):
that you keep the community aspect at the forefront, and
that's a huge part of our collective work is making
sure that when we're providing community defense, we're aligning ourselves
with the desires of the community group that has asked

(02:46:01):
us to be there, also filtering it through our judgment
as to what's safe and appropriate under the circumstances, using
some of those filters that Ray mentioned when they were
answering and UM, what do you see as like like
this is something that that I kind of gets to

(02:46:22):
both what what is an issue with me? And kind
of the folks who declare themselves a security, which is
that they're often kind of separating themselves from the rest
of the movement, specifically in a cop like way to
say like, well, it's my job to keep you saving,
even though that means or it's my job to keep
things order leaven if that means attacking some other people
at this protest. One of the things that Scott Crowe
in is uh in Setting Sights, which is a really

(02:46:45):
good book on community self defense, does is set out that, um,
a key aspect of community self defense, as you said,
is that you're like a member of the community. And
I think, I guess the question I have is because
guns are what they are and have the kind of
cultural weight that they have, it's you people are always

(02:47:07):
people who accept being armed as an aspect of their
personality are always going to be kind of fighting having
that dominate their personality. And it wouldn't. It's clearly something
that a lot of people have an issue with. The
thing that is important is to be a member of
the community who happens to be armed, as opposed to

(02:47:28):
an armed activist whose whose role is being armed right,
Like I I mean, do you agree with what I'm
saying or kind of like I'm wondering how you think
about it, because this is something that I'm kind of
going around in my head about as well, because it's
it's it's clearly where a lot of the problems happen,
right that the gun becomes central to the identity of
the people who bring it, which is something that happens

(02:47:50):
to the cops. Yes, and also the mentality of separating
yourself from the community and not being part of the
purpose of being there. And so I'll defer to my
my comrades here to go a little bit further with it,
but I would just say that there's a significant difference

(02:48:11):
between armed community defense and having an intentional presence of
armed community defense at an event or protest and being
a person who shows up with a gun. Those are
two really different things, and so I think that's the
that's one of the benefits of being part of an

(02:48:34):
organization that does this collectively, with accountability, with training, with
a known role in the community, so that there is
um consistency among what we do and why we do it,
and history of folks understanding that if we're present somewhere,

(02:48:59):
it's because we've been asked to be there, and that
what we're doing there is aligned with and approved of
by the people who are organizing the event. And then
I'll let somebody else who's more eloquent than I am
uh answered that further if they feel like they can. Yeah,
I think NOVA is up now. If you wanted to

(02:49:20):
give your answer and kind of also comment on what
we've been chatting about, what Channon and I were just
chatting about, Nova, Hi, thank you so much. UM. I
would say that folks like Ray and Katie and of
course Shannon really put it very sustinctly, very well together
and answered a lot of the things that I was
gonna already provided things that I was going to add
to it. But um, the specifically the part about the

(02:49:44):
gun becoming the driving factor in somebody's presence at the protest,
or the gun being a part of the personality of
somebody who's going to appoint themselves as a guardian towards
a bunch of people, I would I would say that
with any responsible community community defense role within a protest context,

(02:50:07):
that the act of being a body in between a
threat and your community has to come first, and that
the that the firearm has to be secondary. Um. Uh,
there there was an incident on the night of protest
where uh many of us were at risk of being

(02:50:28):
harmed by a vehicle attack, and uh, in retrospect, a
firearm would not have mitigated that threat terribly well, but
the idea of being in between a threat such as
that and somebody else who is possibly more vulnerable than
you are bore a lot more of a significance on that.

