How To Save Your Community When The Government Fails

Cody, Robert and Katy talk to Scott Crow from Common Ground Collective about how we can help each other and build solidarity while the government debates about tax incentives and means testing.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Worst Year Ever, a production of I Heart
Radio Together Everything. So welcome back to the Worst Year Ever,

(00:23):
the most aptly named podcast. As we all sit in quarantine,
watching the economy spiral around the grain and our government
openly discussed how many of us dying is worth maintaining
economic productivity. It's a cool year and a good one
and I'm Robert Evans uh and my co hosts are,

(00:44):
of course Katie Stole feeling good, feeling fine, and Cody
Johnston and same. And to help us through this period
of incipient madness, we have a special guest on the
podcast today, a veteran activist and community organizer, Mr Scott Crow. Scott,

(01:04):
how are you doing today? I'm good under house arrest,
feeling great. It's not not arrest, it's similar, but we
don't have minus the ankle monitor. Exactly, yeah, exactly. Now, Uh, Scott,

(01:26):
you were one of the founders of an organization called
the Common Ground Collective, and I wonder if you would
kind of and this was this was a mutual aid
organization with the motto solidarity not charity, that opened up
in New Orleans in the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina
when the city was still very much a disaster area,

(01:48):
and it was filled with armed blackwater guards and National
guardsmen and uh very restrained and responsible police officers who
did not exercise their power and undreath in anyway. And
y'all provided a variety of really incredible services, um, including
like medical care, home visits for people, the distribution of food,
a whole bunch of stuff. And I wondered if you

(02:09):
talk you know, the focus of this episode is to
kind of provide a guide for people to creating their
own mutual aid and solidarity networks. You know, if you
live in an area where there's nothing, um, nothing's set
up yet for you to help your community, to help
the people around you. Um, you're someone who has some
experience starting organizations, and uh so we want to pick

(02:32):
your brain on that. But I think first we want
to go over some history and talk about the Common
Ground Clinic. So I wonder if you kind of might
lead us in there about how that started, how that
got formed initially, well starts way back in the eight hundreds. No.
Actually for once, because I was in DV on September eleven,

(02:54):
two thousand one, and I that and we were we
were gathering a bunch of anarchists because we were gonna
bring two hundred thousand people to the city over the
next five days to begin organizing and UM, so we
arrived early to get to get ready for things. And
then of course everything happened, and what I saw there
was an abysmal response from activist communities and um the

(03:18):
people even anarchists around me, and that really gave me
a question of like, what would we want to do
if if the state loses power? Truly um And so
I had time to steal on that for the next
four years, and then we had the major major disaster
of Katrina happened. The hurricane Katrina came ashore in late
August and through September of two thousand five, and so

(03:40):
by that time, I'd already been thinking about what would
we do, What do we want to do as anarchists,
what do we want to do that's liberatory? What do
we want to do as people who care about other
people who are are not around us? And so when
when I went, when I rushed headlong into the to
the disaster the second day after the disaster, it was
really in a in a without any large plans yet

(04:02):
except for to find a friend of ours and try
to bring him back. And as a man named Robert King,
who had been a lifelong political prisoner, had done thirty
two years in solitary environment, he had been free, but
he've been living in a New Orleans, so we want
to go find him. And what I saw there was
I saw that the state had lost power, but I
also saw that people were dying left and right, and
they needed that more than just our friend King. They

(04:23):
needed they needed they needed everything. Because but like communities
like New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, they you know,
they they are also poor communities often and they were
already under the long histories of disasters before this storm
had come in and and the response to the storm.
And so I started to say, like, we need to
do this things. We need to do two things dual power.

(04:45):
We need to create and build infrastructure, healthcare, education, basic
things for civil society, but at the same time resist
oppression that was happening to the communities there. So the
police were out of control, as you mentioned, and that's
really true. True, this is far before Blackwater even arrived.
And so were the white you know, the white minority

(05:06):
of a population there, and they formed these white militias
in two neighborhoods, one in the Algiers Point neighborhood which
has literally maybe a hundred white people in a population
of like thirty thousand, and there are a few blocks,
and they armed themselves and then had the most hateful
signs up and they started doing patrols. And then on
the other on the other side was on the on
the French quarter, they had another white militia there. And

(05:28):
so we started out doing resistance work, just immediate disaster things,
trying to do search and rescue, trying to do these things.
But I was thinking this whole time, what would what
would people, what would others have done in these situations?
So I looked to the Spanish anarchists in the thirties,
because I considered disasters to be ecological, economical, political, and war.
Those are all forms of disaster. You can call them crisis,

(05:50):
you can call them whatever. It doesn't matter, but their
disasters to to the people in them and to the environments.
And so I was asked myself, what what did the
Spanish anarchists do in the thirties when when fascism really
kicked in, And I asked myself, like, well, what did
the Black Panther Party do um, you know, because they
had survival programs pending revolution, so they weren't just about
taking up guns, you know, and not known panthers much

(06:12):
of my life twenty thirty years of political organizing, I've
known a lot of panthers and talk to him about
these survival programs, which is to feed people, to give
them education, sickle cell testing, um, to do all these
things that you would consider to be service work or UM.
Just meeting the basic needs so that people can get
a leg up and then they can get strong and
go on to do what they want to do and

(06:33):
to make their lives meaningful. And then and I was like,
but as anarchists, how do I want to do this?
We're not we do we don't want to do I
don't want to form an organization that is like top
down and we begin to tell things. So how do
we build this with the communities? And I looked at
the Zapatistas UM in Hiopas, Mexico and to see what
they had been doing for the last twenty five years
before Katrina came ashore. And so we started to do

(06:55):
the same thing, which to lead by asking. So we
went into the communities and started asking these people, what
is it that you need? How can we help you.
So some people needed armed defense against the police and
armed defense against the white militias. Some needed medical attention,
and some needed educational things. They needed their kids were
not going back to schools because the schools weren't going
to open. And this this is all happening in real time,

(07:16):
and people are flooding in and we began to tell
these stories and we begin to ask for more and
more people to come, and we built on the networks
that anarchists had already built across the United States and
actually internationally, but definitely in the United States at that point,
where there's like street medics who had been doing you know,
like if you went to a protest and we're getting
pepper sprayed and stuff, they would deal with people like,

