Updates Episode 2022

We give updates on some of the topics covered on the show during the past few months, including the UC Strike, anti-Queer rhetoric, and the midterms.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Everyone. It could happen here a bit in a slightly
different way. Today it's like asynchronous presentation, and we're gonna
have some updates on things that we've covered. So I'm
going to update on the ongoing you see strike, which
at the time of recording is still ongoing, and these
interviews are recorded on Friday, you will be hearing this.
If you hurt the day that goes out, you'll be
hearing on Tuesday. So a little more have happened, and

(00:27):
I'll bring you some more updates after the break. Garrison
is reporting on some stuff that they have covered, just
updating various things, and Chris has an update on the
mid terms now that we know a little bit more
about the results of those. So we hope you'll enjoy
these updates. We want to keep bringing you these stories
and not just sort of reporting them and then walk away.
We are off for the rest of the week after that,

(00:48):
so nothing from us Wednesday through Friday, but we'll have
something else for you next Monday. Starting to record, and
if you could start off by just introducing yourself, saying
your name, maybe what the when you're in something like that,
and any like impertinent strike information would be cool. I'm
Amy con are usually your pronouns. I am a second
year a PhD student in the Computer Science and Engineering department,

(01:13):
and I am on the bargaining team after the student
research for union. Hi, my name is Adu Engel. I'm
a third year in the math department, third year PhD student,
he pronouns, and I'm on uh, the executive board for
our union new aw amazing, Okay, great. I'm James he
him uh And yeah, I'm a journalist trying to feel

(01:35):
like one. So you guys have been out for about
a week now, right, and you like, there was pretty
good energy today. We just finished a big rally here
down by the beach. People could probably hear the ocean
in the background, which is very San Diego. And I
wanted to know that how the first week ago and
how the energy was, how the bargaining had gone. So
perhaps you can give us a bargaining update because we

(01:56):
haven't really talked about that yet. Yeah, I can do
the bargaining update. I think that you see has really
been attempting to avoid us at the bargaining table, and
I think that we're are. Oh, we are constantly finding
new ways to put a pressure on them, both through
our bargaining strategy and through our on the ground organizing

(02:18):
at actions to get them to meet us in a
good faith the UM. Throughout the past year or more
of bargaining, depending on which of the bargaining units you're
talking about, they have done a numerous unfair labor practices
and other forms of illegal and unlawful behavior in bargaining

(02:42):
that have I just generally been stopping us from reaching
a fair agreement. And UM. We're on strike to show
them that we're serious about UM, or to not even
to show them, but to apply the pressure necessary to
get them to meet that's in good faith UM. In

(03:03):
the past week, we have made a fair amount of
progress on many non economic articles from various of the
bargaining units. Non economic economic is a blurry a distinction
that we think about UM in terms of bargaining and UM.
And another thing on everyone's minds is wages, and there

(03:26):
you see has still not moved from their entirely unreasonable
a position from more than a month ago. For UH,
the Student Researcher Union and the other bargaining units are
very are in a similar vote. So what's say, what's
the position right now, uh, there a position is a

(03:48):
seven percent in the first year, a three percent in
all the years afterwards, which is not that doesn't even
encount for inflation. That's crazy increase cost like and incredibly
unaffordable cost of living. It's basically a pay cut. Yeah, okay, Uh,
So what are those non economic issues where you've had
most success? Do you want to talk about those two? Yeah?

