A Brief History of Autonomous Zones

Today we talk about the history and philosophy behind autonomous zones, and how people can ruin them.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything. So don't don't pet Oh, that is

(00:26):
not how we should open the episode. I'm so sorry.
Um downloadable radio shows Jesus. Okay, okay, hey guys, welcome
back to the Worst Year Ever. Here we are your crew.
A critical part of the Worst Year Ever is badly
introducing the podcast the Worst Year Ever. It really is

(00:48):
the worst part of every show. I think, yeah, it
should be it should be beginnings, you know, should be terror.
It's like birth. Birth, like a is a painful process
which you can speak to. It lets you know right away.
It's like, here's life. Life is pain. Here you go
and this show. Here's the intro. The gear is pain,

(01:11):
and this intro gives you an idea of what to expect.
It does just in a similar way. You know, I
really understand childbirth now because of introducing podcasts. Now. Now
now I understand the pain. You feel like you feel
like you could do it right. I feel like I
do it every week. Sounds so easy, Exactly, you do

(01:32):
the exact same thing every single week. A couple of times.
I love the two male hosts talking child Please for
a second childbirth. This week, Robert, I'm just angling for
that sweet sweet cancelation so I can finally sleep. I
want to take the lead up top, just because this

(01:54):
is not going well. I think it's going great. Um. Yeah,
a lot of news this week, so much news this week.
Seattle has seceded from the United States, according to Fox News,
alternatively threatening every year. Yeah, but they did it wild

(02:18):
if true. Yeah, you know, we're talking about the Capitol
Hill Autonomous Zone or CHAZZ as a lot of people
call it UM. And uh, you know what, I'm curious, like,
what do you what are y'all based on kind of
what you've heard? What do you think going on up there?
It sounds incredible? All right, Look, there's based on what

(02:40):
things I've heard, depends on where you're looking. If I'm
looking on Twitter and the people I follow, it seems
like goddamn utopia. It seems like a pretty beautiful expression
of um, of protesting, of community, of coming together and
creating something special and safe, you know, relatively speaking. And

(03:02):
then if you look at the right wing media, you
think it is the eponyme of chaos and anarchy. Uh
so that two very different narratives. Yeah, forward here, Uh yeah,
on the ground there. Yeah. I spent a couple of
days there, um, And I would say, were you to

(03:23):
go there, you the listener or you my co hosts,
your overwhelming impression would be like, Oh, this is like
a big, unpermitted block party. Like it's it's like a
music festival a little bit. Yeah, Like it's it's like
people hanging out in a space, right. Yeah. The difference
between it and occupy is the fact that they did

(03:44):
kick out the cops and like Jack at some point, yeah, yeah, yeah,
So what's actually going on here? Have you all ever
heard of the term a temporary autonomous zone? Not before now? So, uh,
this has been like a big part of my life
since about age twenty. I started hanging out and helping

(04:06):
to establish temporary autonomous zones all around the United States.
And this is a very complicated history. So temporary autonomous
zones have existed for centuries perhaps that perhaps thousands of years,
but the name itself and the kind of ideology that's
formed around it, um was invented and I think the
early nineties. Um by this is such a weird story.

(04:29):
So the term temporary autonomous zone and kind of like
the organized ideas around it were created by a pedophile
anarchist sorcerer UM name Hakim Bay. Yeah, there's a lot
you just threw at me right there. Yeah, a pedophile
anarchist sorcerer came up with the term. So Hakim Hakim Bay.

(04:54):
His real real name is Peter Lamborne Wilson UM. And
he's like, yeah, he's an anarchist author and poet um.
And again to a sorcerer. Um. He was born not
independently wealthy like but independently poor, so like he was
born with enough family money that he could not work
um and live as a poor person forever. Um. And

(05:16):
so he's just kind of always written wild nonsense uh
and also studied sufism UM. And he like not all nonsense,
like he it's weird because you read Haaqem Bay and
it's this mix of like some really beautiful um, some
really beautiful lines and then like utter nonsense UM and
often like it's this yeah, and the pedophile stuff, Yeah,

(05:40):
we'll get into all that. The sorcery stuff is like
I don't know if you're into like um uh order
templar orientist or like any of this, Like like Hakim
Bay was into the was into magic, is into magic
and he's still alive. Um. And so like all of
his essays include like spells and stuff. Um, it's it's
it's weird stuff to read. Um, but there's there's some

(06:03):
interesting there. There's some interesting lines in there. And it's
like the fact that this guy is so problematic makes
it very frustrating. Like so one of the lines that
that has always like stuck with me from his initial essay,
UH Temporary Autonomous Zones is uh, the universe wants to
play Those who refuse out of dry spiritual greed and
choose pure contemplation forfeit their humanity. Those who refuse out

(06:24):
of dull anguish, Those who hesitate lose their chance at divinity.
Those who mold themselves blind masks of ideas and thrash
around seeking some proof of their own solidity end by
seeing out of dead men's eyes. Um. That's a good line. Um. Now,
the problem with Hakim bay is, as I have mentioned
a couple of times, is he's a fucking pedophile. UM.
I don't know that he's actually committed pedophilia, because I

(06:46):
don't think he's ever been arrested, but he has written
lengthy essays about why it would be cool. Um, And
so the idea of a temporary autonomous zone. And again
they didn't invent the idea, but he kind of formalized.
He kind of was the first person to in an
organized way describe this thing that's been happening for a
long time. Um, and I'm gonna read like so his
idea was basically, Um, you can't have a more free society.