(07:36):
you know, they would help you to to you know,
to deal with your ailments or whatever. So the street
medic networks were all over the United States. We've been
building them for the last twenty years. And then there's
there was like legal teams and like all these different
like decentralized food not bombs, another network that feeds homeless
people or feeds people, anybody who wants food. They provide

(07:57):
access to food. And all of these little things that
had been kind of these networks that had kind of
been on their own, and we began to draw on
those networks to call them in and say, hey, man,
bring your if you've got access to resources, bring the
fucking things in. Let's do this. And so that's how
we wanted to do it. But we didn't want to
be just a service organization. There was always a liberatory
framework to it, which is to create liberation for the

(08:19):
communities that we are serving on their own terms. Even
if I didn't want to be in that community, that's
it wasn't my my decision to make, but I wanted
to make sure that they got their meats, their needs met.
So that led us to starting a first a first
aid distribution. Clinics and street medics showed up and some
people from food Nut Bombs and they were willing to

(08:40):
uh start up the first aid station. And then we said, well,
let's build a clinic could have and then the question
was could a clinic become a hospital? Could we begin
to build up from these infrastructures. So Food Nut Bombs
they're beginning to feed people. Could we get a permanent
place where we can be able to feed lots and
lots of people who are not going to have access
to food for a long time, Um, you know, lead
th teams because people were being evicted. Can we get legal,

(09:02):
legal people to do with things? So this is all simultaneously.
So unlike most NGOs or nonprofits or the way the
government acts, we we were able to be very nimble
and very small, but have an amazing amount of resources
come in and a very short amount of time and
be able to do with them what we want because
we we this is the one liberatory pieces. We didn't

(09:22):
want to listen to what the government was saying. I'm
not saying like the c d C, but I'm talking
about law and order stuff, because that's all they were
interested in trying to restore. But we wanted to break
the law for the higher moral law of trying to
help people follow the ethics of what we were going
to do, to do it as safely as we can.
But so it involved all these all these things. Indie media,

(09:42):
that had been a network of media before the rise
of corporate social media, was a huge network. We were
able to get people in to tell our stories with
our voices, get people in those neighborhoods to tell their
stories with their voices. And we just kept using it
and building them. And we didn't just build one clinic
with built seven clinics we built, we had mobile clinics.

(10:03):
We worked with indigenous communities to help them build their
own we um, we took we did search and rescue
to communities along the Gulf coast that we were the
first people to go into the fishing villages of these
Vietnamese and Indigenous communities. That we were the first people
to go in now because we were great saviors, because
we were interested and we could do it, and we
were willing to put our lives on the line to

(10:23):
do these kindries. Not great heroics, it's just people, just
people doing what they think they should do. And so
from that we the people started to come and common
Grounds started out with three people ended up having about
thirty thou people I think come through the first year.
And during that time, we we were trying to use
consensus and and use these containers that we had to

(10:46):
to be liberatory inside while we were also being liberatory outside.
And so some of the work that we ended up
doing were like cleaning up dead dogs, cleaning up houses,
you know, gutting houses, rebuilding houses. I mean, we did
everything that you would want to do and in civil
society to help rebuild it from the beginning to the end.
And it was uneven and it was erratic and it

(11:07):
was difficult, but it was it opened this this this
crack in history that just like the Zapatista say, we
opened this crack in history to say, hey, could we
open this up and do this more? Because everybody could
see the failure of the government. But there was more
to do than just protest against it. We we knew
because it was immediate because people were dying or almost dying,
are there in great care and needs, so we needed

(11:29):
to do that. And so that was kind of how
common Ground came together. And all of it wasn't my
fucking idea. I mean, I'm not that fucking smart, and
but um like, there was a lot of but I
but I started to come up with this container of
ideas of these networks and then started, because of decades
of experience with these people, started to call them in
and Malik raheemed one of the co founders with a

(11:51):
former Panther in New Orleans and former Panther leader in
New Orleans he called his networks. And so you had
all these different political tendencies working together to this common
liberatory framework. Now I can tell you all kinds of
problems that it had. Were not about to discuss that,
but that's but but that's where we started from. And
so we wanted to build on one hand and resist

(12:13):
exploitation and oppression. On the other hand, the police were
not going to kill people. The white militias were not
going to kill people. We're gonna stop them from doing that.
We were not gonna let um profiteers try to exploit people.
We were not gonna we we were you know, we
were gonna let corporations exploit people. You know that that
there's all this resistant stuff. But we're building at the
same time, community gardens, food security, individual gardens, um trying

(12:36):
to get food to people, free schools. I mean, the
list is very long. I wasn't even actually prepared to
talk about the list. That list is long of things
that that Common Ground volunteers brought. And yeah, that's a
great overview of it, I think, and thank you for
kind of summing that up. And I think what's amazing
to me about the Common Ground Clinic whenever I read

(12:58):
about it, is is this aale that this grew to from,
as you said, like three folks to something that was
literally providing care to tens of thousands of people, which
is like normally the kind of effort that we associate
that a lot of people I would say, associate with
kind of a state organization as opposed to something that's
volunteer and activists based. And if I could say though,

(13:20):
it was because because of the nobody expected it to happen.
Nobody and the government response was so abysmal. But the
government response is always abysmal, right, we always know that
because it's large bureaucracy, is the same with NGOs. So
what happened is that once we we got a little foothold,
even though we started out with fifty dollars, like, money
started to flow in and supplies to us because people

(13:43):
were already sick of the Red Cross. They were sick
of that within the first days and weeks. So we're
able to get access to resources to be able to
do this, which doesn't happen under normal circumstances. So we
raised three million dollars in the first two years. I
mean that never happens. I mean we and we were
keeping the money in a shoe box law virgually, you know,
like I mean like but but but but there was

(14:03):
nobody was profiting from it, nobody was getting paid to
do this. It was but we were, you know, but
we were. But those were a phenomenal amount of resources
that the groups, scrappy groups like this don't normally get. Yeah,
and I think we'll want to talk about fundraising a
little bit UM. But I think kind of where I
want to start is UM from the perspective of, you know,

(14:24):
we've been trying to push people towards mutual aid opportunities.
I think there's this kind of a massive I've never
seen anything like in a national sort of UM. Mutual
aid is like a mainstream topic of discussion right now
in a way that it really hasn't been since I
can recall UM. And we've been trying to push that
on our show, and we've gotten a lot of folks

(14:45):
who have gotten involved with things, but also a lot
of folks who have been like, Hey, I'm looking at
the different list people are passing around, there's nothing currently
going on in my area. Maybe I live in a
rural area or I live in you know, a city
that just doesn't have a lot of that going on,
and what can I do? And so part of why we,
I mean, the big part of why we brought you
on today is is you have some experience starting something

(15:07):
from the ground up, and I, I guess that's kind
of where I want to I want to kick off
with this. Next part of this is if somebody has
an idea for how to help, what is your advice
for starting to build an organization with which to to
provide that aid. Well, hang on, let's let's tack up
just a second, because there's a few there's a fundamental

(15:27):
foundation that needs to be there. Uh and and and
and that's not about just how you organize. The logistics
of organizing is the easy part relatively, you know, like,
but there's a few things. That One that you have
to recognize that the government is going to fail at
every turn. They're just too it's too big of a beheamoth.
And whether it's intentional or not or all that stuff.