(04:10):
I mean there's a bunch. I think one of the
big ones where we've shown a lot of success, and
there's one that actually we've made some progress today. Um,
there's a lot. I think there's things that make our
union stronger, union access and union A security. We've reached

(04:33):
a tentative agreement on for most of the bargaining units
I'm pretty sure um uh for working current injury and illness.
This is something that actually that you see was not
a budgeting on for a really long time for student
researchers that now we're hoping that we can actually reach

(04:54):
an agreement soon about UM and we're thinking that's likely
a personal a time off as another one that up
until now a graduate student researchers I didn't have a
legal right to take days off work, and now you
see has moved to twelve days a year, which does

(05:17):
this start. We don't think it's good enough, but oh,
we're going to see if they moved to UH four
is a current plant, and as a bunch of other
smaller ones, like there's the access needs access needs article,
there's UM I can't remember all of them off top
of my head. There's a bunch in that sort of

(05:38):
vein that we've made a lot of progress on UM
and and yeah, there's also some economic ones that we've
made at some progress on, like a transit is a
big one. But there's a lot of things and I'm
not sure how to summarize at all, but yeah, it's
very complicated, but there's a lot of small things, small
things that's good. Yeah, so maybe you could tell that

(05:59):
to get you to needed like you had a really
good vibe with your picket line. Yeah, totally talk about
what it's been like for a week. Yeah, I mean so,
I think the week just started off very strong. So
we had great numbers on day one and at day
one we did a massive, massive rally with everyone on
campus who was striking coming right a little way now, Gonzalez,
the head of the California Federation of Labor talk there.

(06:20):
It was like extremely electric and I think for a
lot of people for the first time they saw just
how many people were in this together with them, and
that just you know, set the tone like we're doing
something really radical. We're fighting for radical change, but we're
all doing it in mass altogether. And and my picket
line especially, or I'm sure this is true many picket lines,
but we've developed a very strong sense of community. We

(06:43):
do like communal meals that are cooked in like five
instant pods outside on the picket line. Um, we've done
you know, like various chill events like karaoke and trivia
and stuff like that, but we also get together and
do some you know, really militant actions. We shut down
a conference yesterday. We've like picketed in intersections and done
all kinds of stuff and it's just really cool to see. Yeah,

(07:05):
maybe we can talk about some of the action zing
because I think and a lot of people in this
country still maybe have never seen or been involved in
a labor action themselves, and certainly they don't know what
it looks like at a university, which is a different
place from you know, a factory. Or something. So what
have you been doing when you've been getting up to you? Yeah,
I mean the base level thing is we just pick

(07:27):
it in front of our buildings, so we have a
picket line, we encourage people not to cross and in
the hope of disrupting the natural flow of university functions. Um,
but then they are also you know, the university have
some big events such as conferences, and now we pick
it outside a conference, and all of a sudden, avery
at the conference has to be really uncomfortable crossing our
picket line. And you know, if we're really loud, then

(07:49):
it's hard for them to do the regular conferencee things
and that kind of stuff. Yeah, I like that. I
want to talk a little bit about like what make
strike to work generally, solidarity right between people on strike
and people outside. So like we had somewhere from the
teamsters talking and like I covered the teams to strike
last year, did you want me the teams to his

(08:09):
refuge workers are on strike and Chula Vista and it
was great. People were bringing them food every day. So
have you seen much of that, like from other unions
or just from the community. Absolutely, yeah. I one of
the big community supports is undergrad support UM have I
pickt line, Like undergrads are just coming by all the time.
They just drop off some food. They say, just wanted
to give this to you, and then they just leave.

(08:31):
They just like want to help us out. It's super
cute and it is very uplifting for all of us.
And yeah, you wanna. Yeah, I think also a support
from other unions and from UM other members of the
labor movement has been really important. Like one of the
really big ones is the Teamsters UM, like all of

(08:52):
them UM sanctioned our strike, which means that they, uh,
they've instructed all of their unionized workers to not across
our picket line. This means that tons of UPS drivers,
tons of a Teamsters organized workers have been turning around

(09:17):
other vehicles when they reach our picket lines. And yeah,
has been really inspiring to see the San Diego imperial
A County's Labor Federation agreed to to cut the check
for anyone experiencing acute hardship during the strike, which is

(09:42):
incredible and I think it really makes us feel very
strong when we have the entirety of the entirety of
the labor movement at our back. Yeah, it's good to see, right, like,
especially um, if we like I'm a historian, and I
definitely spent eight years a lot of money here in history.
And like when we see students who workers together, that's