(02:50:49):
So the firearm being there to respond to a threat
and perhaps mitigate an active, ongoing, deadly threat to your
community is one thing, But I think the imary thing
is going to be just putting yourself in harm's way
so that you can spare that responsibility from somebody possibly
more vulnerable than you. If that makes sense, that should

(02:51:11):
be the primary responsibility. And um, how do you avoid
letting that turn people doing that into feeling like a
separate and even elevated chunk of the community, Because that again,
that's what happens with police. You know, this idea that
it starts as like, well, we're here to serve and
protect um, and that that through a variety of toxic

(02:51:35):
alchemies turns into this idea of the thin blue line.
What is the way you push back on that? How
do you actually stop it from going from I'm someone
who is accepting personal responsibility for the well being of
the people around me um and putting my body in
between them on harm's way if necessary, uh, to I
it's my job to protect people, to it's my job

(02:51:57):
to you know, from turning that into kind of this
idea of I think stewardship in some ways that like
some people in law enforcement have where like you're there,
they they get to tell you what to do because
that's their responsibility to keep you safe. Like, how do
you how do you stop that attitude from evolving? Because
I've seen it happen to people fairly quickly when they

(02:52:19):
put themselves in some of these situations sometimes and it's
certainly not like most people, but it is. It doesn't
take a long time for somebody to like especially if
they're vulnerable, to get in that position. So how do you,
especially if you're approaching it from an organizational standpoint, right,
you're an organization made up of people who come to

(02:52:40):
do this, how do you fight back against that? Like?
What is the active kind of counter programming, if you will,
I'd see I don't have an easy answer for that question,
to be completely honest with you, but I say that
the closest thing uh to an answer to that would
be that and almost you know, monastic devotion to the

(02:53:04):
task that was acts asked of you by the group
that asked you there. Um. So if somebody asked us
to be a part of a march and to simply
look outward for external threats and to be willing to
respond to those threats that need be again putting our
bodies in harm's way, but also be willing to respond

(02:53:25):
to lethal force and kind should the worst case scenario arise. Um,
I'd say that the ultimate accountability rest with the people
who asked you to be there. Uh. And there's no
easy answer as to what that mechanism of accountability looks like.

(02:53:45):
But you know, in several layers, that would start with
your teammates, the people who are part of your organization
that asked you to be that is asked to be there.
So other members of of j B g C are
you know, definitely going to try and keep each other accountable.
But it's also the larger the the the the the

(02:54:09):
larger contingent of the action that you're a part of. Uh,
to be ultimately willing to back down from whatever you're
doing if a concern is voiced by that community. And
I wish I had a better way to word that, uh,
But just the the the the constant vigilance within oneself

(02:54:33):
against overstepping the boundaries that were clearly set by people
who invited you into a space. UM. That's really the
best answer I can get for that at the moment
without further percolating. Well, I mean, yeah, for for one thing,
I think this is the reason we're having this conversation,
and I'm getting ahead of us a little, is because
this is still very much a developing thing on the

(02:54:56):
left and and I don't think anybody has all the
answers on how to do it well, although I think
an increasing number of folks except the necessity. UM. So
I think that's part of the reason for the conversation,
is this like continuing exploration of how to actually do
this responsibly. UM. But I do think you hit on
something important there when you talked about the that you're

(02:55:20):
there at the invitation of a community, as opposed to
you are there too to police or to maintain order.
Like the idea of approaching it as if you were
to guest strikes me as a really good idea, UM,
in order to keep yourself on a certain behavioral um standpoint,

(02:55:40):
like I'm I'm I'm here at the request of this
community as their guest, as opposed to I am here
to protect this community. You know, absolutely, that's a that's
a That's a perfect way to summarize what I was
trying to go for with that one. I think that
the ultimately to be averse to being put in a

(02:56:02):
position of power or authority is the best way to
check against that um and to simply be a servant
to the community that is again inviting you into that
space and putting yourself in a m servile is not
the right word. I'm looking for a different word for that,

(02:56:24):
but a a position of service, a true position like
like yes, what what what community defense should be is
ultimately a service and a burden rather than a reward
of responsibility and power over your fellow community members. Okay, yeah, great,