(15:50):
Just recognized that the government. Government is not one big entity.
It's multiple agencies and multiple bureaucracies. Really important point to
make up are getting here waiting for the news to
come down the pipeline of what aid package is going
to be passed and how it's going to affect me
personally and how much I can depend upon that. Let's

(16:11):
just assume soon that you you're not gonna you're not
going to get what you need a little bit, a
little bit held. But instead of just waiting here with
I guess what I'm saying, Yeah, I think that's an
important thing for people to keep in mind as we
sort of look at watch the national debate occur over
the the aid package that's eventually going to be put

(16:33):
together by the government, and you know, this debate over
what it will be and how much money folks will get.
And I think kind of what you're getting at, Scott
is that regardless of what winds up pushing through, it's
not going to be enough. Uh, and there will be
problem even Yeah, and the same with giant NGOs to
just recognize this, and nonprofits too, and many of them

(16:54):
will make money on this. Red Cross is gonna make
billions on this again, um. And so it's really important
to know that government response will always be slow, it
will always be bureaucratic, it will always be uneven and
most people will be left out of it at some level.
And so that's just a fundamental that's not even like
trying to down you know, like knock the government down

(17:16):
or anything. That's just the reality of it. That's the
that is the reality of it. And once you once
you're on that, then you don't have to worry about
it anymore. Whatever, like you said, whatever comes in great
when that happens later, but right now, we've got to
take care of things, right. So the second thing I
think is really important is to not given to fear.
This is these are foundational things because fear makes us

(17:38):
all make bad decisions. And when we make bad decisions,
we begin to do things that are really stupid. And um,
fear is the biggest motivator for people to do stupid
things like by toilet paper, right and and and I'm
not even and you know, like I think it's it's
it's humorous that they do that, But it's just because

(17:59):
people are afraid they want to do something. So I'm
trying to be a little more kind to him instead.
Not the people were trying to sell it and make
money on it and think those guys. But but the
people who were genuinely like, I need to do something,
I'm like, I guess wiping your butt is the biggest thing,
but you know, like it's you gotta do something. So
but just recognize that fear. I'm not saying don't be scared,
because I am terrified often. I was terrified in Katrina.

(18:22):
I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to
do those things. I wasn't I wasn't some on some
fucking hero quest. I was just trying to do the
best I could do in there, just like everybody else was.
And so and and and this is where fear gets
really important. Is that when you in times like this,
misinformation spreads really easily and far deeper and far more

(18:45):
wide than you think it does. From your friends and
your family, you're gonna get texts that you're like, they're
shutting this down there, locking that down. This thing is happening.
It's nine of it is the telephone game. That's not
true in a case of it. That just happened in
my own life was that I got a text from
New Mexico, where I'm heading to tomorrow, and they're like,
the whole state's gonna be on lockdown. I'm like, it's

(19:06):
one of the poor states in the United States and
they're not gonna be on lockdown because there's nobody to
lock it down. There's no there is no military, there's
no there's no police system to lock it down. And
too that doesn't even make sense. But all my friends
there believed it because they had all got the text,
the same text from the same person that was a
telephone text. And it turns out it was not through
at all. It was not true. It just was like,

(19:28):
not even true. So so it's really important as and
and because we're fighting the media, corporate media war but
with but that's very where there's one side of it
just wants to make money on this and the other
side wants to push their agenda. So there's it's hard
to sess out misinformation. These are just foundations and it
may be boring, but you've gotta fucking think about it.

(19:50):
You gotta have critical thinking as the ground shifts underneath us,
in the time shifts, it's vital. It's vital. I think
that we all have to. I've been trying to sit
with my fear and my feelings of panic and to
like process that uh metabolize it a bit like deal
with it. Ask me what I ask myself, bigger questions
of where it's coming from, so that I'm not spreading

(20:13):
that to other people. But also all of us serve
a vital role uh in and keeping each other informed,
and we need to be very very very cautious about
what it is that we share with people. If somebody
asks me about something like I've been getting a lot
of questions, are are the military? Is the military going
to be rolling through the streets? And you're like, that

(20:33):
is not a question that that is not a thing
that we're dealing with right now. The you know, calling
in the National Guard does not mean that, you know, like,
do we think that there's a reality where that happens someday?
I can't really speak to that, but what I'm telling
you right now, what's happening, you know what I mean.
It's just like instead of letting our fear, because then
then then somebody will take that and turn it into

(20:55):
something else when they talk about it to their parents.
So absolutely, absolutely I agree. Well, speaking of the government
failing to deliver necessary services and also speaking of disinformation
and profiteering, here's together everything down we are back when

(21:26):
we're talking to Scott and all right, so Scott, let's
say I'm I'm a I'm an individual stuck out in
the middle of nowhere um or out in the middle
of some city where services are not getting to the
people who need them. I see a need and I
want to I want to help. I want to build
something to help. What what's your advice, you know, like,

(21:47):
what's your advice for kind of like step one, Well,
ask the people around you what they need and what
you guys and and and then assess the capacity of
what you have to be able to do things. So,
if you're in a rural community, uh, that's very disp
you know, like that's just spread up, spread apart. Maybe
it's just checking in on the elderly people on checking

(22:09):
in and going like, hey, what's what's happening. Um. If
you're more organized and you're already already part of uh,
you know, some kind of group or something, will get
together and then figure out what what the community needs
are and ask people. I mean people will tell you
that's all. That's all. It's It seems like magic, but
all you gotta do is ask and because then you'll
get a list that you never thought of after Katrina.