(10:04):
when we see change, right like especially in you know,
the last fifty seventy years whatever, And so that's, yeah,
that's very impressive. I wonder, like, I'm sure it hasn't
all been like rainbows and unicorns. Like someone's talked today
about a factory member who drove the car through a
picket line, and what the fund is happening with that?
Can you You cannot name the person if you don't

(10:24):
want to, Like, I haven't heard about that situation. There's
a lot going on every day. I know there was
one motorcycle that nearly drove through our line. Who were
pretty sure as an abusive advisor, We're not entirely sure. Um,
there's some good news. Actually, one piece of good news
is that we members of the picket line that I'm

(10:44):
at basically all engineers. And I mean I keep in
mind here that I've been told by a lot of
other workers in higher education they you can't organize engineers.
And and this morning, I think over a hundred of
us marched on the chair of the Material Science a
department and she agreed to send a letter to the

(11:10):
chancellor in support of our demands, and then she did it.
That's great, which is awesome, But there's also some crazy
stuff happening. There are some people that are really infuriated,
um when they see the pick of line. Those people
we try to de escalate and let through. But overall,
I think you see strategy and the community strategy at

(11:32):
large too. To overcome our strike is a lot of
background noise. UM. I think that the university's main response
has not been to crush our strike, though there has
been some retaliatory behavior from some advisors. The main thing

(11:52):
is that they just try to ignore it and act
like it's not happening. And I mean, we all here
know that it is happening. I feel like everyone on
our campus at this point knows that it is happening. Um.
But yeah, that's sort of their approach, and I think
that's the biggest way that they try at a union
bust is they don't meet with us, they don't treat

(12:13):
us fairly, and they don't and they act like we
don't exist. Yeah, that that's difficult and it'll I'm sure,
only get harder. Do you know if people are facing
like I know people have talked about like potential academic
difficulties and sort of academic consequences I guess for striking,
which is obviously a concern when your academic labor and

(12:33):
your labor for the university is sometimes sort of blurry
or like people feel like their relationship is something that
goes beyond their relationship with the university. Yeah, totally. So
there's kind of two aspects to this. There are some
illegal things that people in the university have tried, such
as UM. For example, many of us work as graduate

(12:54):
student researchers. UM. We do research, it is our job.
But because we're also students, we are enrolled course credits
for these research and you know, they have said that, oh,
if you don't do your research, you're going to fail
these course credits, which is completely ridiculous, completely illegal because
this is a hundred percent over life with our labor,
and we are completely legally protected in our right to

(13:15):
strike UM. But another aspect of this is that many
many of us are students who are taking very regular classes. Uh,
and many of these classes are still continuing and so
for these students who are concerned about their grades in
these classes, you know, this has had to you know
take them away from the picket line at times to
go to these classes. But we've tried to accommodate that

(13:35):
as best as we can. UM. For example, in our
picket line, we've had you know, we do a lot
of milited actions, but we need time to rest. And
during this rest time, we encourage people to you know,
work on their coursework together. We have this great community,
let's use it. Let's use it to you know, get
their course work done, and so we can all be
on the picket line as long as we possibly can.
That's great. Yeah, and it feels pretty nice to hear
its week. Okay. So in terms of like the hard ships,

(13:59):
I'm guessing the longer year at the more difficult, it
will get right and and folks will obviously like start
to feel more economic hardship. And so I want to know,
like I guess how you're preparing, and then I'd like
to know how people can help too, if there's a
place they can donate or show other support. Yeah. I
think when it comes to economic hardship, UM, right now,

(14:22):
we're not even entirely sure whether the university is withholding pay.
They have not sent out at testation forms. We think
that they might at some point soon, but of course,
UM at the end of the day, that's up to
the university to decide. Um if or when they do,
lots of people will face if a fair amount of

