How The Walking Dead Taught Us To Resist Tyranny | Zombie Book Club Ep 95 - Zombie Book Club

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club.
And I was supposed to fix thelawnmower today.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Did you just realize that?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Welcome to the Zombie Book Club, the only book club
where the book is a revolutionand the revolution will not be
televised because it's a podcast, I mean people keep assuming
that we have a video versionbecause podcasts have become
videocasts.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
We don't, which I'm offended by.
I don't want you to see my face.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, what am I supposed to do?
Make faces at you.
I'm Dan, and when I'm not doinga revolution, I'm writing a
book about the fight againsttyrannical New World Order that
springs up like weeds after azombie outbreak or leads to the
zombie outbreak.
It does a little of both Zombieoutbreak happens and they just
kind of don't do anything tostop it.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Well, I'm Leah and I have a question for you, dan.
Oh, okay.
What does the walking dead haveto teach us about standing up
to tyrannical dictators?

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Oh, I have.
I guess we'll have to find outin this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
The whole point of the episode.
That's what we're talking aboutit is.
It's a casual debt.
It's just me and Dan, which issometimes my favorite because
he's cute over there.
I'm cute, table for me.
If you ever see us in person,you're just gonna see me like
batting my eyes at this manevery day, all day.
That's what she does, it's true, I'm doing it right now.
Stop it.
Uh, it's a casual dead andwe're following up on episode 92

(01:39):
.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
yeah, the uh episode where we talked about Negan
being a dictator and how thatlines up with the dictator's
playbook.
You know a step-by-stepinstructional if you want to be
a dictator.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, that's not why we made that episode, though,
Although I guess it could beused for nefarious means.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
You can use it anywhere you want, yeah.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
But we actually did that episode to set up for this
episode.
So I would recommend, if you'venot listened to episode 92, go
check it out.
I think it's one of our bestones.
We certainly got that feedbackfrom a lot of listeners, so
thank, you all for your kindwords.
We've had a lot of commentsthat we're very excited about
the things that we said, frompeople who refused to watch
Walking Dead after Negan killedsome very beloved characters, so

(02:24):
I feel like that's a highcompliment.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, this episode we're also going to be talking
about things that happened aftermost people gave up watching it
.
Yeah, and I don't care whatJack Callahan says, it does not
go downhill after season six,maybe after season nine, but
that's a different story thatwe'll talk about on a different
day starting a feud with jackcallahan, yeah I'm calling you

(02:50):
out jack callahan and I'm gonnatake all your beans you already
have enough beans.
We literally just hoarded abunch well, we're hoarding, so
we need more.
Okay, we have like 120 poundsof like beans and lentils we do.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
and then, dan, you asked me yesterday, should we
buy more?
And I said no, we need to gothrough what we have.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
We need more beans.
We need Jack's beans and stock.
That's right yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
But completely off topic, as we always do, totally
off topic.
Today we're exploring fourcommunities that you learn about
after Negan does his awfulthing by murdering Glenn PS.
Lots of spoilers here, so I'massuming if you're listening to
this, you've ever watched it oryou're probably never going to
watch it.
So enjoy, we're going to giveyou the rundown of the show.
There's four communitiesAlexandria, which is Rick and
Michonne's community, theHilltop, the Kingdom and

(03:39):
Oceanside and talk about howthey moved from sort of survival
mode, when they were being, uh,tyrannically oppressed by negan
, to actually working togetherto have collective liberation
leah.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
What do their, their journeys teach us about real
world authoritarianism, traumaand reclaiming power?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
why are you asking me a question?
That's the answer.
The episode is this answer oh,because I did it.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Oh, we're going to talk about that.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yes, okay, uh, and we'll connect it back to the
present.
Uh, if you're honestly anywherein the world, tyranny is always
a potential.
Yeah, so I feel like these are,these are things that I don't
know.
I wish we'd learned in school,but uh, you know, school's
typically controlled by thepeople in power, so I sure
didn't really openly want uslearning about their tyrannical

(04:25):
ways no, not until universitydid I learn about tyranny, but
we're going to connect, uh, theexperiences of these four
communities in fighting backagainst negan's dictator,
dictatorial uh ways, dictator,dictator ways um, by presenting
some lessons in connection withwhat they did to timothy
snyder's on tyranny, which is abook that dan read recently,

(04:48):
yeah, and is high up there onthe list of books that people
should be reading right now.
Yeah, or really should havebeen reading before again, but
true, we all gotta catch up it'suh.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
It's available as a as a paperback book.
It's available as an audiobook.
I'm pretty sure the audiobookwas, if not insanely cheap and
it's also a very light read.
The audio book itself was liketwo hours.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
A light.
Okay, so light.
I don't think it's light incontent.
Oh no, it's very heavy.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
It's not like you're reading.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
It's not zombie date night.
You're not going to have achuckle, I don't think when you
read this.

Speaker 1 (05:22):
But each chapter is organized in a way that each
chapter is a lesson in resistingtyranny Excellent, and is
something I think people shouldread right now.

Speaker 2 (05:36):
But first we release episodes every Sunday.
So submit to our tyranny bysubscribing.
Do it Submit.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
Turn us into Tyrannosaurus Rexes.
What?
That's what Tyrannosaurus Rexmeans.
It's the tyrannical king, theterrible king of the lizards.
Really, that's what?

Speaker 2 (05:55):
it actually means I learned something today, okay,
but first we've got to do somelife updates, because it is a
casual dead.
Oh yeah, do we have updates?
The big thing I wanted to talkabout was Living Dead Weekend.
I don't know about you.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yeah, that is an update.

Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, I mean you've been back to work for two weeks
and you're basically I'm dead.

Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I'm undead.
Actually, I've died and risenas a corpse and that corpse is
talking to you right now.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
It's so my dream man.
Oh no, that sounds bad.
That sounds like I'm anecrophilia.
Yeah, yeah, no, I don't.
I don't mean that, it's a joke,in case anybody's concerned
about my preferences.
Anyhow, yeah, we're preparingfor Living Dead weekend, so that
means that we are pausing oninterviews until sometime in the
summer Not sure yet when thosewill reconvene.