(22:31):
We just went to the we we gathered up the
first twenty people in the community that we we got
together and said what do you need? And you know what,
they said, take out the trash. Can you get the rotting,
stinking garbage that nobody's picking up? Can you take it away?
And I was like that's it. I mean, what's you
know like? I was like, all right, we could do that.
So that's how we started. And then we're like what's

(22:53):
next and were like, well, this lady needs to be
checked in on because she doesn't have her diabetes medicine.
And we're like, okay, we'll make sure that we get
some of that her if we can. You know. So
it's like things like that we just just started and
that and we just But if you think about approaching
this from a liberatory perspective, because you're not just trying
to fill in the gaps where the government's failing, you

(23:13):
actually want to you actually want to see if you
can create autonomy for a future when something like the
next disaster happens or the next crisis happens, right, because
what you what you when you're building mutual aid is
a challenge to the dominant narratives at one and then
so far until Obama tweeted it the other day that
was super weirds like Obama and mutual aid. Those are

(23:34):
weird words together. Um, but like you said, Robert, I
mean it's like it's got to be mainstream and so.
But but mainstreaming ideas also makes them lose their liberatory potential,
so and and so in starting up, make sure you're
not doubling up on stuff that people are already doing
that is not needed. Also, don't make it. Make sure
it's not about just stockpiling things, because that's not always needed.

(23:57):
There's different stages of disasters as different kinds of disasters. Um,
there's different kinds of crisis, and every one of them
is not one size fits all. They have there's a
framing of the ideas, and there's a framing of the
way the mechanics work, and then you just have to
pick the things that actually work for that for your
needs at that moment. But when you start with those
questions and then I think you just start doing it.

(24:19):
So if it's just if it's starting to feed people,
you start that way. But again, if you want to
use a liberatory you know, liberatory framework. You have dual
power every time you're creating, but you're also resisting. So
if people are gonna lose their homes because of you
might do rent strikes, but at the same time you
want to make sure that people have safe housing. These
that would be dual power. At the same time. Free

(24:40):
schools if kids aren't able to go to school, and
you know, you can gather to have us have a school.
I'm not saying in this particular crisis at the moment,
but just in general, you start a school while you're
also cleaning out the school to get it ready so
that kids can go back to their school. Those are
dual power kinds of things. But you're thinking about all
the time. Every actions that we take, you're doing it

(25:04):
not just for yourself. You're doing it for those around you,
even if you don't know them. The vulnerable wines. Whatever
the vulnerability is, whether it's age, class, race, immigration status,
and you know, suppression, whatever that, whatever it is, you
just have to find which of those things and begin
to work from that, and then after that the mechanics
of it is really easy, especially right now because we're

(25:25):
in such a mild disaster right, Like I mean, at
this moment, we're not even near collapse, you know. And
so it's so you can go to the store to
buy toilet paper, you can get soap, you can buy
these things, you can make food. All this stuff is
still functioning in most places. So it's real simple things.
If you want to start doing the larger things, you

(25:47):
have to be willing, like if you want to start clinics,
and if you want to um do do things the
other liberatory pieces. To break the law, you have to
recognize that you're willing to break the law for the
higher moral law and are you willing to do that?
And these are very serious questions you have to ask yourself.
They make it very difficult. Every clinic that we opened,
we were breaking the law to open the clinic, every

(26:08):
time food not bombs, push the barricade out of the way,
climbed under the barricade in the middle of the nights
to feed people. They were willing to break the law
under martial law, real martial law, not under not under
shelter and home martial law with fucking full on military
and everything. And so you have to be willing to
face that. The other thing is that every if you

(26:30):
everything that you do and and everything that that you
want to take on and doing all these things, you
have to ask yourself, are you gonna work with the
government or government agencies and nin geo's to do it?
Are you gonna try to do it yourself? And I
think there's gonna be hybridizations of that within that, because
all NGOs aren't shitty, they're just shitty because they're big.
They're not They're not necessarily shitty. I mean, one of

(26:51):
the first, one of the first organizations, United Way, which
I fucking hate them, gave us ten thousand dollars within
days of of of Katrina. That's unprecedented, and they told
with no strings attached, just do what you need to
do with the money because we can see what you're doing.
So that wasn't just me. They didn't go to me,
but to the organization. So so, but these things are

(27:11):
a lot more difficult to do. Plug in, you know,
like I'm sure you said, you've been promoting all of
these and these different mutual aid networks. Ask them for
the resources of what to do they have how to
manuals Mutual Aid Disaster Relief um that grew out of
common ground and occupy and all these other things that um,
they have, they actually have how to guides in there.
They're not the only ones, but they they have them

(27:33):
on actual practicalities of it. But it's not as hard
as you think it is if you start doing it,
because then you start to see the need. There's a
couple of really important points you make in there that
I want to hit on a little bit more. One
of them is when you talk about a liberatory framework,
and I think that, um, what am like, what you're

(27:55):
talking about, if I'm not mistaken, is this idea that, um,
you should not just be providing immediate aid to people.
You should be kind of liberating them from their dependence
on the system and from their dependence on like, from
the vulnerability that they're feeling in that moment, in a long,
a longer term way. So you're not just handing someone
foods that they have a meal. You're trying to provide

(28:16):
them with long term ways to meet those needs to
where they're not just sort of waiting for it to
be handed to them or or like. Like it's this
idea of right now, I think people feel there's a
huge amount of helplessness that people are feeling right now
because they're just kind of waiting for the federal government
to step in and do something, and they don't know
if they're going to be able to stay in their homes.

(28:37):
And a piece of liberatory activism is like, well, okay,
what if we make it so that, what if we
take action to make sure that they will have a
roof over their head, like activists in Los Angeles are
doing right now, occupying state homed homes, opening them up,
furnishing them and putting people inside them and saying we're
not going to wait to make sure the government is
keeping people in their houses. We're going to provide houses.