(07:10):
You can't push for a more free society with people
who haven't tasted freedom. And because it's impossible to be
free in the police state we live in, people should
seek to create temporarily free spaces so that they can
experience freedom, um, and then go on to to like
experiment with new methods of living that they can bring
back into the world outside of it. And this is

(07:31):
this is where fucking Burning Man came from. Like initially, yeah,
like Burning Man. Now, you know, people make fun of
it because like it's become this big tech industry thing
where a bunch of it's a billionaire playground. But back
and when it started, um, there were no fucking cops
out there. They did in a bunch of different locations.
Everybody had fucking machine guns. Like it was. It was
a very intense and very political thing. UM, and it

(07:53):
was this idea of what if we get thousands of
people out into the middle of nowhere with no fucking
cops and no fucking state, and we experiment with how
to set take care of our own healthcare, how to
take care of you know, our own resource distribution power.
Like we do that for a while to prove that
we can do it on our own and learn things
about ourselves and things about how society can be UM

(08:13):
and temporary autonomous zones are both a great venue for
a party like raves in a lot of cases, especially
like early illegal raves, are a temporary autonomous zone where
you're like taking over like some abandoned warehouse and making
it into a place temporarily UM that that is free
and then you know, leaving when the cops come. UM.
But another example of it, like probably the most significant

(08:34):
recent example of a temporary autonomous zone used for protest
was the maidan in Um in Kiev, in the capital
of Ukraine in two thousand, thirteen and fourteen, where activists
occupied the center of the capital, UM, built an ice
fortress around it, and we're sieged by the police for weeks.
UM and fought the police hand to hand for weeks

(08:55):
at a time until they overthrew the government. Um. And
basically know, it started with them being like, we are
our president is trying to become a dictator. We are
living in a police state. We're going to take over
the center of the city, reject their rule of law
and fight their enforcers, you know, until they either kill
us or we we beat them, and they did beat them. Um.

(09:16):
Standing Rock would be another example United States of a
temporary autonomous zone. You know, the actual giant protest camps
that they had, um were kind of outside of the
control of the state for a period of time. UM.
I found a good definition of a temporary autonomous zone
by someone who's not a pedophile in the Interaction Institute
for Social Change, yeah quote. A temporary autonomous zone is

(09:39):
a liberated area of land, time, or imagination where one
can be for something and not just against, and where
new ways of being human together can be explored and
experimented with. Locating itself in the cracks and fault lines
in the global grid of control and alienation, a t
a Z is an eruption of free culture where life
is experienced at maximum intensity. It should feel like an

(10:00):
exceptional party were for a brief moment, our desires are
made manifest and we all become the creators of the
art of everyday life. That's beautiful. Yeah, it's a cool thing. Yeah,
and it could be on the there's people who can
argue that, like no, actually anonymous, like the the initial
hacker collective that started up, you know back in the

(10:20):
the mid auts. We're establishing like digital temporary autonomous zones
at times, like there's not a super strict definition of
what a T a Z is, And I would say
I would say that about half of the time I
was in the chairs in Seattle, it was a temporary
autonomous zone, and then the police came back and people
didn't kick them out, and then it stopped being a
temporary autonomous zone. That is my one line. If there's

(10:41):
fucking cops, it's not a t a Z, which is
why I don't consider burning Man to be a t
a Z anymore. But there are regional burns that don't
fucking let the cops in that are T a Z.
S Um. That's my own personal line, Like people can
disagree with it, but my my my wording is it's
not autonomous if there's fucking cops. So when the cops
came back, did they stay? Uh, it's it's it's kind

(11:02):
of hard to tell what's happening. So the police are
still saying that they're like kind of moving out of
the precinct. I don't think it's really clear what's going
to happen yet. Police have been kind of in and
out of the precinct since then. UM. There have been
attempts to stop groups of police from coming in that
have been successful and unsuccessful. And like there's broad agreement
within the CHAZ that they don't want cops to ever

(11:23):
come back, UM, but also not broad agreement on how
to do that, because at a certain point, if the
cops choose to reoccupy their precinct, you either let them
or you fight them. And this is something they've been
There's a lot of autonomous zones in Europe, neighborhoods and
like um uh, like Christiania in UM. I think Denmark, um,
and uh, there's that that neighborhood in uh in Athens

(11:45):
in Greece that's like an anarchist squat neighborhood. UM. I've
been to a couple in Slovenia Social Center roge UM,
which are like these little autonomous zones and cities um
and sometimes they do get into massive fist fights with
the police over whether or not they can continue to
exist UM. I was having a conversation with a friend
who was telling me about like meeting someone in like uh,

(12:08):
this squat in Sweden and like as like her being like, yeah,
about once a year the police will try to break
it up. You know, it's been going on for twenty years.
And he's like, what do you do when the police
come to break it up? And she was like, if
you fight them, like we we have to beat them up,
Like that's what happens. We don't want them to be there,
so we have to kick the ship out of them,
or they kick the shid out of us and stop

(12:29):
it like that. And so that's obviously more complicated in
the United States because our police are so much more
violent and and I think protests in general in this
country has less of an appetite for physical confrontation than
like like in France. They don't give a ship like
they're like like French, French protesters will not just riot,
but well, like all right, it's time to like fist
fight all of our cops. Like there are like firefighters

(12:52):
regularly fight the police in France. And one of the
ways firefighters do it is they will put on all
their firefighting gear, light themselves on fire and charging you
a crowd of poets. Yeah, I did not know that.
There's some wild videos of firefighters just like let's beat
the ship out of some cops. God, you want to

(13:14):
live in Europe, its fucking rules. Um. So anyway, like
that's kind of what a t a z is And
obviously there's a lot that's problematic and sort of the
history of the ideology because like Hakeem Bay, the guy
who came who formalized the idea, part of what he
wanted taz is for is like a place where he
could molest children. So there's a lot of like it's

(13:39):
that overlap with like libertary libertarians, where it's like what
why why do you want to It's like, oh, the
law you don't like is the one that says you
can't fund kids. I see. Um. But also you know,
like this is like tazas have existed again since way
before Hakim. You can think of the Paris commune, um.