(06:41):
Not sure yet when those willreconvene, but right now life is
very busy with ordering all ofthe things like stickers and
T-shirts and banners andmicrophones so that we can
interview folks at Living DeadWeekend.
And if you haven't heard ofLiving Dead Weekend, it's at the
mall where Dawn of the Dead wasfilmed, near Pittsburgh,
pennsylvania, and it's happeningJune 6th through the 8th, so we

(07:03):
really hope we get to see youthere.
Yeah, it's going to.
It's happening June 6th throughthe 8th, so we really hope we
get to see you there.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, it's going to be quite the time.
It might even be the lastLiving Dead weekend, though
there is a petition going aroundto keep Walmart from turning it
into a Walmart.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, shout out to Steph from Listeners of the Dead
podcast who alerted us to thaton the Discord.
So I signed.
Yeah, I still have to sign, butI'm going to.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
I from listeners of the dead podcast who alerted us
to that on the discord, so Isigned.
Yeah, I still have to sign, butI'm going to.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
I intend to, as soon as I, uh, come fully back to
life we should put that petitionin the show notes, because it
only has like a thousand signersright now.
Yeah, we'll put it in the shownotes.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Um, I'm back to work and it's been.
It's been rough.
That's also another reason why,like, it's probably best that
we hold off on interviews for awhile, because I just don't have
it in me.
We've done some since I wentback to work and I got through
them, but I was not at my 100%self for sure, because I'm just

(08:01):
destroyed.
A lot of things happened in myfirst week back to work.
Somebody almost died.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
A few times.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
One of my coworkers backed over the foreman at our
job with a sweeper machine and Idon't know if that person's
alive.
I have not gotten an update yet.
It's been a week.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
They don't tell me anything.
The last you heard was thatthey were in a hospital, stable
but not out of the woods, whichI'm like, but not out of the
woods, which I'm like.
Stable and out of the woods,I'm like that does.
That's very vague.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
He has a heartbeat, I guess.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
It's not really your business with the person's
health situation is technically,but it would be nice to know if
they're okay.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Just in a broad way.
I'll have to find somebody whoknows, who knows some
information.
I haven't really been aroundanybody that knew anything.
I'm always the one with theinformation.
In this case, because I was uhbacked up to the mill for doing
milling, but they shave off thetop layers of asphalt so that we
could put down new asphalt anduh happened way behind me and uh

(09:01):
, so I, I was, I was there, andeverybody else that I've had
contact with this week is askingme for information.
I'm like I don't know.
His bottom half was facing thewrong direction when he left,
and that's all the information Ihave for you.
So, yeah, he got pretty messedup, and that was my first week

(09:22):
back to work.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
I'm not going to actually do the rant, so just
imagine the rant that I would doif we had the time, about how I
feel about.
If you're hearing our dogmaking choking sounds in the
background, that's because Ithink he just puked on our
carpet.
Oh, I upset ziggy.
You did because I'm worriedabout you, oh no, oh ziggy.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Is he okay, little bear?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
I'm sure he's okay, ziggy oh you're such a sweet
little, empathetic baby.
Uh, what was I saying, right?
I would love to rant right nowabout how capitalism puts you
all in these incredibly riskysituations, and I'd also like to
rant about your boss, whoyou've never named.
So can I, or should I not?
I?
um, if you want to, I guess allI know is that he texted you the

(10:07):
next day and said we gottadouble down on our safety
briefings, of which there havenever been any.
Yeah, because that's this world.
Um and uh, if you get fired forthat, I don't care, because
that means that you're awhistleblower.
I'm blowing the whistle, yeahum, shitty behavior.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, it'll just mean that I don't have to work for a
while anyways, if I get firedyeah, if you go, I'm pretty sure
there'll be wrongfultermination.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
So anyways, yeah, my point is is telling the truth
yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I'm not going to go downthat road, because that is not
the tyranny we're resistingtoday.
In fact, that is one of theexamples of things that
sometimes you just have tosurvive.
Yeah, it's called.
Sometimes you have to do thejob that you can do and accept
the risks, and it's scary toknow that Dan is going into that

(10:55):
situation every day.

Speaker 1 (10:56):
Yeah, besides coal mining, it's the most dangerous
job in America.
Actually, I think it's likevery close truck driving or
specifically the job that you'redoing um, but all of it yeah
yeah, it's.
It's really rough um anythingcan happen you never know I
won't have a cave collapse on me, though, so I don't know.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
I feel like whatever will happen, uh, would be pretty
quick something I think about,obviously, is how devastated I
would be if you were harmed umand or dead.
And then I think about that,that I have no idea how to
upload anything on the podcast,so all I could do is post
something on instagram and belike sorry, I don't, I don't
know how to do this and dan'sdan's dead.

(11:38):
Somebody help.
I don't know how buzzsproutworks dan's dead.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
I'm grieving and I have to learn buzzsprout now.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
I think your dark humor has rubbed off on me, dan.
Yeah, never made a joke aboutyou dying before.
I hope our listeners are stillgoing to listen, but you know
what?
It's going to get brighter,because we're talking about the
resistance today.
Yeah, lots of real life lessons.
So just a quick introduction tothe four communities that we
follow in the Walking Dead inthe time frame where Negan shows
up.
Yeah, first we have Alexandria.

(12:08):
You want to tell us aboutAlexandria, dan?

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Yeah, alexandria.
We find this at the end ofSeason 5 or the beginning of
Season 6.
No end of Season 5.
Rick and crew find thiscommunity.
It's a safe suburban refuge, um, built on order and optimism.

(12:30):
They have a really great leader, tall steel walls that were
very well designed by anengineer.
They have solar panels, theyhave hot water, they have sewage
, they have food and they havelittle potlucks.
And the biggest concern, thatthe people inside this town have

(12:57):
is.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
can anybody find me a pasta maker so we can have
fresh pasta instead of driedpasta?
And that, just to be clear, isthe community that Rick and his
crew become a part of.
Yes, so that's the maincommunity that we follow.
Then we have the hilltop.
How would you describe thehilltop, Dan?