(28:59):
And we have to break the law to do that,
because it's that, you know, we have to break locks,
we have to crack our way into these buildings. We
got to use our bolt cutters. Um. So I think
that's that's an important thing. And the other thing you've
brought up, Yeah, the other thing you've brought up, that's
really I've spent a lot of time in war zones,
um And one thing I have noticed over those trips

(29:20):
in Iraq and Syria and Ukraine is that almost no
one has anything nice to say for the large international
aid organizations who actually lives in those areas, the Red Cross,
the United Nations, these these big organizations like the NGOs,
Like if you want to hear NGOs get ship talked
more than anywhere else in the world, go to a
refugee camp or or or go to a city that's

(29:42):
but yeah, they are and they they talk about how
these people like roll up in big, fancy uparmored suburbans,
and how they stay at hotels and eat nice food.
And it's the only aid organization that I have ever
come across in my travels that of the people in
the affected areas had nothing, like had early positive things
to talk about. Is the Free Burmer Rangers. Because it's

(30:03):
they're they're a medical collective. They are a small, nimble
group and they roll into an area and ask like,
what do you need? We know how to provide medical care,
these are our capabilities. What do you need? How can
we meet them? And they do it. Um And I've
never heard anyone in the in the areas where they
were working have anything to say for them, but like,
I'm grateful they were there. They saved my life, my

(30:24):
cousin's life, such and such Um and yeah, so that
that really hits home for me, this idea that you
should be proactive about figuring out what people need as
opposed to like trying to sit at home and be
like what can I provide? Will go out and ask
people what's necessary, um, and then try to build a
framework for providing it. And I guess the next thing
I'd kind of like to ask you about is so

(30:46):
common ground expanded very rapidly to fulfill a wide variety
of additional niches beyond sort of it's it's it's initial
uh um, the initial motivations behind its founding. And I
kind of am wondering what advice you have for people, um,
and when it comes to expanding and when it comes

(31:06):
to to working with larger groups of people and sort
of the different pitfalls that can come up because the
more folks that get involved, the more money that gets involved,
the more problems you're gonna have. Like, right, that's one
of the great pieces of lyric More money, more problems. Yeah,
let's talk about dealing with that. People internally stole money
from us like crazy, People stole tools from us like crazy.

(31:27):
You know, we buy the tools and people internally would
steal them. Um, So it was a mess. I mean
it was. It was like I often described it as
a beautiful train wreck. Um internally, I mean that's the
truth of it, because we didn't build we didn't build
it from before. So there's no relationships except for the

(31:48):
few of us at the very core of it at
the very beginning. Other than that, it was just whoever
came in or they were more they were more distant
as they were coming in, and so people brought in
all their some ands, they brought in all their privilege,
they brought in all of these things to it, and
it is definitely difficult to mitigate. We even um, we
even heard um uh this nonprofit to do um anti

(32:12):
racist trainings for us every week, local group, this group
that started the whole anti racist movement in the United States.
As far as like doing trainings in the nineteen seventies,
and um, you know, we always ran into conflict with
people who didn't want to go to the trainings or
wanted to wanted to do those things, even though they're
largely white, largely middle class, largely young, and they were
also working in communities fully outside of there that they

(32:35):
had ever ever been in before. Some of the poorest
in the United States, some of the most marginalized in
the whole in the whole country. And so I, uh
so it's always difficult there. There there is no magic
panacey and that, and in fact, my book is full
of heartbreak about that. But one thing is that that
I definitely want to speak that I would take out

(32:57):
of that is that, uh um, I don't want to
I'm not an activist. I don't consider myself an activist.
I I want liberation. I don't want to fucking make
things just a little bit better. I want to alleviate
suffering when and where I can, right, And so I
think a lot of activist mentality came in where it

(33:18):
became identity politics, um would rule, or anarchist politics or whatever,
or communist politics, you know, like that would be kind
of become the rule, or they would try to have
factionalism within the within the the organization. It was so loose,
it was like a network. We actually just provided a
kind of container of all these things and got resources

(33:39):
to them and got people on the projects and stuff,
and there was no there was no central coordination. We tried,
but it was like, you know, thirty people coordinating would
come and go, and we tried to do this in
real time while we're sick, you know, like we had
staff infections and fucking bronchial things and fucking so much
stress and so much trauma. We were trying to do this,
so it was difficult. So if if I was gonna

(34:02):
just cut all of that off at the before it happened,
I would start organizing now, not under the crisis that
we're in, but but start organizing now for the future
disasters that are gonna happen, because climate change is real, wars,
real political I mean we're in a political uh you know,
disaster at the moment. Uh as far as governments go
in the United States and so um these you know,

(34:25):
like start building now for those futures. You know, like
what is it you and your neighbors can do to
build resilience now? Um uh you know, like I went
and I went and spoke at a food co op
in in San Francisco to deal with earthquakes about six
or seven years ago, and you know, like they're trying
to figure out how to work with their neighbors, like
how they could build mutual aid with their neighbors. Actually,

(34:46):
and I thought that was a pretty good thing to think,
like food security, not only emptying their shelves at some
point of providing shelter, which is what the co op
would do, but what else could they what else could
they provide their neighbors for now, like food security? Like
is there is there a way that they could do
community gardens? They can do individual gardens. And this this
is you know, this isn't downtown San Francisco, but but
I'm saying, like there was ideas that were floating around there.
How would they even be able to communicate? There's really

(35:09):
four basic things. It's communication, education, um security, and and food.
If I didn't order say food, healthcare, health care. So
those are really the four major pieces of civil society.
I'd say culture. I throw culture because we need culture too.
We gotta have music, we gotta have beauty, we have
to have we have to have art. So there's stories
that need to be told and there's things that there's
beauty that needs to happen too. So those those five things,

(35:31):
if we work on those, you can build anything you
want as long as you in my analysis, with the
liberatory framework, knowing that you're gonna build on one hand,
can resist on the other hand, and also that you're
you're not just trying to fill in the gaps of
the government. But if that's all you end up doing,
that's what you ended up doing, you know, for in
particular crisis. Yeah, Katie, do you have something you wanted

(35:53):
to ask next or Cody? I don't. This is wonderful
and so health full and useful. I've talked to so
many people who have the questions that you have answered, UM,
because I think we're all in this sort of situation where,
like you've been talking about, where we have this drive

(36:14):
to do something and there's no like, there's no sign
up sheet, there's no like you mentioned the trash. Like,
there's so many people I've talked to who are like
I would go and just help people take out the
trash if I knew that that's what I could use
my time and effort to do. UM And Yeah, giving
people these tools to to find out where they can

(36:35):
place themselves, it's just so useful and Yeah, and there's
just so much like what I'm feeling a lot is
um a desire to help people, but also the depression
and on we that comes from not knowing where to
start and feeling especially in this specific crisis. You're right