(14:02):
You know, the commune in Munich UM some of like
these uprisings that happened after World War One, where like
neighborhoods would be taken over often by socialists, Like these
are all kind of like temporary autonomous zones, and there
were cases. You can also look at the some of
the mining camps that were established by union striking workers
and places like Pennsylvania and West Virginia. UM had aspects
of this to them, as did like different kind of

(14:24):
parties thrown during the hippie area, where like people would
all like like the stuff that like turned into woodstock eventually,
So like this has obviously been going on for a
long time. Bay was just kind of attaching a name
to it. He was good at attaching names to things
UM for example. Another name another thing that Hakim Bay
named that I really admire is UM the concept of
poetic terrorism, which is terrorism that instead of using violence,

(14:48):
uses art. It forces art upon people for the purpose
of terrorizing and changing them in the society, like a bank.
See no, no, because it was mostly a joke, but yeah,
that's that you considered what I said so a great
example of poetic terrorism. UM. In the early adds, we
talked We did an article about this on Cracked. At

(15:08):
one point, there was this lady who showed up at
a fucking of This lady like and a crew rolled
up in like a limousine during like one of the
big crazy like Christmas shopping days at like I think
it was like a mall. It was some sort of
big box store, and like came in and talked to
the manager, and the announced over the loud speaker that
like a wealthy donor would be like paying for everyone's

(15:29):
purchases in like two hours or something. Um, So everybody
who was like lined up in two hours with purchases
would get them paid for by this random rich person.
And like it sparked a fucking riot in the shopping
center and people were like fighting each other and destroying ship.
And while it was all happening, those people just left. Um.
They were just like like like that that that would
be an example of poetic terrorism. Um. And it's a

(15:50):
great concept to have a name for. But Hakeem Bay
himself was actually really bad about knowing what poetic terrorism
would be because like one of the examples he came
up with for an act of poetic terrorist was pooping
on the floor of a bank, which I wouldn't call
politic terrorism. I would call I would call pooping on
the floor of a bank. Yeah, Like that doesn't change anything.

(16:12):
You're just shipping in a bank, dude. Like such a
disappointing example of like a beautiful sounding concept and like, oh,
that's just pooping on a bank, dude, Like whatbies do? Yeah,
like the whole like you know, yeah, at least like

(16:33):
at best, it's really bad art. Yeah yeah, I yeah,
sucking hockey Bay. It's such a piece of ship, um,
but really good at naming things because both temporary autonomous
zone or TAZZ and poetic terrorism are great terms for things.
So Hakeem Bay is yeah, problematic dude. That also you

(16:54):
kind of have to at least be aware of if
you're going to talk about these things because his impact
is pretty broad on on the counterculture. That's all we
should say about Hakeem Bay. So yeah, I went to
the Chaz. I would say about half the time I
was there, it was what I would describe like we
were my partner Beatrix and I, um my like my
work partner um and who like went rolled up there

(17:14):
with me. She had been like arrested the night before
in Portland while clearly desprit blaying her press pass and
working for me as a stringer UM, which we're fighting
currently and we will continue to fight because it's bullshit. UM.
So like she went from being uh tear guests the
night we all got tear guests the night before that
she got arrested, she got out, and then we drive
to this autonomous zone and like the first thing we

(17:34):
see is the defaced East precinct where they had like
spray patent and like like blocked out over the like
the police department thing with like people's department, and like, uh,
they'd fenced off the whole thing so nobody could get
into the building. Um. And there were like people you know,
giving speeches and and putting up graffiti and like it
was this incredible murals being made on every wall. All

(17:58):
of the businesses in the neighborhood had just like open
their doors and their bathrooms to people for services, like
like like the top there's this big taco shop in
the middle of it next to the park UM that
opened up its whole front courtyright area for like medical
tents and stuff for like this free clinic that's forming. Um,
there's like all a shipload of free food, UM, good music.

(18:18):
It was just like chill as hell, UM, no fucking cops,
um a very and like you know, functioning on a
gift economy, so like people really trying to not use
money for anything other than like the local businesses. UM.
Because there's this understanding that's like and what I think
was smart about um Seattle because like in Portland, people
are talking about trying to form a tazz and like

(18:40):
the places they've suggested have been like a couple of
parks or p s u like the college campus, both
of which would be terrible places to do a temporary
autonomous zone. One of the reasons that the Seattle Hill
or the Capitol Hill one has worked as much as
it has is they they didn't just go into the
middle of nowhere and set up a bunch of tents.
They went into a neighborhood that was broadly sympathetic to
their aims and they said, we're kicking the police out

(19:01):
of this neighborhood. Um. And it's a neighborhood where people
live and work, and so it's a functional chunk of
society already, and they're just taking that and experimenting with
certain other things around the edges of it. Um. Anyway,
it was really like the first night was was like
thoroughly intoxicating. Um. And there was definitely this this feeling

(19:23):
I felt in a couple of places in the world
during like moments of revolution, where like this kind of
sense that anything is possible. And so we had a
great first night. I will say, UM fuzzed out the
edges of of kind of the intersection of journalism and
activism by volunteering to do a night guard shift. So
I stood armed watch on the barricades. Um. You know,

(19:44):
I had a gun. My partner like we we we did.
You know. I wanted to like do something. I wanted
to volunteer some time out there. Um, and that's the
thing I know how to do. So we did that
and that was interesting. UM. So yeah, yeah, I am
interested in that. So one of the things I was
doing to prepare for this was just kind of gauging
some of the right wing media Donald Trump's responses to that.

(20:08):
And we can get into it a bit, but you know,
the way they're framing it is, you know, cultural revolution. Uh. Actually,
I want to talk to you. You make it sound
like the businesses are fairly supportive of what's happening in
the autonomous zone. Here's a Fox News headline, Seattle Autonomous

(20:28):
Zone has armed guards, local businesses being threatened with extortion,
police say the first The first sentence is Seattle police
say they've received reports of armed guards. Uh, you know,
we've heard anecdotally reports of citizens and businesses being asked
to pay a feed operate within this area anyway. I

(20:50):
you're talking about this armed guard situation of what you
what you're to do is is something I think is
important to touch on, is that there's some community self policing.
People are taking shifts and volunteering and monitoring. It's not
self policing because there's no policing going on. It was
self defense because there have been threats made. People have
like threatened to shoot it up and threatened to attack

(21:11):
people and drive cars into it. And that's what we
were doing at the barricades is basically trying like no
one was. We weren't searching checking people's ideas. We weren't
searching people. People are were free to come and go
without being asked a single question, Like there was no
attempt to interfere with individual people people. We were watching
out for like a group of of armed right wing