Speaker 1 (13:08):
This is a settlement.
So if you could, if you've seenlike old forts, like a pioneer
village yeah, they have.
They have wooden palisades,which is a fancy way of saying a
wall that's made out of logswith spikes at the top, um,
surrounding a big um likeplantation mansion.

(13:30):
It's a historical building.
I think it's actually like thegovernor's mansion in virginia
or something something like thatand it's got it's.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
It's a place that, like you know, you might go when
you were a kid on a field tripto like learn about the olden
days.
It has all the olden days,things, um, and people like
reenacting it, except for now,and the apocalypse has been
turned into a community again.

Speaker 1 (13:51):
Yeah, that's led by a man named gregory, who's who we
find immediately is a very weakleader, very cowardly,
sniveling, sniveling has neverspent a minute outside those
walls.
He was lucky enough to be thereat the beginning and for that
he has made himself the leaderof that.

(14:12):
But things happen and laterspoiler alert it becomes led by
Maggie.
Much better choice, yeah.
And then we have the kingdom.
The kingdom is the kingdom.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
The kingdom is the kingdom of King Ezekiel, who has
a pet tiger, because previousto the apocalypse, he was a
zookeeper and he rescued thistiger.
Yeah, because they this him andthis tiger just hang out in the

(14:46):
community theater in thislittle town that they have taken
over and built walls around and, um, somehow people decided
that he's a king.
He speaks in a british accent.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
yeah, a fake one a shakespearean way of of speaking
, because he used to be um in alike a local actor, local acting
guild.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
And he has like nights, and it's very weird,
it's.
It's like they just all decidedto suspend their disbelief and
be like all right, king Ezekiel,you've got a.
You've got a tiger, you'redefinitely in charge.
Thankfully, he's a nice guy.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, it's all.
It's all very theatrical, Likeit's all make believe, but
that's kind of how he'sorganized his community is that
it's easier for them to just belike.
We live in a fairytale,make-em-up night kingdom where
we have a king who is like aShakespearean king and always

(15:37):
has these Shakespearean words ofwisdom and is a strong leader
and even though it's all verysilly, it works and they're able
to keep themselves alive duringthe apocalypse just by having a
little bit of imagination.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
Yeah and belief together, and then we have
Oceanside.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Yeah, we don't see a whole lot of Oceanside right
away.
We discover this later on.
They are a hidden enclave ofall women who's the?
The male members of their, oftheir society were all killed
off by Negan at a previous pointin time.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
And they ran away and formed a new community by the
ocean, hence the name Oceanside.

Speaker 1 (16:22):
And they're very secretive because they do not
want Negan to find them.
As far as, as far as negan'sconcerned, they're all gone.
They all probably died andthat's the way that they want to
keep it.
So they're hidden in the woods,they're by the ocean, they, uh,
they fish, they forage.

Speaker 2 (16:39):
It's a major secret, yeah so those are the four
communities, and what I want todo first is just walk through
how each of them initiallyreacted to negan and then, what
was the turning point ofresistance?
Because I think, particularlyin our us context right now,
that's a question we're allasking.
Like there is fightinghappening back.
For sure, yeah, we're also notnegan levels yet, um, but there

(17:02):
is this question of like, is itgoing to get to that point where
we're going to need to fightback even more than we are right
now?
Um, and there's also lots ofexamples of people just licking
boots.
Yeah, in this day and age,republicans, you should delete
that part, because I know I'mnot supposed to be political oh,
that ship has already sailed um, yeah, so let's talk about

(17:24):
Alexandria.
So again, I think it wasprobably like a year ago.
We had an episode about thetrauma responses and how they
were demonstrated reallybeautifully in the show Black
Summer, and calling that oneback out, because this is
another example of where you seevarious strategies of just
survival and you're initiallyhit by this tyrannical dictator,
guy negan, and he's really putyou through some shit and you

(17:47):
don't know what to do.
You're going to do one of thesethings and in alexandria's case
, they tried to fight first, butthey weren't prepared.
Yeah, as we talked about inepisode 92, rick is like
brutally, brutally humiliated.
Yeah, he didn't know his enemy.
No, lost a lot of people, um,and so he submits completely.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yeah, he has no other choice.
He could continue to resist andsurely die and more likely just
get his people brutallymurdered by a psychopath.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Or he could completely submit and maybe save
some of them.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
And so he chooses to submit.
And that means they give up alltheir weapons, all of their
supplies, all of their autonomyas a community where before they
were thriving.
Yeah, so the turning point forAlexandria is more awful.
Murder of Spencer.
Who is who?

Speaker 1 (18:38):
Dan Spencer was the son of Diana, who was the first
leader of Alexandria.
She was, I think, a senator andafter the zombies came back,
came to this town, brought a lotof people with her and was its
de facto leader.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Yeah, zombies came back.
You just said From the dead,from the dead.
Oh okay, I see what you'resaying, right, that makes sense.
Dead from the dead, from thedead?
Oh okay, I see what you'resaying, right, that makes sense.
Uh, the other thing thathappens is there is some uh,
slow, brewing, quiet rebellion,which is really important to to
note, uh, but it doesn't workbecause their supposed allies,
the scavengers, which we like tothink of as trash people

(19:19):
because they live in a giant, uhdump, garbage dump.
Yeah, they claim to be alliedwith Alexandria, but they switch
and they betray them andAlexandria gets even more fucked
.
Because now Negan is pissed,right, he's regretting his
choice of thinking of people ashuman, as human resources, and
is wondering why he'd save themat all in the first place.
Yeah, quote unquote as thesavior.

(19:41):
And so rick has just given up.
At that point he's totallydemoralized at michonne.
Badass.
Michonne comes in and says wehave to believe that we can do
this.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
We have to fight back , otherwise it's an inevitable
death for all of us yeah, um,and that's that is unfortunately
where it where it goes,sometimes with a third author.
Author it's whatever Toriandictatorships Cause cause.