(02:56:46):
I think next was Ray again, Um, you had something
to say there. Yeah, I'll finish that thought in my
notes under the section of what happens when things go right.
I think one thing that can go right is normalizing
that firearms are just a thing that can be around
and they don't have to be your entire ass personality,

(02:57:07):
nor do they have to be a differentiating factor. Indeed,
I think one of the successes there are not many,
but of community defense in the Chop was normalizing the
idea that people can have firearms and they're not an
inherent threat. UM. Thinking of people who are armed often
and we're pointed out routinely, and it was like, Nah,
he's still he's He's a cool dude, you know, just

(02:57:29):
a guy, just like the things like, you know, do
you really think the black guy is going to shoot
up the top? I don't know that. He's totally fine.
I know him. His jokes are great. Um a goat
an overhearing of these kind of conversations, it helps, you know,
firearms become like part of the tapestry of life, not
this differentiating factor, not a beauty item, not something of

(02:57:50):
rape your personality around. It's just like they're there and
that they can be good, bad, right, wrong, or different.
And I think that normalizing effect is one of the
successes community can have and I'm happy to talk about
other things the community defense can normalize, but I wanted
to emphasize the you just have a firearm. You're not
talking about it, you're not touching it, you're not thinking
about it. You know, people have that. It's just around

(02:58:11):
And it became pretty chill, and there was kind of
the Chop specifically, there's an area where firearms just kind
of were around and nothing happened really and that was
kind of wonderful in my mind. So, um, from my
experience with with the club, Uh, it's basically the even

(02:58:32):
though we are the John Brown Gun Club, the guns
are like the last thing that we even consider. Like
it would technically if we were to actually rename the club,
it would be the John Brown de Escalation Club. Um,
we would like most of the time any um, any
anything that's gone on. Even when I did visit the

(02:58:52):
Chop and there were some weird stuff going on, like
Brother Matthew being Brother Matthew, people were um using their
skills to um to to d escalate situation, to calm
the calm out, calm down individuals to make sure that
that whatever hostility they have would be abated through just

(02:59:15):
verbal verbal communications talked about that in a little more detail,
because I don't know who. I mean, I was at
the Chazz briefly, but I don't know who brother Matthew was,
or like what incident you're talking about. Something is a
guy who shows up up here all around the Seattle area.
And also I think he's even shut up in Portland
as well. Um got preacher guy, gets in everybody's faces,

(02:59:38):
usually not liked by everybody, super afraid of snakes, thanks Jerry. Um.
But yeah, he like like he's he's a person who
drives off a confrontation and uses the Bible as as
his mode of of operation. But um, I remember distinctly
at at the chop Um he was getting it, getting

(03:00:01):
into it with people. But everybody who was around tried
to talk him down. They tried to chill make him
chill out, even though he was continually screaming for attention
and just being weird. But um, but in the end,
um like that's just like that happens more often with

(03:00:24):
protests situations or marked situations or direct action situations where
we're asked to be a part of it by the organizers.
And and as um Ray had mentioned, and Nova had
mentioned um. We like we're asked to be there and
we're not just asked and then we suddenly show up,
Like we get involved with the people who are organizing

(03:00:48):
any of the partners that they that they that they
get that they bring into it. We try to learn
as much about what's going on with them, who are
the threats, where, where the event is, how the event
is um going to be thought of. We ask a
lot of questions about it, Like we plan and plan
and plan and plan to make sure that everything is

(03:01:10):
super safe or as safe as possible based on all
known variables and uh, and then the stuff that's unknown,
we do our best to mitigate that somehow. Yes we
are armed, but that's like the last thing that we
ever even think of, and that's even in our planning,
Like we say flat out de escalate first. Um. If

(03:01:30):
things start to ratch it up, respond in kind. So
like if someone you know, like tries to like I
don't know, like starts to fist fight, We're not going
to pull out a gun on someone who wants to
box somebody on the street. We're going to do our
best to stop so uh, stop them through other means,

(03:01:52):
like whether if it's just to block a punch or whatever.
But the first things and foremost is d escal Asian calm,
calm that person down and tell them to go away
or just to chill out or whatever the whatever is necessary.
I mean de escalation. All of the best community self
defense that I've personally watched has been de escalation. Um.