(21:31):
militiamen or somebody trying to drive a car through the
barricades to hurt people like that was that was the goal,
is like, um, you know there's people making threats, we
should probably be just kind of hanging around. And there
was nothing unlawful about it. And in Washington you're allowed
to open carry firearms. Um, and that's what everyone was doing. Um.
So it was And the specific thing that like the

(21:53):
claims that businesses would be I talked to a couple
of different business owners in the in the chats, and
none of them had complaints about being shaken down. Most
of them were making a bunch of money because there's
way more people in although right now than normal. UM
was especially pandemic being Yeah, that rumor started because of
Andy no Um in an unsubstantiated article that he published

(22:17):
in the Post Millennial UM. And then the Seattle Police
took that and reported that they that like that was
what they were reporting on. And the Seattle Police had
to later walk it back and say they had seen
no evidence of that because it was a lie. That's
how it works. Yeah, what a fucking scumbag in a
general rule like this idea that like there's fucking this
is an anarchist project theory. I met a I met

(22:39):
a number of anarchists there um and certainly like the
idea of a temporary autonomous zone is is very near
and dear to anarchist hearts. Most of the people in
the chairs, most of the people doing stuff in the chat,
we're not anarchist, I would describe most of them is
broadly liberal, you know, maybe more more radicalized as a
result of getting tear gas for two weeks than they
had been previously, but like they're not, these are not

(23:00):
most the vast majority of the people in the chairs
were not committed anarchists. Now it's Seattle, so you know,
maybe them are anarchists, but like most of them are
just like liberal lefty people who had enough of the
fucking police, and most of them have. You know, there's
definitely folks there who were anti capitalist, and I suspect
kind of a broad desire to reform or end capitalism
among the people there, but nobody wanted to funk with

(23:22):
like these local businesses that no, no, nobody was like
angry at the Raman shop or the Mexican restaurant right,
like there there were no business. There's no business. One
of the reasons it was a good place to pick
because all the businesses in the chairs were like nice,
independent little businesses doing stuff that nobody has any issue with,
Like if you have an issue like I, I don't
like capitalism, but I don't I think we should have

(23:42):
Raman shops, like I think we should have They were
camping out, yeah yeah, and so like yeah yeah, speaking
of yeah, yeah, we got to take a break for ads. Yeah. Us.
This podcast is sponsored by the concept of ramen Um.

(24:04):
So if you support ramen please mail twenty dollars to
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(24:32):
thank you sponsor the concept of ramen Um. Another thing
that I have seen painted exclusively with right wing media,
and I'd love you to speak to is um. There's
been a variety of headlines about you know, differing ideological

(24:57):
ideas well, you know, fractions within jazz, you know, black
organizers of Seattle doubt the sincerity of white protesters, or
you know, black lives matters. Uh feels like white protesters
have hijacked their message things like that. Yeah, I mean,
I'm sure there's there like and and I do want
to point out, like number one, what a tiny section
of Seattle this is, Like we drove through the city

(25:19):
and most of it perfectly normal. Like there's there's like
six blocks in a very large city. This is happening.
And I will say it was actually a really diverse
crowd at Capitol Hill and a number of the people
who were doing organizing things that I talked to and
like I filmed at one point, like a public meeting
that they had about what to do when the police
reoccupied the building. And like, the people who were definitely
taking the lead in in organizing that discussion and talking

(25:42):
and like stating their opinions were majority black. Um and
the white activists in that crowd, we're doing a pretty
good job of like what we want to listen to
what they have to say and like and kind of
take their lead in this. So I I definitely like
Seattle is majority a wider city that the most large
cities in the United States. I would say that the

(26:04):
chairs from my experience, was more diverse than Seattle in general. UM.
And but it is like a situation where, yeah, you're
not just talking about a Black Lives Matter thing at
this point, you are talking about now like it's making
sort of the case more broad, like we're trying to
do police abolition here UM and trying to establish an

(26:25):
area where there are not police UM to see if
we can make that work, and that you know, I
guess like I can see how people who are particularly
like Black Lives Matter activists, how some of them might
be like that's either watering down or distracting from our
central message UM. At the same time, I think we're
a big country and there's room for experiments like this

(26:48):
within the broader context of this uprising against police UM.
And I think there's I I know in a significant
number of of black activists and organizers UM who are
very attached to to the chas and think this is
very important and they're dedicating a lot of time to it.
So I don't think it's fair to just like say,
this is like white white kids doing this, you know,

(27:10):
M because that's not what I saw on the ground.
There were a bunch of white kids there too, absolutely,
but like that's not where being media not fair. Yeah, um,
well that's what. Yeah, you'll see that a lot with
just like any any sort of way to discredit what's
going on. Yeah, they're very they're incredibly scared of this,

(27:30):
like the and and it was evident when I came
back to Portland's UM obviously, like I think there's a
lot of a lot of kids, and especially a lot
of white kids UM in the Portland activist scene who
were like kind of pissed that Seattle did this first,
and uh and one of their own autonomous zone and
that's happened. There's been like three or four attempts around
the country so far, a couple of which are like

(27:51):
ongoing to establish autonomous zones UM free of police in
a couple of cities. UM. And there was talk about
doing that on Saturday night in Portland. There was gonna
be like a people are gonna meet up at the
Justice Center and like have a meeting about where to
do it and then march off and occupy some territory UM.
And it was canceled. That plan was canceled at the
last minute when like a bunch of local activists of

(28:12):
color were like, what the funk are you doing? Number
one announcing that over social media six hours ahead of
time is so fucking stupid. Um. And number two like
nobody consulted like us about this and like this, So anyway,
there was a whole kerfuffle over it, and the plan
was backed away from and there was just a normal
protest that night. But the police there were like four
times as many cops as normal, Like they brought in

(28:34):
cops from all over the rest of the state on
like short notice in order to fill Portland up so
they could stop this thing if anyone actually did attempt
to create an autonomous zone because they're scared as hell
of this idea. Um and I think scared beyond the
actual radical potential of of the chairs by the idea.
Like there was just a case and um sucking um