(20:10):
They don't care about yoursafety or your survival.
They're using you as a resource, and if you no longer serve a
purpose to them, they don'tnecessarily certainly care if
you live or die.
If you no longer serve apurpose to them, they don't
necessarily care if you live ordie.
If you live a happy life, ifyou're healthy.
They only want what they canextract from you, and you can
either live long enough untilyou become useless to them and

(20:31):
then die, or you can diefighting back.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
And the key change here with michonne is that she
says hey, we've actually startedto meet some other communities
now.
We know about the hilltop, weknow about oceanside, we know
about the kingdom.
What?
What if we convince them tofight with us?
That's the only way this isgoing to work.
And so they actually form acoalition, which is very
difficult because each of thosegroups have their own challenges

(20:56):
they're dealing with.
So we'll get into that more ina little bit, let's let's talk
about the Hilltop.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, so the Hilltop are in full freeze Freeze from
the beginning, frozen, you mighteven say, because Gregory is
just a coward.
A coward and immediatelywithout, without any any of the
stuff that negan had to do withrick's group.

(21:21):
Gregory was just like you wanthalf of our stuff?
That's fine, cool, come and getit.
You want to take our peopleaway?
Cool.
You want to assassinate me?
That's fine too.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
I think he was kind of a freeze fawn.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah, definitely um combo yeah, because because he
mostly dealt with the character,simon, who would come and he
would try to impress Simon andbe like I found a case of
whiskey, here's some tequila,and Simon would always kind of
debuff all of those nicetieswith a smile and be like, well,

(21:53):
this isn't really my kind ofthing, but thanks anyway.
I'm going to give this to Neganand say it was me, because he
knows who he's dealing with.
He knows who Gregory is, yeah.
So yeah, they follow the ordersof the saviors and try, and
they lay low, they try not toattract attention, they avoid

(22:15):
conflict entirely until untilrick's group comes along and uh,
a very pregnant maggie, apregnant woman again a woman
steps up.

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, in the hilltop gotta give cred um to people
with uteruses during their theirthe time that they need
somebody the most yeah, but yougotta remember they're a mad
pregnant woman, which I think issomebody you don't want to fuck
with because negan brutallymurdered her husband which is
why many of the people listeningnow, uh, stopped watching yeah,

(22:48):
and you know what you missed bystop watching.
You missed maggie's incrediblephoenix arc as just being such a
badass.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Yeah, so the turning point for Hilltop was it took
place not too long after Glenn'sdeath.
The events that unfolded thatled to Glenn's death and the
confrontation of Negan wasactually Gregory's first attempt
to take control of thesituation.

(23:16):
He thought that Rick's groupcould go out and take out the
Saviors because Gregory hadintel.
He knew where the Saviors were.
He knew that they would besleeping at night because they
don't think that anyone isstupid enough to attack them.
They, the Saviors, wantedGregory assassinated, sent some
of his own people back to chopoff his head and bring it back

(23:37):
to the saviors.
Gregory didn't like thatbecause he wants to protect
himself, hires rick, rick andcrew, goes out to the place
where the saviors are, kills allthe saviors every single one of
them except that was asatellite outpost, literally at
a satellite antenna station.
Lesson.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Prepare, prepare and make sure you've done a lot of
spying on your enemy.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
First, Know your enemy.
I'm sure we'll talk about thatexact thing in this breakdown.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
And Maggie ends up in the hilltop because she needs a
doctor, because she's pregnant.

Speaker 1 (24:12):
She needs a doctor.
They have one.
And also they're looking forMaggie Because Maggie is a
threat.
Because she's pregnant, sheneeds a doctor.
They have one.
And also they're looking forMaggie because Maggie is a
threat, because she's angry.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
Glenn's wife, yeah, and I'm pretty sure, doesn't she
say she's going to kill him?

Speaker 1 (24:24):
I think so I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
I'm shocked he didn't kill her right there.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yeah, but he has principles.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
That's true, also talked about in episode 92.
But it's incredible becauseunder maggie's leadership even
like she's kind of slowlybecoming an informal leader,
even if she's not the officialone with greg, people come to
respect her and then she fullout, builds an army, she teaches
them how to fight and says wehave to fight, we have to, we
have to fight back against thesepeople because they're gonna
we're all gonna die anyways ifwe don't yeah, and that brings

(24:52):
us to the kingdom.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
Um, the kingdom had a very interesting relationship.
All of these outposts had avery different relationship with
Negan, but most of them werebeing dominated.
The hilltop was being dominated.
Alexandria's getting sodominated it's being destroyed
by Negan because Negan's mad atthem, by Negan, because Negan's

(25:19):
mad at them.
The kingdom, on the other hand,I think, is far enough away
that Negan can't really putforth the resources to have such
a tight grip on them.
But knowing that Ezekiel ismore likely to negotiate and try
to keep peace between them,they have an agreement.
So they'll just provide theamount of food that they are
asking for, which isn't as muchas a lot of the other places,

(25:43):
because they're cooperating andas long as the saviors stay on
their side of the tracks andEzekiel stays where he stays,
then there's no need for anybodyto fight and ezekiel can
maintain his military and alsowhat's important there is that
niga or not negan as kingezekiel, I gotta keep him
calling him king the whole time.

Speaker 2 (26:04):
Yeah, king ezekiel doesn't let the community know
this is happening hiding it,there's a couple of his uh like
main trusted knights are theones who go and deliver the, the
food, and people don't know,until he starts to ask for more
and more and more, and thenpeople start to notice.
Also, king Ezekiel falls inlove with Carol and that's a

(26:25):
whole wonderful sidebar.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Carol is kind of kept in the dark about a lot of
what's going on with Negan untilmuch later in that season yeah,
lot of what's going on withNegan until much later in that
season.
She finds out through Ezekieland what's going on there,
because the turning point forthe kingdom was the death of
Benjamin.
So Benjamin is taken underMorgan's wing to learn the

(26:48):
peaceful ways of Aikido, becauseBenjamin is a horrible fighter
in any other respect.
So Ezekiel tasks Benjamin tolearn under Morgan so that he
can be an effective fighter andmaybe find a new path where the
other paths were not working.
And while this is happening,he's going out on missions with

(27:12):
Morgan and he gets killed by thesaviors, accidentally, but
still the saviors killed him.
Yeah, um, and that isn't.
That is the the breaking point,because they've already been
talking to rick turn down rick,um, and then also with some
urging from carol, afterlearning what the situation, um,