(36:58):
when you say this isn't the same kind of crisis
where I mean, we've got access to this distores, we
can feed ourselves, but I'm not allowed to touch or
talk to anyone. I'm not allowed to I mean, I
can talk like this, but I'm not allowed to interact.
So we're all feeling so isolated and we're feeling, um
like it feels overwhelming in a way, like I'm not
knowing what to start. And then we can just look
at the things that you guys have done and people

(37:20):
are doing right now, mobilizing and building on infrastructures that
there we had. Um, it's inspiring and it is possible
to start smaller. Is in my neighborhood. Ah, there's all
these signs of some woman, retired woman. I don't know
who she is. She says I'm retired or maybe yeah,

(37:41):
she probably would have the time anyway even if she wasn't.
But she describes herself to make herself seem like a
non threatening and says like, if you need anything, let
me know. I'm building a group of people like I
will go and do the deliveries. You let me know
what you need. And we're we're figuring out out and
that it's so simple. Um, I think just in my
small community here, in my neighborhood, of a way to

(38:04):
feel take back some of the power that you have
lost through all of this. I mean, I totally agree,
and we need that because that's what mutually does. It
doesn't it puts it. It puts us back in the
driver's seat. Also, it puts us back in the driver's
seat not from a fearful thing of prepping. And I've
got to get down in my shelter. Abortion ship's gone.
But like, hey man, how can we work together on this?

(38:26):
And you know, like maybe maybe food, you know, maybe
food security and in the immediate disaster, not this one,
but in a immediate disasters like um, instead of me
stockpiling food, I stop, maybe me and my neighbors all
stockpiled food together in a house where we work together
on it. And I'm not talking I'm talking about my
neighbors who have barely even talked to you know, Like
I'm saying, like people that you've got to reach outside

(38:46):
your own, especially those are are more vulnerable shut ins
and people like that. I think it's really important. Um
And and mutual aid. UM. You know, you've talked. We've
talked a lot about it, and there's all kinds of
and you'll see even that there's official mutual Relaid you
know that as UM this brand of mutually that comes
out of like UM E, M T S and paramedics
and stuff and their mutually it's a little different, but

(39:08):
it's but the mutually I'm talking about as always from
a liberatory approach, it challenges the dominant narratives. It also
encourages cooperation and autonomy at the same time. And that
and that gives us the power, puts us in the
driving seat when we can do that, because then it's
not like, well I just bought five rolls of toilet
paper for myself. I'm like, wow, I actually got some
things that are good for a bunch of people, and

(39:29):
they got things for me. When we can we can
ride this out together. And there's just a lot to that,
and you know, and the dotally I saw it, and
not in a Pollyanna way. I watched people with nothing
give away their last resources to other people over and
over again, UM, not knowing like if water was coming
or if food was coming, they would give it away.

(39:50):
I didn't see that one time or two times or
four times. I'm like, well, now I saw hundreds of times,
and so I know that people that people will do that,
and then you just gotta and then but also mutual
aid is take making some hard, dirty decisions not to
let those assholes take over who are afraid, who want
to walk around with their guns and fucking try to

(40:12):
threaten everybody because they're so scared. So it it it
involves you know, multiple multiple things with that. Now. One
of the things that I've been trying to push to
people because obviously I've been talking about armed self defense
for a while as it's sort of results or as
sort of regards the left, and so people started reaching
out to me when the gun by panics started, and
I've been really trying to push people away from picking

(40:33):
up a R fifteen s and a K forty seven's
And if you're going to get a gun, twenty two
is a reasonable choice. And it also it improves your
ability to provide, for example, meet for your community. Right,
like if things get really bad in a future disaster,
something you could be hunting rabbit, squirrel, Like there's a
variety of different small game you can put together, and

(40:54):
that's a more realistic community self defense scenario for a
lot of people than needing to fight off a militia. Uh,
that's exactly for toilet paper. Yeah, my god, I just
shut those people for toilet paper. Man, I feel good
about myself. And guns are interesting too. I get a
lot of questions about guns, and you know, like I
was gonna, I would say, depending on the scenario, just

(41:17):
in the framework, depending on the disaster, like in the
top fifteen or twenty things, I don't know if I
would even if I would even put guns on that. Always,
it just depends on what you're like in this in
this crisis. Obviously no at this stage, no way, no way,
like way more. Um. The same with gold and cigarettes
and things that people want to use as commodities. I'm like,

(41:39):
good mad max life because I don't want any of
that stuff. You can you can, you can shove that
up your ass. Actually, all that gold, I'm telling you,
I'm like, I'm not trading my gardens forward. I'm not
gonna trade my food for it, and I'm not gonna
shoot you for that. Seems like a perfect time to
interject and say we need to go to another ad break.
You know, if you've got more than if you've got

(42:00):
stuff that you want to barter for, this is the
time use it for these products and services together everything
and we're back from those products and services, you guys

(42:20):
probably have considerably less gold now. Yeah, I'm always amazed
at people buying gold and disasters like this because I
just can't think of one where gold will be particularly helpful.
I can think of one where I can think of,
like I can imagine situations where people will want extra
food or medical supplies or even ammunition. But I really

(42:41):
have trouble imagining gold being useful in any disaster situation
I can envision no. I mean maybe long term crisis.
You know, like you're shares and years into it, you're
just like doing barter economies, but you're so far away
from the nest. If that's the first thing you're going for, man,
you're gonna get hungry real fast, and people are gonna
and shun you because nobody wants your fucking gold. I

(43:03):
can tell you nobody wants your goals, Like what is
your gold? Even worse, it's like how do I spend this?
Like if you're like reaching up that, like if my
boat was coming by in Katrine and you had gold,
I would be going like why I wouldn't go get in?
So let's talk about knowing when collapse is gonna happen,

(43:23):
can we? So yeah, it's always uneven. Everybody thinks that
they're gonna wake up like the movies and it's one
day it's like everything is different. Well, it's usually not
like that. It falls. It's uneven and fits and starts.
I'm not saying not localized. If you have a disaster,
you know, like a environmental disaster or war, um, those

(43:44):
are you know, those those are very localized. But pandemics
are very international and so um, there's different stages of
disaster and collapse. And um, one of the one of
the ways, one of my gauges if if we're if
I'm ever worrid, I'm never I want gonna be clear
about this. I am never, ever ever worried about martial law,