(28:56):
uh I forget which this. There was like a little
person b l M rally and rule somewhere in the
rural United States that like several hundred like MAGA protesters
showed up armed to like assault and shove around because
they were they terrified of what the news has told him.
Is this like anarchist hellhole that's eaten all of Seattle.
Um it's it's uh, it does say something about the

(29:20):
power of these concepts and about the power of this
idea that even something as mild as the CHAZ, which
is again more of a block party than a revolution,
that it but just the vague idea that like, oh yeah,
we're saying you can't have cops in this neighborhood, like
that fucking terrifies these people. Um. And that's really interesting

(29:40):
to me. The the fear with which this has been
met by corners of our country says a lot, because
again it's a block party absolutely. Uh, it's well, it's
a threat to their way of life. It's the threat
to what we perceive as being possible. Um. Yeah, they

(30:01):
don't want people to get a taste. Yeah. Like, the
the autonomous zones that I've spent a lot of time
in are like what if we did away with any
forms of central authority, like generated our own power for
a while, like had no police, had no firefighters, had
no like do did all of that ourselves? Um in
a in a system where capitalism and in any sort

(30:21):
of use of money is explicitly forbidden. Um. And the
Chas is kind of more just is different kind of
autonomous because they're not they're not trying to completely change society.
They're basically just saying like like the what's at least
what I witnessed there was people being like, what if
we had kind of the same society we have, um,
but free food for people who need it and no

(30:43):
cops like that that that that that's like but like, yeah,
still businesses, you know, still still the other normal stuff.
You know, street parking is free if you can find it,
and there was a good amount of street parking, but
like it wasn't like it's not like the Paris Commune, right,
Like they're not de ring war on the state to
to to destroy it. People are basically most of the

(31:04):
people there. I think we're like, yeah, why don't we
just get rid of the cops? And we're made it
a little easier to be homeless by making sure there's
like free food and clinics around um. And also what
I think all the people who were mad about this
and terrified also hate the government, yeah, and would support

(31:24):
this kind of thing if it were for a slightly
different reason. Probably. Yeah, it is weird because like the
stuff that I believed when I was a conservative, I
wouldn't have found this to be out of line with
mighty ideology at the time, which was like people should
just be left alone to do their own ship. Um
like it's yeah, I think, like the government out of

(31:47):
my business. Um, we're having a party, go away, yeah,
or joined the party, It's up to you. Um. The
president's response has been yeah, something ye want to talk
about that? Um? What did he say? Interview with Fox News? Here?
What do we have here with Harris Faulkner. This is

(32:10):
Donald Trump, Um, you know, saying that the his administration
is not going to let Seattle be occupied by anarchists.
If there were more toughness, you wouldn't have the kind
of devastation that you had in Minneapolis and in Seattle.
I mean, let's see what's going on in Seattle. I'll
tell you. If they don't straighten that situation out, we're
going to straighten it out. Um. And just so many
tweets about it. Yeah, you know, Mayor of Seattle and

(32:35):
j Insley are being taunted and played at a level
that our great country has never seen before. Take back
your city now. If you don't do it, I will.
This is not a game. These ugly anarchists must be
stopped immediately. Move fast, you know, law and order tweets. Um.
I also love uh domestic terrorists have taken over Seattle
run by the radical left Democrats. Yeah, domestic m domestic terrorists,

(33:01):
but the KKK ist No. But you know who's a
terrorist is the people who showed up with several hundred
Pistramy sandwiches to give free sandwiches out classic act of
I remember in Mosel when isis through Pastrami sandwiches at
us I I had real flashbacks to my last encounterable terrorist. Yeah, yeah,

(33:23):
my PETRAM post traumatic stress disorder. Absolutely, it is one
of the like again, like the tazz as I've been
involved with have been I think kind of more more
politically radical um than the Chaz, which is a pretty
mild autonomous zone, you know, by comparison to some particularly

(33:44):
by comparison to like Rojava or the Mai don Um
or even kind of standing Rock um. But it it's
like just hearing people talk about it like it's devastated
seattles Like I I ated a lovely bipp and bop
place that is it's just in the middle of this.
I got my partner and I got like a bunch
of food and some beers. And we sat in the

(34:06):
middle of a park on a nice sunny day and
listened to a mix of speeches and street music and
watch people paint a mural. And it was it was lovely.
It was a very nice afternoon. Said like, those businesses
are actually getting a lot more customers right now, probably
than the rest of Seattle because of the pandemic. I

(34:27):
met a very and bought a number of drinks from
a very happy bartender who was like, yeah, I've been
getting great tips. Like I talked to a couple of
folks who were like stylists at a hair salon and
they're like, yeah, our salon actually still isn't open yet
because of COVID nineteen. But once this happened, we like
emailed or called our our our manager and we're like,
can we open up the salon so that people can

(34:48):
have access to the bathrooms and so that we can
use it as like a community um, like a basically
a place to dispense like things that people need, you know,
like food and sanitation supplies and stuff. And their boss
was like absolute and so like these two like stylists
were just kind of there on their own time opening
up the shop so that it could be part of
this UM. Yeah, and they weren't even making any money

(35:09):
off of it at that point because again like because
of the plague they're they weren't doing haircuts. Yeah, it's great, UM,
I think you're gonna ask about that. What's the the
I guess the social distance mask COVID concern vibe there?
Like uh people, most people were masked. Social distancing I

(35:30):
will certainly say not as distant as we ought to be, UM,
because it's been very crowded a lot of times. But
people are pretty good about masks. You know, it did
come out recently that, um, just yesterday, I think the
news dropped that only one percent of Washington's or of
Seattle's UM COVID nineteen cases traced back to the protests,

(35:52):
which started like two weeks ago. So we do have
some good data on that now. UM. In in in
in Oregon, we had like our biggest one day new
COVID nineteen cases like cases, but only five of them
were people who had attended protests. So it does seem
like the fact that people are despite everything else, masked
up in these is well, the masks cuts transmission down

(36:13):
to like one Yeah, if if both If you're interacting
with someone and you're both wearing a mask, that's what
does it. It's not one person. And yeah, all you know, Yeah,
it does seem like we can. It does seem like
one of the things we're learning about COVID nineteen is
that we can reasonably safely all be out in public
together if everybody's wearing a mask. If I actually I

(36:36):
didn't really desired somebody talking about it, but there's some
study of if everybody, just everybody everywhere wore masks for
three weeks, it would be wiped out. Yeah, yeah, it is.
It would be very simple to have been done with
this with a minimal impact on the economy. Um, but
that America is not going to do the simple thing.