(27:33):
that's, that's when he decidesto join the resistance.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
And there is a point where he stops calling himself
King and he stops using hisweird accent voice and I feel
like it's around the same time.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
I think it's much later.
You think so.
Well, I think it's in seasoneight, oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
Don't listen to me.
I don't have the memory thatDan does.
Yeah, okay, last but not least,oceanside.
Oceanside absolutely pandas,yeah, okay, last but not least,
oceanside oceanside, absolutelyflight they, they got, they ran
destroyed and they they ran and,honestly, that was the right
choice, because negan was goingto make them all a part of his
harem and I don't know whatwould have happened to the kids.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
To be frank, yeah, um , they would have either been in
his harem or he, they wouldhave been his slaves or dead
kids, the people, the women yeah, let's.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
I don't.
I think negan had a weird softspot for kids, so they might
have been okay, but he probablywould have used them as leverage
to get whatever he wanted fromthe women of oceanside yeah,
definitely everybody is leverageto negan yeah so they create a
completely secret community yeah, um yeah, so secretive that if
you discover their community,they have a lot of conversations

(28:39):
about whether or not they'regoing to execute you, because
that's how badly they want tostay a secret.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
They can't risk even one person wandering into their
village and then walking outalive.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, but of course, because it's the Walking Dead,
one of Rick's crew, Tara,happens to find them
accidentally Again.
A whole fun thing you shouldjust watch.
We won't tell you all thedetails of that, but it's
interesting.
And she convinces them not tokill her and let her go home and
she promises she will nevertell anybody.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
Well, she does that, but also the person running
Oceanside was like, yeah, youcan go, and then sends assassins
after her All right.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
I Like, yeah, you can go, and then sends assassins
after her.
All right, I forgot about thatdetail and she got away though,
yeah.
So much, so much there.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Yeah, it was quite an episode, yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
So Tara I mean because Tara does escape, she
risks everything and goes backand says, like we need you to
fight with us, we have to haveyou fight with us if we have a
chance of making this happen,yeah, yeah, and they turn them
down.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
But there's also like , if they didn't join up, rick's
crew was like, well then, weneed your weapons, and they
steal all their guns.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
And then eventually they join on physically too.

Speaker 1 (29:48):
It's complex.
They show up at the very finalfight to help despite being
robbed by them.
To help despite being robbed bythem.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
I will say I think it's already an example of you
know, you have these fourdistinct communities with four
different ways of being, fourdifferent ways of surviving and
coping being under adictatorship.
And it's not building thecoalition, is not conflict free.
We're going to havedisagreements with the people
that we need to work with.
We might need to steal theirweapons and hopefully they
forgive us later is basicallythat's the lesson from Oceanside
Steal their weapons andhopefully they forgive us later
is basically that's the lessonfrom Oceanside Steal their
weapons and ask for forgivenesslater.

Speaker 1 (30:19):
So now we're going to talk about how the Walking Dead
, their lessons of resistanceand the book On Tyranny by
Timothy Snyder have a lot incommon.
And this is the stuff that Ilove, because you can watch so
many movies and so many TV showsthat think that they know what

(30:42):
resisting tyranny is, but itjust kind of turns into a slow
motion action, gunfight, yeah,and I love when things like the
Walking Dead actually thinkabout how to fight against a
dictator like negan and theythere's so many examples that
are are perfect yeah, they learnfrom their initial um not

(31:05):
thinking it through like goingto kill people in the satellite
outpost, thinking it's negan'shouse and only house, and
realize they need to bestrategic.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
Strategy is the thing that's going to stop the cycle
of obedience um, and it's goingto be that strategy and
community solidarity, that goalof collective liberation that we
all have to win together, isultimately what gets them there
yeah, and this, the, the walkingdead could have very easily
just been rick confronting neganand winning, but the, the, the

(31:34):
reality of it is that we, we all, have to fight.

Speaker 1 (31:37):
We either all fight, we all risk everything and
either lose everything or win,or you know, like in the example
of um, you know theassassination attempt against
negan that failed.
It was one person being alone,alone, a lone wolf, and it
didn't work.
So in On Tyranny.

(31:58):
Timothy Snyder discusses the 20civic lessons to resist tyranny
and we're going to go throughthose.
Number one, first chapter.
We're just going to go over thebasic overview of each chapter
and how they correlate to theevents of the Walking Dead.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, and then your homework is to think about.
What does that mean for meright now?

Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yeah, and also I think you'll find a lot more
examples of the Walking Dead.
These are just a few, andyou're going to find examples of
this in real everyday life aswe face tyranny.
Number one do not obey inadvance.
We hear this a lot these days,but tyrannies depend on citizens
preemptively surrendering theirrights before being forced.

(32:44):
That's what the Mango Mussoliniwas hoping for.
Is that we would just say okay,you want to be a dictator?
We love that.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Yeah, we'll just do what you say.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Yeah, so a great example of this is when Rick and
Alexandria refused to submit tothe Saviors before meeting
Negan for the first time.
Granted, it didn't go well, andwhen they did meet Negan,
because they pissed Negan off.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
But they also saw Negan's true character very
quickly yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
But there were so many times when the Saviors were
like, are you going to give up?
Yet they brought out a leaderof a former community who'd done
something similar to Rick andthey kept on showing him like,
hey, we're going to execute thisguy, and they ended up hanging
him from a bridge, from a towchain, all kinds of things they

(33:41):
were just trying to show.
This is how many people we got.
This is what we do to people.
You want to give up yet?
Yeah, and he just wouldn't.
And the idea of not giving inadvance is that you don't want
to just allow them to just walkall over you.
You have to make them work forit.
When you make them work for it,you have more time to organize,

(34:04):
you have more time to act andyou have more resources.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
Yeah, a real life.
Recent example is Mohsen Madawi, who was detained.
He's a green card holder, Ithink, a Columbia University
former student, or maybe currentstudent, who actively spoke out
in support of a free Palestineand he was going to be probably
sent to El Salvador or somethingelse awful, but thankfully he
was detained in Vermont and theVermont judge stopped it.
He's been released now, butwhen he was released think about