(44:04):
never work about it. There's not enough of them. There
is not enough of them anywhere except in localized areas.
So I'm talking about national guard, military of any kind,
police law enforcement. There's just not enough of them and
they don't want to do it. So um, but in
but in collapse. The only the main thing I look

(44:25):
at is the grid infrastructure of power, So is are
we do we have electricity? Is it's still running? Do
we have access to oil and gas? Um? If those
things are going, then then we are not in collapse.
Once those things begin not I don't mean in the
localized way because they shut down power stations and gas
stations during hurricanes and things like that. I'm talking about

(44:46):
if you start to see power grids going down, that's
when you would start having more concerned And I don't
mean power grids going down because some storm happened and
and you know, our fire happened again. You start seeing
it nationwide, that's when problems will start to arise because
you're you're dealing with transportation and food security and things
like that. That just everything is predicated on oil. So
that's that's a marquee that said. There's really like in

(45:09):
my analysis is three stages of disasters. The first there's
the immediate when you have to do things rescue, search, um,
you're dealing with just immediate triage with death, things like that.
That eventually gives way to stage two, which is about
less active, but you're still doing stuff. You're still helping
people because the infrastructure hasn't returned always, especially in localized disasters,

(45:33):
so you're you're dealing with things that maybe schools aren't open,
so you're still dealing with things. People have to get foods,
people still have to get things because maybe the restaurants
aren't open. There's a bunch of a bunch of things
in them. And then the third is the longer part
of disaster, which is the rebuilding part, which is like
when you start to get into war situations that are
just going on for years and years and years. All
of these situations need mutual aid every time. And I

(45:54):
think Roja, like you mentioned before, is just such a
great example, even with all the problems that has. I
mean again, trying to build something under while the disaster
is already there is always incredibly difficult. It's always especially
if that disaster has access to F twenty two. No.
I mean, of course, I mean, I mean that's a gift.

(46:15):
It's wool right, like slaughtered right, there's no there's no
so but they've still done amazing things. They're under those,
under those auspices. Same with the Zapatistas. I think they're
a really good example, like you basically almost cut off
from the world physically but not internationally. I mean there's
totally you know, they're still being able to provide these things.

(46:37):
And I think that mutual aid just gives us an
area to give autonomy and collective action and empowerment um,
even if it's not the answers, and if you put
it in the liberatory framework, maybe good things out of
the disaster will continue. And I will be honest, all
the things that Common Ground did that we're liberatory lost
their liberatory potential eventually, they all did. The clinic you

(46:59):
know that we started as an outlaw clinic that the
one of the first clinic that the clinic that still exists.
The other six have closed, the mobile clinics have all closed.
Its um is now it's not liberatory. It's still does
good service work, but it's not a liberatory clinic anymore.
It's just a clinic that can provide services to community
that never had it. So is that a win? Or

(47:20):
I would say it became mainstream. That's totally true, right,
lost its debtchment no more rebels um. Yeah, I know,
is that a win? I mean, it's it's the it's
a win, and that it's the good evolution of what
it would end up there eventually off run everything successful,
I suppose, and people pay attention to it, right, But

(47:43):
those but those people aren't willing to And and this
is the thing is that I think you, like in
my Libertory annalysis, you have to be willing to break
the law because laws are arbitrary, reactionary, bureaucratic, and selectively enforced.
We all know that, right, So, but you have to
be willing to break the law, even if it's something
silly like given some buddy food. You're like, all right,
if I'm I would rather give them food than than

(48:04):
follow the law so ly. And I think dealing with
money is also a really tricky thing. I think that
building it because especially in activist subculture um where people
who come from with lots of resources, lots of middle
class kids come into it, lots of middle class people

(48:25):
people with access to resources want to pretend they're downwardly mobile,
and so they often turned back on those resources. And
this is a problem that has been going on for
ever since I've ever been doing political work. It's not
just around disasters, but we need access to resources, so
you know, what are those resources are? We always need them.
We need to use our privilege. Uh, it's the same

(48:45):
thing breaking the law. Well, it's much easier for me
to break the law. I'm white, middle class. I can't
get away with stuff for people that necessarily can't. And
I might have access to more resources. It's not cool
to pretend like I don't have them. I what's good
is for me to tap into those resources and pay
it forward. Yeah, it's so easy for me to break

(49:06):
the law. It's unbelievably easy for me to break the
law because I'm I'm I've got that that tall white
guy privilege, which makes it very easy to like talk
to police and insert myself in situations where police are
involved and distract them. Um. It's it's a thing I've
been able to do a number of times over the
course of my life. And there's just this, UM, I

(49:29):
think there's a responsibility you have if you are able
to interface with the law and with the state in
a way to where they kind of they they're not
necessarily on a back foot. Um, but they're less aggressive
towards you and more willing to listen to you. Kind
of have a responsibility to shove yourself in there when
it can protect other people who who don't benefit from

(49:51):
that same attitude. Absolutely agree. So, Cody, did you have
any anything, any questions you wanted to get into here?
Leave me alone, robber it. I We'll never do that coding.
Don't you dare ask me the same question. We're back off. No,
this has been incredibly thorough and eliminating. Yeah. Thanks, I

(50:14):
don't I don't have the answers. I mean, that's the
fucking truth of it. I'm not sitting here on the
top of the mountain going like, hey man, this is
all gonna work. I'm with everybody else. I'm just trying
to figure it out and come along. But had made
quite a few mistakes along the way and have been
in some stupid situations that that where it was needed.
And so I think that it's I have some practical

(50:35):
experience and I was willing to talk about it, and
and that overall think that's the only thing I think
I'm bringing to the to the table, because I think
all of all of you, and I think I think
when we talk to people who are reasonable and that
people all want to do this. Yeah. One of the
one of the real lessons of any disaster. And there's
actually been a significant amount of just academic scholarship on this,

(50:58):
is that, more than anything else, people want to help
each other. Most people, you know, you've got that, you've
got that minority of the population who are monsters in
any given part of the world. But most people want
to help the people around them in their community. And
a big part of building systems of mutual aid UM

(51:20):
is giving people an opportunity to be nice to each
other um and to be helpful to each other. And
I think that, uh, more than anything building those systems
is the is the is the treatment for the real
disease right now, which is fear like that's that's that's
going to do more damage to our society than the

(51:41):
actual virus itself. And this is the vaccine for it.
Is getting is doing shit and also taking while you
do ship. By the way, I want to make sure
i'm stating this, take take proper sanitization in PPE precautions. Yeah, yes,
you know, yeah, yeah, but something you can rush, you know,

(52:02):
some people can run to the fire, and other people
can stand nearby the fire. You know, then we need
all of those people, and we need to need people
to stand back way back, and so you need to
do that. We need all of those people working together,
not individually. If you're if you're still at a loss
as to what you might do, one thing I might
suggest is, you know, washing your hands first, using gloves.