(36:58):
We're going to have a real dumb fight about it
for no good reason. What if we make it worse?
And that's why I am proud to be an American
where at least I know I am free to elongate
a pandemic by months, and I won't forget the men
who died to give that right to me to spread

(37:19):
the plague to them. I don't stand up next to
you and I will lick your eyeball today because freedom
means you know, the plague, I don't know. Yeah, it
was licking eyeballs. That's what I miss most about the

(37:41):
before time. I'll just you know, like your eyes, Robert,
I'm going to have nightmares about that tonight. I'm having
the craziest COVID dreams Lately. I do not have a
night where I don't have intense just COVID revolution. All
of it just dreams that are intent and that will
be in my dreams. Now it's time for an ad. Yeah,

(38:04):
speaking of dreams, these products are a dream well done together. Everything.
We're back from the as so I think that's all

(38:26):
we have to say about the chairs, about the chatonymous zones.
Let's talk about Ron Pearlman for just a brief second
onto something important. Yeah, okay, okay, okay, goodness. Yeah. Someone
on Twitter, uh minshevik m summarized it really well, and
I want to reach his summary. So Ron Pearlman called

(38:46):
United States Congressman and possible accessory to sex crimes Jim
Jordan ugly, which caused United States Senator Ted Cruise to
challenge Pearlman to wrestle Jordan's Pearlman responded that he'd wrestle
Cruise instead, for which Cruise called him a pussy. Um.
It's a good a good brief summary of what's happened,
which is a very funny thing, a moment of levity

(39:07):
in the time of darkness. Yeah, I love it. It's
awesome because also it's down from uh like it it
was he called Jim Jordan ugly, but also he's been
fighting with Matt Gates for a while online. Yeah, um,
because Matt Gates is trying to introduce a law that
makes the US soccer team have to stand up during

(39:29):
the national anthem he has. He's like because he's like
a real like a real boring fascist. I I can't
tell you all how happy I am, how happy I
am with the existence of Ron Perlman. Um, because he's
just like he's a he's a Democrat, and I think
we probably would disagree on a lot of stuff politically. Um,

(39:52):
but I appreciate him repeatedly challenging Ted Cruz to a fight.
It's so amazing because like it's it's because like Ron Perlman, Okay,
it's a guy, and like tweeting some it's just how
boy calling the congressman ugly and then this other guy
shows up and he doesn't even say like leave my

(40:13):
friend alone. He's like, leave my friend alone. My friend
could beat you up. Challenged him to fight his buddy. Yeah,
and you don't. I don't even know if he talked
to his buddy about it, right, It's like not like
it's that's something he challenged, like, well, you got to
do a charity, so like did you discuss this ahead

(40:35):
of time? And it's just like as soon as as
soon as Ron comes back with actually, like why don't
I fight you instead? Ted's like you're just scared to
wrestle him. It's like, then, Ted, why aren't you responding
to the part where he said you should fight him.
It's just it's a perfect distillation of like everything is wrong,
not everything's wrong, but Likenald Donald Trump like he is

(40:57):
like he has destroyed the geoke and like whittle them
down into these bizarre little online fruits. They've just just
like it's they're just obsessed with posting and they can't
get enough of like they're just like asking the blue
checks and they're triggered and like doing their little princess

(41:17):
bride gifts with some Daily Wire intern and like challenging
like Debor Messing to like arm wrestle each other. It's
so weird. They've devolved into these bizarre little freaks and
it's it's it's it's also impossible. It's like like that's that.
It just it just like I feel like I'm going

(41:39):
mad when I see the way congressmen just talk their
US senator, their U S senators, and they're so fucking online.
It's so pathetic and weird, like like like Ted Cruz,
I have I have literally watched people on four Chan
comment like more reasonably too in similar situations than you

(42:03):
are right now, Like there are fourteen year olds on
the internet who are more mature than you, and you
have you have collapsed to the US economy before because
you got angry, like you have that power and your
ship posting like what is it? What is wrong with you?
I believe so much is wrong with him and them now.

(42:24):
It's so it's so funny and like they can't he
just can't get enough. He there was a night where
he's deleted all of these posts, but he some fucking
college student. This woman it's like twenty years old, tweeted
like Ted Cruz is wrong and ugly or something like that.
She didn't tag him, she didn't do anything. It was

(42:47):
a screenshot and Ted Cruz within a minute retweeted it
and like had all of his weird little followers like
pile on her and like challenge her to a debate
about free speech. And she ended up deleting it because
like Ted Cruise retweeted me for some weird reason, and
then he retweeted her again, being like she loosed, she

(43:09):
blocked me. She's a cowards. Like, no, she liked delete
her tweet. He's a senator was harassing her online. You
fucking weirdo. I'm sorry, it's there was a weird moment. God,
I think it was like a year ago now where
some other U. S senator like posted about going into
I think it was a fucking fun place and hearing

(43:31):
a bunch of anarchists having a conversation about how they
like the world to be, and like he said something like,
you know, this is what I would have said if
I had, you know, had an argument with him or
something like this is what I would have asked them.
I was like, number one, you had that opportunity and
you chose not to engage with them because you're a coward,
and like Ted Cruise retweeted it, and then a couple
of my friends because this happened, I think somewhere in
the Dallas area were like that was us where we

(43:52):
were just like chilling in a fun place, sit down.
That's like, now, fucking Ted Cruise is like trying to
dunk on us in Twitter for a Converse station. He
wasn't present for what the what the fuck? What? How
do you wrong with? What is wrong with people? Set
fucking like, Oh my god, you're posting addict so weird?