(34:31):
it His life was at risk, yeah,and he came out of uh detention
center and he gave a speech andhe said all the things about,
like, continuing to fight backand he's not going to be afraid.
And this is the time for us tospeak up.
And I think that's a anincredible example when I have
people like my mom messaging me,being like, are you sure you
want to do this, that or theother?
Or even like, talk about thesethings in the podcast because I

(34:53):
want you to be safe.
And I'm like, if I, if we all,are just quiet, eventually what
happened to the kingdom willhappen to us.
Because the kingdom chooses toobey right away, the hilltop
chooses to obey right away andover time, eventually they come
for them.
Yeah, that's always what willhappen yeah the second one is
defend institutions.
Uh, timothy snyder says you needto support and protect

(35:15):
democratic institutions likecourts, media and local
governments.
So how does that show up in aworld that seems like it's been
in anarchy for a long time?

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah, it's a little bit harder to find the
institutions in the Walking Dead, because that's kind of the
idea of the zombie apocalypse isthey're all gone.
But however, that's kind of theidea of the zombie apocalypse
is they're all gone.
But however, the Hilltop hasits own community, has its own
leadership.
The kingdom also has its ownsovereignty.
Maggie shows up to protect theHilltop's leadership, even

(35:51):
though Gregory is a snivelingworm, and she's making sure that
the community doesn't collapseunder the Savior's pressure.
And the kingdom is also feelingthat pressure and has to make a
decision before it gets worse,because the kingdom is asking
for more and more.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
You mean, the saviors are asking for more and more.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
The saviors are asking for more and more from
the kingdom and the kingdom isunder a lot of stress from the
kingdom, and the kingdom isunder a lot of stress.
They have problems and theycan't keep up with that.
And on top of that they'reseeing the violence of Negan's
people and they have to make achoice whether or not they're
going to just lie down and takeit or fight back.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Yeah, I think you see some other interesting examples
.
I think about Alexandria.
Like they have communitymeetings to talk about what to
have happen.
It's not just Rick's onlydecision all the time, like
there is actual pushback.
And did they not vote, dan?
Or am I not rememberingcorrectly?
They did vote?
Yeah, they have to vote to makea decision, to even fight back,
so it becomes a collectivedecision.
They're all owning, and so itbecomes a collective decision.

(36:55):
They're all owning, and sothat's.
It feels a little bit lighterbecause obviously we're talking
the apocalypse here.
People there aren't full oncourts and federal governments
around, but they did still tryto figure out how to do thrive
in whatever way you can.
And if, uh, all of the leadersof those groups had just
defaulted to being like me again, again, all of them have
ultimately been decimated.

Speaker 1 (37:12):
Yeah, uh, number three beware the one party state
.
Now that's.

(37:32):
That sounds like somethingthat's going on these days.
Yeah, authoritarians often aimto destroy competition and
monopolize power.
So again, ezekiel keeps thekingdom diplomatically distant
as long as possible, resistingthe full savior control.

(37:54):
And same with the others.
It's just, I feel like thekingdom is a really great
example of that.
Yeah, because they still hadtheir sovereignty.
Number four take responsibilityfor the face of the world.
Your behavior creates thepolitical culture around you.
Don't wait for others to act.

(38:17):
Gabriel has a very interestingstory where he starts off very
much as the coward and he does alot of very cowardly things.
Um, some of those things thatreally jeopardized the safety of
everybody at alexandria.
He's the reason that in seasonsix, uh, or at the end of season
five, zombies get inside thefence and cause problems.
But Gabriel realizes thathiding in church is cowardice

(38:45):
and he decides that on moralgrounds it's more morally
correct to stand up and fightagainst the tyranny.
And he decides that he's goingto fight, even if it means
killing, even though he saysthat he'll try to avoid it as
much as possible.
But he has to protect on moralgrounds.

Speaker 2 (39:02):
I think Michonne, for example, just the way that she
showed up and said we have tofight is an example of not
waiting for others to act.
I'm morally conflicted with thestealing of weapons from
Oceanside, but that was anexample where it's like, okay,
we don't have you with us, butwe need to act.
Yeah, so we're going to moveforward.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
Also the conversations that they're
having with the othercommunities.
They have this conversationwith Oceanside, they have this
conversation with the kingdomand the hilltop and they also
have it with the trash peopleand they say that we have to
take responsibility for this andwe have to solve this problem,
the savior problem, and we cando it if we all come together.

(39:40):
Those are conversations thatthey're having with everybody.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I want to point out here too that psychologically,
like our species, the human, thehomo sapien, likes to belong,
likes to follow the crowd a lotof the time.
Who belong likes to follow thecrowd a lot of the time.
And I think that when you're inmoments where shit is scary, um
, that idea, that bystandereffect, that I think most people
know what that is comes intoplay, which is we're all looking
at each other, saying are yougonna do anything?

(40:07):
Because if you do something,then I'll do something, yeah.
And if you just see peopleliving their normal lives and
not doing anything and notsaying anything, then I think it
makes people think even thethreat is less than it is, and
so it really is important to act.
Luigi Mangione did not wait forothers to act.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
If he did, indeed, kill the CEO of UnitedHealthcare
, allegedly, allegedly,allegedly.
Yeah, free Luigi.
Remember professional ethics.
Stay true to professionalstandards.
Doctors, lawyers, teachers candefend society.
Um, we see this a few times and, uh, a really great example.
And I I I feel like it tookmultiple viewings to even

(40:51):
remember that this happened.
But the character jesus not youknow jesus jesus, but the one
named Jesus, who lives at thehilltop.
Who lives at the hilltoprejects Rick and Daryl's
treatment of the saviorprisoners.
Rick and Daryl are questioninga savior during the war and they
say, yeah, if you just tell uswhere to go next, we'll let you

(41:15):
go.
And he's like, okay, I'll tellyou.
And then they shot him andJesus had a really big problem
with that.
He's like you said you weregoing to let him go.
Also, jesus talks Maggie intokeeping the saviors as prisoners
instead of executing them atthe hilltop.
That's another perfect example,and a lot of the people that

(41:35):
they captured as saviors lateron in the seasons became very
valuable members of their groupafter the saviors were defeated.