(52:23):
Print out some sheets of paper that say hello, my
name is this is an email address or phone number
where you can contact me. Do you need something right?
Do you need something picked up? Are you low on
something like? Are you unable to leave your house? If so,
reach out to me and I can try to help
you and organize that stuff on a spreadsheet, and see
if you can help two or three people in your

(52:45):
neighborhood and see where where that leads you. Um. And
again always you know, sanitize your hands before you handle
the paper. You know, have have gloves on or at
least like a trash bag around your hands, and be
careful to take take the precautions that are nests serry
to keep your community safe. UM. But you know that's
the way you can do what Scott was talking about.

(53:06):
Ask people what they need and then attempt to provide it.
It doesn't have to be you don't have to be
building the clinic. People volunteer right like there there are
there are yeah, smaller scales ahead of that. Yeah, like
the woman in my neighborhood, she put flyers up around
the neighborhood and maybe somebody that sees that will be

(53:28):
able to use that resource. You know, it's not people,
that's one woman, and we don't have to and we
don't have to judge it because everything doesn't have to
be this fucking massive scale. Just let people do be
what they want to do as long as they're trying
to work together on it, you know, Like I mean,
if that's what that lady does and that that helps her,
it's far better than you know, standing in line to
buy you know, mountains of toilet paper because you feel

(53:49):
so disempowered, you know. And I think also approaching this,
I think one other piece I would throw into this
is approach it with solidarity, not charity. And the reason
there's a big distinction there. Solidarity means that we are
in this together, and that that is different. We power share.
Even if I have more resources and stuff I want
if I do good, I want you to do good also,

(54:09):
And that's far different than charity, which is like I'm
just gonna help you. I don't even care. I care,
but I don't care that much, you know, And that's
a band aid where solidarity is like we are in
this together, and that's important because we are in this together.
No nobody's immune from it. Yeah, that's a really good point.
And I think one of the most important things to

(54:29):
keep in mind is that, like the goal of all
of these things isn't isn't for like you to come
in and provide things to other people and and be
the savior. The goal is to build. Like when you're
reaching out to your neighbors and figuring out what they
need and trying to build ways to provide it, you're
building resiliency within your neighborhood that also defends and liberates you.

(54:51):
And like that's a critical component of it. Yeah. Yeah,
we're just about out of time here. But Scott, you
said you had a couple of things that you could
plug for um us today for yourself, but here with us,
And it's not self promotion. I'm promoting these things because
I'm trying to get them out for free and I

(55:13):
want people to know that. And it's my it's my
part that I can do. My first book, Black Flags
and Windmills, that came out from PM press is now
available for free UH and a digital e reader. All
you have to do is give them an email. And
I negotiated with them for quite a while because they
are also struggling as a small publisher. They are also

(55:33):
struggling because I wanted to give my books away for
free I often do during these disaster times. And UM,
this is what we came up with. And they've also
put like ten other really good books on that list.
P m press dot org, Paul Mary Press dot org.
Um you um, and you can go there and you
can get a free e reader Black Flags and Windmills,

(55:54):
and and or choose another book, UM, and I would
recommend that. Also. My my first book, Black Flacks and
whind Mills, is available in Spanish from the Roboso Papal
Collective Collectiva. I don't have their email address, but they
there's print copies available for Spanish speakers and digital copies
also available for free to Spanish speaking people for communities

(56:16):
that would need those. And then UM, I started a
small record label UM last fall called Emergency Hearts based
on this concept that I have called Emergency Hearts. And
then some music label UH, and then what we're doing
with my my small record label is that I have
two titles that we are selling, uh and all the
percent of the proceeds goes to different groups. So one

(56:36):
of them is Anthroposying Blues Revisited is an EP that
I just released with televangel and we're giving that one.
You can buy it and all a hundred percent of
the proceeds goes to Mutual Aid Disaster Relief dot Org,
this great organization that grew out of common Ground and
occupying a bunch of organizations that works on this stuff.
We've talked about them earlier. Or there's another compilation called

(56:58):
Retro Clubs Classic UM and if you buy that because
I live in Austin, Texas, it supports the Health Alliance
for Austin Musicians, which helps musicians that don't have health
insurance and are in crisis all the time. It doesn't
just give them insurance, it actually gives them. It actually
provides medical support for them. And so all the proceeds
from that and then all the other titles, I think
we have like sixty titles on there. All the rest

(57:20):
of them are free until a for anybody who just
wants them download them. Whatever it is it's I mean,
we're all just you gotta have something to get you through.
If you like electronic music, this is the place to
do it. Well. Uh, we're gonna end the episode playing
uh some of your music, So if you guys like that,
you can go check it out. In the meantime, you

(57:41):
can check us out online at Worst Year Pod, on
Instagram and on Twitter and Scott what's your Twitter handle
in case people want to find you online at Scott
under the score Crow. If you just do Scott Crow,
you'll find you'll find him. Thank you so much for
all of this incredible information. I think we've all learned

(58:03):
a lot today. Thank you for having me on. Enjoy
the conversation, and thank all of you for listening, and
please go out there and do something. Uh yeah, do something,
do something, resist, rebel, create and build. There we go.

(58:55):
Todays profits, of course, was seeing their siren soul. They
beckoned us, they loved us, They fallsed us to join
the captains of in the street, who wanted power for themselves,

(59:19):
destroyed the beauty for privates, when tempts so worthless? Where
where where, like most lives were drunk too, Temples of

(59:49):
emtness common shapes of lives and buries. It under calmcreeding life.
To to stand It, Say, to Say, to the Best,

(01:00:30):
Jessy Stay and Church, To stand See Stands to the Yah.

(01:01:14):
Worst Year Ever is a production of I Heart Radio.
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