(03:02:17):
You know, they're They're not the only situations I've seen.
I've seen force used a couple of times in situations
that were necessary, but by far, de escalation is the
thing I've seen, um actually protect people in dicey situations
the most. Um, And generally that's that's going to be
the case. Yeah. I know for myself, like my attitude

(03:02:38):
is we all go home. Everybody who shows up there
goes home, not to the hospital, not to jail, or
not to the morgue. We all go home. Yeah, I
think that's definitely seems like the best way to look
at it. So into the specific question of how not
to become a cop in this position and on the gun,

(03:03:02):
the only way I've been able to do anything in
that regard has been to not have that be my
primary thing that I fulfilled. I'm part of a community
and I'm a mechanical person this community. I try to
have my mission be not that other skill set or
that other access to being of an aid to a community,

(03:03:25):
be my actual purpose in the community, if that makes
any sense. M Yeah, that makes complete sense. Um and Yeah,
I think is the healthiest way to to deal with it.
So something I've been wondering about as so I'm like
nott armed at all. So I guess I'm on like

(03:03:47):
the other the other side of defense, of the sort
of community self defense. I think that people show up
to protests, um. And So something I was wondering about
is is the relationship between this stuff and you know,
between the sort of hot mentality development and the difficulty
of sort of integrating to the community, of having organizations

(03:04:09):
that are basically independent security groups and not for example,
like taking like I don't know, take like an historical example,
like there was a thing in China you'd see a
lot in like the nine hundreds where you know, you'd
have armed pickets, right, and so you you you have
an armed force there, but the armed force is like
you know, this is this is like a branch of

(03:04:29):
the union, right, and that's that's how they sort of
like like that that was the sort of solution to
how do you stop cops syndrome is that you know
they're they're they're basically like a part of another community organization.
And so I'm I'm curious what you all think about
what the sort of I guess that the strengths and

(03:04:50):
weaknesses of being an independent or having having sort of
independent security organizations versus having I guess, subsections of other
organizations that are armed. Yeah, I feel like I can
offer a unique perspective here as someone who's been privy
to multiple angles of this, including separate organizations, ones integrated

(03:05:14):
with others, and ones that are sort of just parts
of the community. I don't think there's any like inherent
sort of best answer here. I do think being part
of a separate organization makes it harder to be in
the community versus of the community, meaning you came from
the community and now you're sort of kind of separate

(03:05:36):
but not really UM like JB in particular has a
perpetual problem with people saying, oh, you know, John Brown
will do X. And this is something that has been
discussed and often this is to people's immense fire. I
don't want to speak for everyone here, but it does
seem to be that, so seldom does one wish to
be said, oh, hello, It's kind of like saying, oh,

(03:05:58):
the Union will solve this, and it's like, turns out
you're the Union buddy, um right, and never referred to
be union in the first person. So I do think
being embedded into other groups or being sort of this
loose diffuse group can make it easier to be part
of the community because of the structural forces that make that, um,
it is easier to get there. A separate organization can

(03:06:21):
help focus and codify certain procedures training, you know, make
sure that people have some sort of unified goals and values,
at the expense of making it a bit harder to
integrate into one's community. I think given the era we're in,
I'm not surprised we see many many approaches to community
defense with varying effectiveness at different times, including JBS perspective. Yeah,

(03:06:48):
and um, I guess I'm interested as we are as
we move on here, and like, one of the one
of the questions I see is how do you the
difficulty and kind of you don't want to have a
situation where there's absolutely no where the community self defense
contention is anyone who shows up with a gun, because

(03:07:10):
then anyone can show up with a gun, and you
as someone else who's showing up with a weapin or
potentially like if that person uh makes a bad decision,
that's going to I mean as it as it has
in the past, that has significant repercussions on everybody else.
And I that is one of the thorny or points
because I I do one of the things I see

(03:07:32):
is valuable. Someone mentioned earlier, like the nice thing about
it just in not being firearms being normalized, not as
a like gun culture thing, but as this is just
a thing that is present in the community. And I
saw that a lot in Rojaba, right that everybody was armed,
or at least the significant chunk of the populace had
access to arms, but nobody was showing off with them.