Speaker 2 (41:43):
Yeah, that's a very powerful lesson.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
And also a character is introduced named Sadiq, who
was found by Carl in the woods,and he keeps his healer's ethics
from his father intact, evenamid the war.
He's going to help anyone whoneeds help.

Speaker 2 (42:00):
Yeah, Sadiq's a doctor.
That's not clear.
He's a doctor.
Yeah, very, comes in handy forMaggie that he shows up in the
woods, that's true.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Number six be wary of paramilitaries.
Armed groups outside of statecontrol are a classic warning
sign of tyranny.
Oh God, in today's world wehave things like ICE, and most
recently we've learned about adepartment called HSI Homeland
Security Investigations who'sresponsible for making a lot of

(42:33):
people disappear right now.
They were a very unheard ofgroup within law enforcement,
but now they're showing up andtaking people off the streets
and sending them to countrieswithout due process.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
A real life example of this that just happened a few
days ago, as of this recording,it came out on April 28th is
the executive order quote I lovehow absolutely ridiculous these
names of the executive ordersare Strengthening and unleashing
America's law enforcement topursue criminals and protect
innocent citizens.
Have you heard of thisexecutive order, dan?

Speaker 1 (43:08):
No, it sounds like quite a word salad there.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
It is.
Basically, it directs thefederal government to expand
resources and support for stateand local law enforcement to,
and training and using militaryequipment.
So no longer just the awfulresources cops have, but now you
can invoke like I need a tank.
I feel like we're headingtowards a Tiananmen Square kind
of a situation that we can usethis excess force to arrest

(43:41):
people who are not complyingwith Trump's equity policies,
which are not equity policies,they are about.
Anybody who's like, wants tocontinue to, for example, have
any kind of diversity equityinclusion programs as a part of
their state programs, or doesn'timplement any of the executive
orders that Trump has put inplace, is now at risk of being
arrested.
Essentially, yeah, there are alot of legal challenges to this

(44:04):
right now, but what Trump issaying is that DEI efforts
allegedly endanger public safetyand the goal of his executive
order is to create a law abidingsociety by aggressively
policing crime quote, unquote,unquote and removing perceived
constraints on police authority.
This is a direct attack onstate's autonomy, because that's
obviously where the mostresistance is happening right

(44:24):
now, and so, as you weredescribing um this, it just
sounded like a perfect exampleof the things that he's trying
to do yeah, I mean I think youcan find an example of
everything in this bookhappening right now.

Speaker 1 (44:39):
Like number seven be reflective if you must be armed.
This applies to law enforcement, military and anyone that
carries a weapon and might haveto carry out the president's
orders and might have to carryout the president's orders.
And it says if you carryweapons, do so responsibly and

(45:01):
think deeply about your actionsas a resistor.
So a good example of this isDwight who, despite being a
savior lieutenant, he becomes aninside agent because he
reflects on the cost of hisloyalty to Negan Losing his wife
.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Yeah, losing his wife and having his face burned off,
yeah, yeah, dwight's an exampleagain where you could just
perceive Dwight as only theenemy.
And there are these momentswhere he finally turns and that
is an important thing to look ateverybody right now as a
potential ally.
I'm not saying that youshouldn't fight back against
Dwight when he's on Negan's side, but if he turns, align with

(45:44):
him, but with some wariness.
That's my advice that comes outof this one with him, but with
some wariness.

Speaker 1 (45:49):
That's my advice that comes out of this one.
Yeah, and I'm a veteran, so I'vehad to carry a weapon in combat
and a lot of the PTSD that Iface from that time is the moral
injury that comes from knowingthat our government wasn't
necessarily in the right when itcame to the wars that we fought

(46:11):
.
There's definitely those timeswhere I feel like it's either
you or me, and I'm going tochoose me, and that's something
I don't necessarily feel badabout.
But one thing that I do feelbad about is having to fight
against people who were justsimply defending their own
country, the same way that Iwould do if an invading army

(46:34):
invaded our country.
Um, and the propaganda spun itso that we were, we were the
ones liberating these peoplefrom their oppressive regime,
which is, you know, not true.
We could argue about thatbecause you know Saddam Hussein
wasn't great but at the sametime, like it wasn't their

(46:54):
choice to have us come in and dothat and the measures that we
put in place far exceeded whatwas justified to do it.
And also, it was done illegally, according to the United
Nations and NATO.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Do you think this lesson here be reflective?
You must be armed is also aboutall the people who are
currently working for thegovernment, absolutely With guns
.
I think we were talking in thecar ride on our way to breakfast
.
This is what we talk about at 7in the morning, folks.
We're talking about a worldwhere the police start to defect
and fight back and fight withus at that.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
If it gets to a world like that, yeah, and I think
that, if I mean, especially ifyou're listening to this podcast
and you're a member of themilitary or police force, you
probably are thinkingdifferently from the way that
they want you to think as, astheir soldier, who can pull the
trigger for them?
Um, and this is that.

(47:51):
That lesson's for you.
So, like every time you're toldthat you have to do something
with that weapon, you have tothink is this legal, is this
justified?

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Is it moral?

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Is it?

Speaker 2 (48:03):
moral?

Speaker 1 (48:04):
Yeah, because legal is not always going to be moral,
yeah, uh, and some always goingto be moral, yeah, and some
people don't have a choice, likewhen you, when you join the
military, you are contractuallyobligated to serve out your time
unless they release you fromyour duties, and in that case
you have a duty to disobey ifyou are told to do something

(48:25):
illegal or immoral, and we cantalk about that in depth if it
comes to that.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
But yeah, Lesson number eight stand out.
Yeah, be willing to beconspicuous when resisting
injustice.
Again, my shout out to all ofthe human beings who have spoken
up at their own risk the lastlittle while.
There's been so many.
There was even one in Vermontrecently that I don't know if
she lost her job or not.
We should follow up on that.
But JD Vance was visiting hertown.