(14:45):
economic hardship. The u a W does have a strike fund,
so all out of the u a W members on
across all the u c s in our union, if
they show up for enough shifts on the pick a line,
they are entitled to a four hundred dollars a week, which,
mind you, is not enough too. It's not a comfortable wage,

(15:06):
but it's enough to scrape by. Yeah. Do you know,
for instance, what someone living in grad student housing like
well Mirama will be paying in rent in a month.
Just to give people a sense of ill expense to yeah,
I can tell you my experience. So I live in
Nouveau East on Campus and I pay about thousand dollars
in rent. But the year that I I started here,

(15:29):
just after I started, they hiked the rent buy up
to thirty five percent in some units as an example. Um,
even though I pay a thousand dollars in rent in
my two bedroom apartment. The other bedroom is which you know,

(15:49):
it's crazy. And I think if anyone is interested in
supporting the workers on strike, especially if we do have
our pay with held, I would recommend you give to
the Strike Hardship Fund. This is something that disperses to
any striker that's facing any any form of acute hardship,

(16:13):
no questions asked. And this is if you're interested in giving,
you can go to the website fair you see now
dot or slash a support and that's where you can
give to the Hardship Fund. And I do recommend you
do UM. And that's the way that we're dealing with
economic hardship, okay in those situations. Nice. One more thing

(16:36):
I wanted to ask about, and just from my own
experience as an international student, was that, like, your situation
is extremely fucking precarious and you can lose your visa
for almost any reason. I wonder how international students are
dealing with this, and like how the Union is helping
to protect them. Yeah, so international students are actually quite

(16:56):
protected in the strike. UM. They have the same legal
protection domestic students do. And so namely, none of them
can be fired for this. Yeah, and because their visa
is tied to their employment, their visa is also safe. Okay, yeah,
nicely has that Do you think people still feel that
sense of precarity, like, because like just to give an example, Um,

(17:21):
I I was in real visa trouble and like that
was extremely petrifying for me. Right, Like, so I'm sure
people I'm just interested to know like if they feel
that sense sort of they feel like protected. Yeah, I
mean absolutely, it is. It is tough in many ways.
Like I know one person next week instead of being
on the picket line, he has to go back to
the UK to renew his visa and that he's all

(17:42):
he's very unhappy about this. He actously had the picket
line at everyone. But yeah, it is what it is.
And um on top of that, many international students come
from cultures where such activities are not as common. They
are very unsure about joining it. But like for the
last few years, we have been deeply committed to a
movement of all workers, and so we organize every single

(18:04):
person we can, whether they are domestic, international, we are
all on strike together right now. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah,
so this is the end of week one, hopefully hope
you guys get what you want? And what do you
have planned for next week? It's Thanksgiving? Yeah, I mean,
so we have three days next week before thanks Saving break,
and I think we are going to go all out
for those three days. Everybody's gonna use all the energy

(18:26):
they have and then have a cool break anything. Yeah,
I think that's the plan. We're gonna make this university
regret not meeting us in good faith? Mega? All right,
where can people do? Have? Flick social media for the strike?
Social media for yourselves or your unions probably one of
the easiest places as you can go to either of

(18:49):
the Twitter accounts for either of the student worker unions,
like those are the ones that a tweet the most things.
So you can either go to Twitter dot com slash
s r u u A W or two uh Twitter again,
uh you a W to eight six five, And that's

(19:09):
where we do most of our communications. Nice. Yeah, And
if anyone wants any info at all, the the best
source of all is just fair you see now dot org. Okay,
nice outstanding, Thank you very much, guys. So it was
very good. Hey Garrison, here, I'm gonna be giving a

(19:36):
few updates on some of the types of stories that
I've covered on the show the past couple of months,
And I think I'll start by talking about Port Townsend.
So if you remember, from the beginning of September, we
put out an episode talking about this wave of transphobic
hate and organizing in response to this non incident at