(03:07:54):
They were not like anybody's like like piece of identity.
They were just one of the tools like a like
a like a spade or a shovel that we're present
in the community. Um okay, I think I've skipped over
a couple of people. I wanted to give Thud a
chance to talk. That's actually very much short of in
line with But the point I was going to make,
which is, for me, a huge part of community defense

(03:08:17):
is making sure that the aspect that is defending the
community is not alienated from the community because it isn't
concentrated in just a few people. Because I think one
of the other things that we emphasize the lots with
outside of direct protest actions is you try to teach

(03:08:39):
people how to safely operate firearms, but also to give
firearms the respect that they deserve. That farms are not
there so that you are badass. Firearms are not there
because you know you're going to get into a gunfight.
And it's well, the first rule, I mean, one of
the one of the things that we stress sort of
beyond the basic four rules of gun safety is the

(03:09:00):
first rule of gunpipe is don't get into a gunpipe.
That it's you know, you want to exhaust every possible
option that you have. And when the community at large
is engaged, and like Pray was saying that, it sort
of it becomes normalized that oh, we're not relying on
these several people to keep us safe, but that in fact,

(03:09:24):
as an entire collective, we're keeping a safe and that
gives recognition the fact that some people it's not it's
not the right choice for them to carry again for
one reason or another. And the at the same time,
the power that is present in that particular tool is

(03:09:45):
dispersed to the point where it doesn't you know, you
don't have people getting self aggrandizing thoughts because of the
fact that they're possessing firearps. And I think that's something
that we, you know, work really hard to instill end
evil in a variety of context, and I think is

(03:10:07):
really critical to this question. So the question trying to summarize, UM,
what the question was earlier, What the strengths or weaknesses
of having an organized armed response are UM. One of
the things that that I wanted to bring up is
the historical context of armed response, specifically community armed response

(03:10:30):
in Seattle. UM. I did some digging and found in
a book called History of Seattle from the Earliest Settlement
to the Present Time, Volume two, which I started pouring
through and found that there was in eighteen seventy four
there was a group called the Seattle Amateur Rifle Association

(03:10:52):
which least land for a range on current present day
Capitol Hill, UM, like right where the train station is.
If you're familiar with the yet so like right where
protests always happened these days. Later on, there's record record
in eight seventy seven of the Seattle Rifle Team organizing
and shooting contests. And then later on in eight six,

(03:11:14):
which is a number that probably rings the bell, the
Chinese Riots, as they called them at the time, happened,
which was sort of the start of the labor movement,
where everyone decided that Chinese immigrants were the cause of
all of our woes, that the low wages being paid
to Chinese immigrants were because of Chinese immigrants and not racism.

(03:11:34):
So they decided to run every person who looked Chinese
out of town. Literally. They referred to this as the
Tacoma method, and that's what they did in Takemma exactly.
It started there and there was a February seventh of
eight six, this massive, angry racist mob tried to push

(03:11:56):
all of the Chinese folks out of Seattle or anyone
they thought might look like Chinese is and they tried
to push them onto a steamboat, but there weren't there
wasn't enough room for them all there. Um cops got involved.
A bunch of other stuff happened they decided no, give
them time in court. But in the process of making

(03:12:18):
this decision, you know, the racist got a mob together
and we're basically just going to try and put a
stop to this before the legal proceedings could to go forward.
So they reached out to local allies and arms. They
had the Home Guards, which I'm not exactly sure exactly
what the Home Guards were, but I assume there's something

(03:12:39):
related to National Guard later on, or maybe just an
extension of military, but the Home Guards and the Seattle
Rifles as well as the University Cadets, which I'm assuming
are of course soldiers in training, and pulled them all
out and made a community self defense group out of them.