(44:15):
Go write a bad law that everyone will hate. And
I will make this promise right now. I have made
a lot of posts on Twitter that I I regret
and that we're bad takes. I I do. I would
say at least once a week I have a bad
take on Twitter. Ever, Yeah, and I'm drunk, especially now,
especially like after I get back from the riots, like
having been like repeatedly flashbanked, I get drunk and I

(44:36):
post stuff on Twitter and about half of its stupid
as shit. Um, if I will make this promise now,
if I ever get into Congress, I will lock my
Twitter account. I will not be a tweeting congress person.
I promise that I will hire an aid to dispense
the necessary information via Twitter that my office has to
get out. UM. I will not be ship posting while

(44:59):
in con Chris, I make that promise to you now,
well A politicians, I absolutely won't hold of this. Um Katie,
I want to take her from here. Sure, um uh.
This has been a fun little romp detour. I think
that there's some more heavy things that we should talk

(45:21):
about before we run this episode into the ground. Um
uh yeah, I want to talk about, UM, some alarming
things that we've seen happening in the last week. Alarming,
to put it mildly, deaths of black people, of black men,
of black trans women. The deaths I want to speak

(45:44):
about initially, or of UM Robert Fuller and Malcolm Harsh. Wait,
let me make sure I'm saying his name properly. Yeah, Okay,
you can cut weight. I want to make sure I'm
saying his name properly. If you guys have not heard
about this UM over the past week in California and

(46:06):
near to l A. But in a suburb and Antelope Valley, uh,
which is a notoriously racist community in in California, you
know KKK members live their white supremacists and just generally
racist in white UM. Earlier this week or last week,

(46:28):
Robert Fuller, a twenty four year old black man, was
found hanging in a tree outside of the city Hall. UH.
And about a week prior to that, Malcolm had been
found hanging from a tree near the library. And in
these two cities are fifty miles apart, another black man
has gone missing. UM that one may be mental health related. UM.

(46:54):
But this all happened very close to each other, in
a very short proximity. And in both of the hanging
UH cases, the police immediately called it a suicide, UH,
saying that there have been a spike in suicide because
of COVID nineteen UM. And they've repeated that a lot.

(47:14):
And this has caused a bit of an uproar, you
could say. At first though nobody was covering it. It
took days of people tweeting and and there's still is
barely any coverage. UM. And it's incredibly distressing. UH. And
we don't know, we don't know what actually happened here. UH.

(47:37):
You know, I suppose that there's a world where it
could be a suicide. It seems highly unlikely seeing as
there's no suicide. Note also Robert Fuller, the last time
he'd been seen alive was at a Black Lives Matter
protest like earlier that day. There's sure there's nothing shady there,
you know. Um, they say it's a suicide, but how
there's there a ladder there? No. The other thing that's

(47:59):
really alarm arming is that they said that there wasn't
any camera footage. Unfortunately, no camera footage, however, just people
showing up to investigate have already pointed out all the
businesses with cameras facing the square. Um, and yeah, yeah,

(48:21):
I guess I don't have an ultimate point other than
it's distressing and we need to be paying attention and
keeping trying to keep people accountable. You know. I I
started posting about this a lot of the weekend, and
I had somebody that I tend to respect, but we
differ a lot telling me that it was irresponsible. Um,

(48:42):
because you know he's he says they are investigating it. Yeah,
what do you mean investigating it? These fours that they
themselves are known as racist. I mean the one that
I didn't mention that I should, but it was not
a potent lynching was an unarmed black man that was

(49:02):
shot in his home last week by those cops on
a domestic violence call. They say that he ran for
their gun. The woman Shartner, says that three cops were
holding him down and the other one shot him. So interesting,
so the police are looking into it, Okay. Um, I
want to make a brief historical point here. I'm currently

(49:23):
putting together the first episodes drop this week of our
new Behind the Police series. UM, but I wanted to
make a point as part of Like, I haven't even
written the episodes yet, but I just did this research.
So the United States had a massive lynching problem, um,
like eight nineties through like around there is like kind
of the heyday of lynching in the United States. Um.
You know, lynching primarily of black men. And um. One

(49:47):
of the first major successes of modern US police was
stopping the lynching epidemic. Um. That was that was done
by law enforcement. Uh. And you know how they did it,
how by taking men who like lynch Mobs would form
when like somebody in town would like randomly accused a
black dude of like assaulting a white woman or some
other vague crime. Right, Like that was always the thing,

(50:09):
and uh, police generally just stood aside and let it
happen because kind of they were afraid that the mob
would burn down the town or burn down the police station,
if you know. They attempted to investigate this. And the
way that police stopped lynch mobs was by making it
very clear that whenever a black man was accused of
a capital crime like that, the police would take him
into custody, he would be given a show trial and

(50:30):
immediately executed. And so they stopped lynch mobs by executing
black people. Problem. Yeah, yeah, we formalized it like we
can't have lynch mobs because that's you know, that's yeah,
but this is a process. But this is a process.

(50:50):
We had a trial where twelve white men said yes,
kill the guy, um, and then we killed him and
that's better. And then yeah, it's just I guess my point.
I don't want to find no I but we've seen
these massive, peaceful moving protests, we've seen police riots. Um,

(51:19):
we definitely know that white supremacists are out there riled
up infiltrating certain places. If you think that there isn't
some sort of pushback that's happening, or that might be
about it might be happening. I think that that's naive.
I think that what you're seeing here is a response.

(51:40):
I think, I mean, we'll see. I shouldn't say that
if definitively we're going to see, but it's at the
very least it's a possibility. And at the very least,
the cops of this police department not saying, oh, look
what's happening in the world. Look at the demographics of
our community, and to immediately just brush under the rug

(52:03):
the possibility that this could be a hate crime is
incredibly alarming to me. And um, I think I think
that we should be aware of it and paying attention
and and you know, stepping up. Um, I guess that's
my it's surprising. Um, And uh, it's something I don't like.