(20:00):
a y m c A in the Olympic Peninsula, and
this spawned this massive organizing effort for these transphobic rallies
led by far right people and by turfs, appearances on
Tucker Carlson, Fox News, all of all of this stuff, um,
And we were putting this episode out right before a large,

(20:22):
well what seemed to be a large upcoming rally on
September the third. There was not like actual like national
socialist fascists coming in from out of state to to
to join in on this, a lot of a lot
of kind of local turfs and far right people, and
the rally turned out to be kind of a bust. Uh,

(20:42):
So that's some good news. They did not get nearly
as many numbers as they were expecting, and the community
response was very very strong, So a lot of people
coming out in support of trans rights and coming out
in support of trans people. Uh. Um, so that was
that was a nice thing to hear. I mean, and

(21:03):
across across the Pacific Northwest, there's actually been this wave
of of of like turf like trans exclusionary radical feminist,
like that term is kind of a misnomer, but there's
been a wave of of of kind of these events
and protests, well not protests, but these events and uh,
these attempts at protests I guess by a few like

(21:26):
turf influencers. They've been going all around all around the
Pacific Northwest and Portland, UM, and a whole bunch of
cities up in Washington, and similarly, they have been met
with a pretty strong resistance, uh, a lot of local
people showing up and saying no, we're not going to
tolerate this kind of stuff, accented by the occasional pie

(21:47):
throwne in one's face. So that's the kind of state
of of of some of the anti trans organizing here
inside the Pacific Northwest. And I wanted to start by
talking about the story and the successful counter organizing and
support of trans people. Um. Mostly because of the mass
shooting a few days ago inside Colorado Springs and because

(22:11):
the other other thing I spent a lot of this
summer covering was this uptick in queer exterminationist rhetoric, and
that type of rhetoric results in attacks like what happened
a few days ago at queer clubs and queer havens
and queer gathering spaces. And I I think some of

(22:32):
the team was gonna talk about this probably sometime in
the future, will probably do something on it, but it's
still just so current and full of frustration and raw Payne.
And the other thing we have talked about on the
show that this year is efforts from groups like the
unforc John Brown Gun Club and people who are willing

(22:53):
to show up armed to defend queer events and queer spaces,
and the use fullness of that is demonstrated here. And
the LM Fork John Brown Gun Club has continued to
do good work in showing up two places that they
were invited to to help hopefully help prevent things like

(23:15):
what happened inside Colorado Springs. And then of course in
Colorado Springs, it wasn't the police that took down the gunmen.
It was queer people from inside the place who were
unarmed who did the job of actually having to protect
fellow queer people and themselves. And similarly, since I was
talking about the John John Brown gun club in Elm Fork,

(23:37):
the other thing that I've covered um is relating to
those protests is the group Protect Texas Kids, read by
the self proclaimed Christian fascist Kelly Needered. She is among
the wave of far right people that are currently being
replatformed on Twitter. And it's not it's not just bad
because they have a platform. And this the specific thing

(23:59):
I've talked about with Kelly Needert is that they use
platforms like Twitter not just as a soapbox, but also
as a place to actually organize these types of queer
exterminationist events. This is where they actually do a lot
of the public organizing and get people to come out.
The same thing with Limbs of TikTok. It's not just

(24:20):
it's not just like an amplifier. It's a place that
they actually organize these types of hate campaigns, and lots
of them are going are getting back on these massive platforms,
are getting a lot of cliques. Elon Musk is even
interacting with some of these people. Um Elon Musk has
interacted with Limbs of TikTok inside her mentions just driving

(24:41):
massive engagement. We talked about Kanye West anti semitism last
month and he has continued to make pretty egregious statements
UM that are that are very much in the line
with very typical anti semitism, doing a lot of the
same tropes. He's been dropped by a lot of a
lot of com and these who were working with him UM.