(03:13:00):
They put a rifle line and held the mob back
and enabled those folks to get you know, safely, to
have their day in court, um, and then to protect
them for a while afterward. They actually organized a sort
of a watch because they didn't have enough police to
to manage the mob. They use folks from the Seattle

(03:13:22):
Rifles and these other groups to uh to sort of
bolster the police forces and keep peace in the town.
So the sort of thing that we do is a
longstanding historical presence but I think there's a lot of
things you can look at the history of and sort
of take lessons from so um as as very mentioned,

(03:13:43):
a unified response is of course a huge benefit of
having a huge strength of having an organized armed group. Uh.
And it's it's literally if someone reaches out and says
we need help, help is available. Um. But there are
a lot of weaknesses. Businesses and clubs can be held
liable legally, and this is an endemic problem within gun

(03:14:04):
law as it stands. The laws are written such that
they effectively there that it comes down to situational context
to determine how a gun law should be enforced. And
the law will never be on the side of a
group trying to abolish parts of the law. So you
have to be very careful about how you how especially
an organized or formally organized armed group has to be

(03:14:28):
very cheerful about how they put their their worked in
play with that in mind. Yeah, that was great. I
was unaware, actually I was aware of the of the riots.
I was unaware of that part of the history, which
is fascinating, UM and I think very important. Yeah, Ray,
did you want to explain the threat onion? Yeah, the

(03:14:52):
integrated threat onion. So this is kind of a a
well known meme in certain circles slash at tool thing,
and it's designed to help you understand how to like
mitigate threat and sorry, integrated survivability onion mitigate threats. Right.
So the teel deer is, you know, do you want

(03:15:13):
to try to preserve life by having body armor and
hoping a bullet hits you in the body armor or
do you want to preserve life by I don't know,
not showing the funk up to something where you might
get shot. And the idea is it's it's a meme
because so often, you know, people are like, oh, they
want to get in there and get and get engaged
with conflict and be the hero. And the answer is,
you know, you could just like not go there, right,

(03:15:34):
and it would probably be a lot easier to do that.
But there's some real weight to the survivability onion, which
is like, there are many many ways to mitigate threats
to yourself in your community, and very often the most
boring and mundane answer is probably the one that's going
to actually result in the biggest impact, and the heroic
answer is probably the absolute worst answer, and only what

(03:15:57):
you rely on if everything I'll has gone to hell.
So that's someone I think it was thund spoken to
alluded to the threat onion and ways to mitigate harm
to oneself in one's community, and I had to repeat
it because it's this this meme that's been coming up forever. Yeah,
and it is like the basic idea of the threat

(03:16:19):
onion is that you have like this again you you
think of it in layers. That's why they call it
an onion. Um of like things that protect you, and
the things that provide the most protection are stuff like
not being seen or present when somebody wants to harm you, um,
not or being behind cover when somebody wants to harm you.
And the thing that offers the least protection is having

(03:16:40):
body armor. You know. It's this the idea that like, um,
the things that people buy and and focus on because
they look cool, UM are all things that offer less
protection than situational awareness and good judgment. UM is kind
of the actual like lesson I think to take out
of the threat onion. That to be my opinion on

(03:17:00):
the matter. This has been it could happen here. That's
all for this week. Find us at Happen Here pod
on Instagram. And Twitter, and find the rest of our
shows at cool zone Media in the same places. Hey,

(03:17:22):
We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from
now until the heat death of the Universe. It Could
Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For
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(03:17:45):
Thanks for listening.

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