(52:24):
It's it's odd to me the reaction of like don't work,
Like you're freaking out over nothing. They said they were
investigating it. Like, even just the past couple of weeks
should indicate that the cops are fucking liars all the time.
Every day there's literally footage of them tackling somebody and
then putting a stick in their hands so they can
claim that they were tackling because he had a stick
in his hand again, and like they are okay, great,

(52:50):
they're investigating. Well, let's just make sure they know that
we're watching, you know, so we're Yes, the problem with
this And I made a statement like this on on
on Twitter because I I too am addicted to posting.
But like the issue is, Um, obviously, no one's going
to trust whatever the fucking police say unless they say
this was a lynching. Um, then maybe some people arested.

(53:12):
But the police have no credibility. The FBI has slightly
more than no credibility in the eyes of I think
most people right now. So I don't think that's going
to help either if there's a federal investigation, just because
nobody trusts any kind of law enforcement right now. Um.
But also a big citizen investigation on Twitter is not
the way to handle this because it will be done badly, badly. Um.

(53:36):
But good diligent reporters, yes, need to figure this the
ship out um that that that's what needs to happen.
And UM, if I were a good diligent reporter, I
guess I would try to get to the bottom of this.
But instead I'm going to ship post on Twitter like
Ted Cruz, Well, there are people on it and and

(53:56):
like part of the yeah of to me, the benefit
of of Twitter people being outraged and paying attention and
saying we need an independent investigation, you know, a second
autopsy not done by you know, their guy is Okay.

(54:16):
So now apparently there are calls for the California Attorney
General to take up this case and look into it. Okay,
that's great, um, but just taking them at their word, Okay,
it's likely a COVID suicide. It's not gonna fly. It's
not gonna fly. Mm hm, nope, that's my that's my
my time. Yeah, I mean, especially like the last time

(54:39):
he saw they saw him with he's at a protest.
It's what we've talked about with like all those Ferguson
activists that have disappeared. It's why we talk about like
blur people's faces if you you know you're sharing something, right,
I don't know. It's alarming. Wellcome to the worst year ever.
Some of us will get through it, hopefully, but that

(55:03):
really does remain to be seen. We need like a
really spooky, slowed down version of our song Yeah, Cody, Yeah,
come on, come on, like a like a satur or
like what was it like? Um, like a hurt cover
kind of Yeah, my year was bad today today. Today

(55:29):
was a bad year. Um my year was bad today,
just like every day. It's all there. Yeah, it's all there.
I I am I. I want to advance a petition
to end the year. Um, let's say, let's say June
we moved right, let's just yeah, let's just we We've
had enough year, like it would really would it was?

(55:50):
It was. It was Ron Perlman and Ted Cruz getting
into a Twitter fight about whether or not to wrestle
that made me decide like this is where maxed out
what can be fit in a year? To move now? Counterpoint,
then you're ruining. Yeah, it's gonna suck to yeah yeah, okay,

(56:12):
oh yeah it's we filled this year, ever, though, like
we filled it up with terrible stuff and is gonna
be still bad, not as bad, but just still BADDI.
We're gonna be an upward tick. We're gonna read the
IDEs are July two, all right, so we get to
we get to the IDEs. It's the worst day ever,

(56:37):
But then everything after that. I think we should stop
making predictions because they come true and it's I mean,
I think Ted Cruz is gonna call Arnold Schwarzenegger a
soy boy before this is all over. God, I hope
so oh man, I hope. I hope Arnold Schwarzenegger punches
who do I want Arnold Schwarzenegger to punch with his

(56:58):
with his pet donkeys, now what I'd like I'd like
him to punch a lot of people. Yeah, that he could, shay,
I could make hand feeding his pet donkeys to post
it like, I'm not even that's not even a joke.
That his time. But if he wants to make up
for the bad things he did as governor, he can

(57:19):
punch or an hatch former senator or and I will
forgive him for nineteen percent of the things he did.
You don't want him to punch miss McConnell. I do,
I do. I would forgive everything he did as governor
if he really landed one good haymaker on. I think
this might be a juvenile joke, but I just had
this image of him punching Mitch McConnell and his head

(57:41):
just kind of receding into that neck, you know, like
a turtle, like a turtle. Yes, yes, he's knocked on
his back and he can't roll back over. Oh that's
so good. That seems like a good place to and
this somebody wants to draw that image for us. If
somebody wants to just incite a fist fight between Mitch

(58:03):
McConnell and Arnold Schwarzenegger, I will also accept that um
and then Ted cruise in the background sharing them on
that fiction. Right. I do want to end by noting
the worst thing I've read recently, which is an article
with I think the title was something along the lines
of it might take weeks or even months to know

(58:24):
the result of the election. We will not know on
election night because of all the additional mail in ballots
and everything, and like they're making the case that like
this actually means that you know, will be extra certain
of the count. But like any delay in that result
is going to be a fucking nightmare, Like election month
is going to be fucking how we need to plan

(58:46):
something big for that time frame, like leave Like what
if I don't think that we're going to be allowed
to go to any other countries. I think the actual
right thing to do would be for the government to
you a massive bail out, but with the condition that
everyone has to leave the United States for a month,
Like we all vote and then we go on vacation

(59:07):
in other countries for a month, all three million of
us just empty the whole country out. That would be
the right play. There's no there's no America this this month, y' all.
We we we just can't. America canceled. Yeah, we're we're
taking We're taking a month off. Um. I'd get behind that,

(59:30):
except that the tourists would be a real problem. Yeah,
I mean it would be a nightmare for the rest
of the But I do think the rest of the
world needs to take one for the team, the team
being America. Come on internationals in the long run, volunteered
to house some of us. Yeah, show some solidarity here, Yeah,

(59:51):
Christ grow up. You guys can check us out online.
At worst, your pot on Twitter and Instagram and that's it. Yeah,
there's a t public store with stuff in it. Yeah, Iceland,
and let us fill up Iceland. God, I'd love Iceland. Yeah,
fuck it. Do what else do you do in Iceland?
Let Americans crash on your couch. It'll be fine. They've

(01:00:15):
only got like thirty thou people. I don't know how
many people are in Iceland, but it's not many. It's
not many, and they don't have that many couches. Um,
we'll have to figure out the couch situation camp. Alright, guys,
that's it. I think us everything, Everything I tried. Worst

(01:00:45):
Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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