(25:02):
Just a few days ago he was seen talking with
white nationalist Nick Fuentes from our Cowboy episodes UM and
also with Milo Napolis UM. So just paddling around with
openly fascist far right influencers UM and continuing to make
horrible statements. He is also back to posting on Twitter.

(25:23):
We're using a massive and in this case it is
a massive amplifier of anti Semitic rhetoric UM and he
is he is back and posting as of this morning.
So that's kind of the state of things that have covered.
We got good news with the Port Townsend thing and
how queer people have been successful in in in combating

(25:45):
anti trans and antiqueer organizing UM across the Pacific Northwest.
We have stuff in Texas with the un Forked John
Bround Gun Club continuing continuing to do that crucial work. Um,
even though some of the ashists who are organizing these
events are getting replatformed. But the queer extermination as rhetoric

(26:05):
has not gone away. It's only become a whole lot
more visceral. And that's the that's the topics I wanted
to give updates on. I'm sure we'll I'm sure we'll
talk more about, you know, how to various efforts for
community defense like within the community, and how queer people
can approach that. Um. But yeah, anyway, that's my that's

(26:29):
that's my update. For our next update, let's take a
look at what happened in the mid tum of elections.
Because the American election system is run by a troup
of volunteer clowns, we still do not know the exact

(26:51):
margin of Republican victory in the House. What we can
confirms the Republicans are in fact going to gain a
House majority. It is also going to be a very
very small majority. As as we discussed in our last
sort of election episode, this is basically the Chaos Bode configuration.
The product of this is that Mergerya to Other Green
and her sort of tidy cohort a weird fascists are

(27:12):
going to be able to extract a bunch of concessions
on the Republican Party. And obviously this is only to
the extent that these people actually disagree about stuff. Which
it is true that a lot of the sort of
mainstream of the Republican Party has gone unbelievably far right.
It's also true that a lot of the party leadership
doesn't like Mrdery tather Green and you know, you know,
the Republican Party is still facing essentially an internal soil

(27:35):
war um. Mr McConnell has managed to hold off a
power for challenge by Rick Scott, who was at the
head of the RTNC, which is really fun. I don't
know why Rick Scott thought this was going to work
for him. Like Rick Scott are arguably Rick Scott is
a single, like individually responsible for the Republicans losing the
election because he's completely screwed up everything. He was a

(27:56):
typic to deal with the R and C and like
poured a bunch of money into weird targeted like Twitter
ad campaigns that just did not work at all. But
you know what, we we we still don't know if
if Kevin McCarthy has enough like votes to become a
Speaker of the House. Every everything is essentially just complete chaos.

(28:17):
You know, we we we've we've also seen our sort
of first quote unquote concession that's been sort of wrung
out of this new House majority, which is that they're
going to do an investigation into Hunter Biden's laptop, which
I genuinely I have been struggling to find a reason
for any single person who is not completely Fox News

(28:40):
brain pilled to give a single ship about the Hunter
Biden's laptop story, like since it started. I don't know
why anyone is expected to care about this, And I,
you know, I think the fact that the Republicans the
first thing they're doing upon retaking the House is doing
an investigation into this stupid laptop is an incredible side

(29:02):
of just how out of touch these people are with
just anything even remotely or tenentially related to reality. And
I think that this is in some sense of explanation
of how the Democrats like miraculously somehow seemed to have
managed to win a like to to gain an additional
Senate seats in a in a in a in an

(29:24):
off your mid term election. I so, right right now,
the Democrats have technically gained Walgist The technically have gained majority.
The question basically is whether it's going to be a
fifty or fifty one majority, pending the sort of runoff
in Georgia between Warcock and herschel Walker. I don't know

(29:46):
who knows what's going to happen there. Herschel Walker's running
ads about Leah Thomas. So hopefully Leah Thomas fucking does
the reaper thing and claims another mainstream American political figure
here up. But okay, so what what what does this
actually mean in terms of us? Because you know, even
if the Democrats more accuracy somehow, what held the house? Right? No, nothing,

(30:10):
nothing really good was going to be happening. It looks
like there's been a sort of deal worked out between
the Democrats and some of the some of the modern
ish wing of the Republican Party to get a vote
on a bill that will legalize gay marriage and also
legalize interracial marriage, although a lot of fucking Republicans voted
against that, which is, you know, not a great sign.

(30:31):
But but again, I mean the the thing that you know,
you can sort of see here, right, gay marriage unbelievably popular.
A lot of Republicans still voting against it. And again
that this this is because you know, insofar as the
two things we can learn from this election, one is
that the far right evangelical base that the Republicans have
been building really since the eighties is not a majority

(30:55):
of the US. It's not even close to a majority
of the US. It is you know, it's it's it's
it's controlled by a small group of of like, you know,
unbelievably reactionary activists, and these people are completely out of
touch with what normal people in the US like. And
you know, this has this has positives and downsides, right,

(31:16):
It with downsides that in places where the Republicans gain control,
they're able to impose unbelievably far right agendas, are able
to impose massive anti trans agendas, and you know that
that that's been having real consequences, and especially a state
legislators that they control. But it also means that it

(31:36):
limits the damage Republicans are able to do because again,
like people don't actually like their stuff because it sucks.
The other thing that's very important about this is that
again legislatively, nothing is going to happen until and this
means that as a terre of struggle. No matter what

(31:58):
you sort of ideologically believe about, you know what, whether
whether or not we should be contesting elections as a
terrate of struggle, the electoral seat is debt. Right. There
is very little, if anything that even conceivably could be
done there. If you want anything to change in the
next two years, you're going to have to be operating

(32:20):
outside of the electoral scene, right. And this isn't This
is an argument we've been making sort of strategically and surgically,
ideologically and morally for a long time now. This is
part of why we talk about dual power constantly. This
is part of why we talk about the cons of
community organizing that are necessaries, is why we talk about
serve community self defense organizing. But this, this specific configuration

(32:45):
of of the sort of American system is one you know,
it's it's it's it's, it's, it's it's it's a pure
deadlock infiguration. Nothing is going to happen. The only thing
that can possibly happen is stuff that we do. And
you know there is stuff that we need to do. Right.
If you want to stop instead of rolling Republican chanitis
side against chance people, if you want to stop them

(33:05):
from inciting more mass shootings. You know, if if we want,
if we if if you want to stop the sort
of rolling bipartisan wave of mass clearings of cancer ameless people,
if we want to contain, if you want to actually
deal with you know, the sort of looming effort pressed
a horror of American border fascism. We're gonna have to

(33:27):
do it ourselves. Because even in a world in which
it was possible to get Washing DC to give a
single ship about any of this, and mostly it's not.
Mostly people in Washington, d C. Vote every single time
to make this ship worse. But even in that world, right,
nothing is going to come out of there. All all
that is going to be happening in the House and

(33:48):
these Senates is a bunch of fights over the dead
ceiling and in a bunch of increasingly bizarre investing investigations
out of the Republican House. So this is the time
to take back the streets. This is the time to
before me tennants unions. Is the time to be doing
community self defense work. This is the kind of This
is the time to be doing the kind of unglamorous
work that everyone sort of forgets about when the sort

(34:10):
of shiny midterms shows up. But but you know, but
that that is the stuff that actually genuinely is going
to make things change in this country. Things have to change.
We we we cannot continue to be going on on
the path that we are right. We cannot. We cannot
allow there to be more mass shootings. We cannot allow

(34:31):
Republicans to continue to exterminate trans people. We cannot let
this happen. We're going to have to go fight, and
we are going to have to do it ourselves, and
we are going to do it alone because there is
no help coming from the top. There never was any
help coming from there, and even if there had been
a will, there is now no longer away. It could

(34:56):
Happen Here is the production of cool Zone Media. Well
More podcast from cool Zone Media. Visit our website cool
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Thanks for listening.