(48:54):
It was at her resort, skiresort and she decided to use
her daily ski weather report asa condemnation of JD Vance and
at the end said probably goingto lose my job for doing this,
but fuck you.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
That's a paraphrase this, but uh, fuck you, that's a
paraphrase.
Yeah, she said it much moreeloquently.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
She was much more eloquent, but it definitely was
a fuck you and I've been making,if anybody's interested in
contributing.
I've been making a googlespreadsheet list because
unfortunately, that's my bestoption, uh, for sharing things,
which is a list of people that Iconsider to be heroes for the
ways that they've spoken up, andshe's one of the people on that
list.

Speaker 1 (49:25):
Yeah, an example of that in the Walking Dead was
Carl's solo assault on thesanctuary.
He goes off and tries to go ona suicide mission to kill Negan,
which was entirely reckless butalso just a clear act of
resistance.
And the only reason that hesurvived is because Negan has a
soft spot for kids.
Yeah, he won't kill a kid.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
This is an example where standing out it's like
that, not waiting to act.
Like what can you do now tostand out so that others who are
not ready will follow?
What protests can you attend?
What rallies can you attend?
Where can you share a messageof an alternative view for the
future than the one that we'restaring down the barrel?
Of All of the ways that you canstand out and stand up right
now, do it.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
Also wasn't on my list, but also Rosita and her
assassination attempt of Neganin broad daylight with a
homemade bullet was also prettyamazing and clear act of
resistance.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
Number nine.
Be kind to our languageno-transcript.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
Awful, but this is.
They are a direct example ofbeing kind to our language, or
rather the opposite, because allof it is doublespeak, all of it
is 1984 lies, and so it'sreally important that we say
things for what they are.
It's also really important notto make false equivalents and
say, for example, that we areexactly in the same situation as
1939 Germany.

(51:17):
Yes, there are similarities,and we should be deeply
concerned and doing all thethings to fight back against
that.
However, it is not 1939 Germany, and sometimes I've seen some
posts out there and peopletalking about what's happening,
and what they've done is they'vemade things seem even worse or
scarier than they are and madeconnections to things that are
not quite accurate, when thething that is they're upset

(51:40):
about is, on its face, wrong.
It doesn't need to beexaggerated, it doesn't need to
be conflated into something else.
For what it is, it's wrong andwe should be very precise in our
language.
And what we're talking about ishappening.

Speaker 1 (51:53):
I think a really good example of that is both in the
ways that the administrationtakes one sliver of truth and
adds seven or eight lies to itto make you think that they are
truthful about the things thatthey're lying about.
The same thing can be saidabout somebody who is using a

(52:16):
sliver of truth and then blowingout of proportion to try to
make you afraid of what'shappening, Like that thing's
happening but it's out ofproportion.
And if you look at the one partthat's blown out of proportion,
that can take away all of thelegitimacy of that truth.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Yeah, naming Negan for what he is a dictator and
calling out specifically thatthey are not saviors is really
important.
I don't know if there werespecific moments of them doing
that, but I will say that whenyou're fawning or in freeze mode
, you might just be playing thegame like they were in the
kingdom and the hilltop and notand be like, yeah, the saviors,
like even just calling them that.
The more that we use theirlanguage about themselves, the

(52:59):
more we brainwash ourselves.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Yeah um, and that's yeah.
Calling them saviors only onlyhelps them and their propaganda.
And by calling them saviorsonly helps them in their
propaganda and by calling themwhat they are is the only way
that you can actually fight them.
Yep, number 10, believe in thetruth.
I love believing in the truth,because without truth there is

(53:21):
no freedom.
Defend facts and reality.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
So essential in this time, and it connects right back
to number nine.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Yeah, yeah, eugene has a really interesting story.
When he is captured by Neganand taken to the sanctuary, he's
wrestling with thisself-justification of the lies
that he's being told at thesanctuary and also he believes
those lies because they protecthim.
He's now being protected at thesanctuary and also he believes

(53:48):
those lies because they protecthim.
He's now being protected at thesanctuary.
The thing that he wants themost is to be safe, to be
sheltered from the outside world.
They gave him an apartment,they gave him a video game
console, they gave him respectand power, and the only way that
he can have those things is tobelieve the propaganda.

(54:09):
Yeah, but ultimately he acceptsthe truth and he ends up
returning to the group to helpsabotage Negan's ammunition
Spoiler alert Eugene theunlikely hero.
The unlikely hero.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Number 11.
Wish Rook had thought aboutthis right at the very beginning
of the first time theyencountered Negan's people.
Investigate, seek out facts,verify sources.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
Don't let your understanding be controlled out
the savior outpost, the main one, the sanctuary for weaknesses,

(54:52):
treating the resistance as amatter of careful preparation
instead of acting blindly likeher first assassination attempt
with Eugene's bullet.
Things don't go the way theyplanned, but they did do the
recon and learned a lot ofthings.
Recon and learned a lot ofthings rosita.

(55:13):
Rosita wanted to go on asuicide mission because she was
really upset about what happenedto abraham um, and then sasha,
who was also very upset aboutwhat happened to abraham um,
ends up stealing rosita'sthunder and doing it herself
yeah, there's a there's a weirdlove triangle situation there
that you should watch the show.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
For I'm going to keep pushing the show being like
watch it, number 12.
This one surprised me because Ihad not read the book, so I was
like, oh, I want Dan to unpackthis one for me.
Make eye contact and small talk, personal trust and
relationships are vital in acollapsing society.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Yeah.
So I think the idea behind thisis, instead of just leaving
everything up to messages andnotes or phone calls, you have
to meet in person, you have tobe face to face, otherwise you
can't really build that trust.
It doesn't really mean anythingif it's just notes between each
other.
You can betray a note.
You can't betray somebody thatyou're standing face to face

(56:07):
with.
Yeah, I mean you can, but it'sjust notes between each other.
You can betray a note, youcan't betray somebody that
you're standing face to facewith.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Yeah, I mean you can, but it's hard.
It's like when I'm playingCatan.
They're just computer people tome.
So I do all kinds of I'm justrobbing them and basically being
my own dictator, colonizer onthat game because they're not
real people.
If I had to look them in theeye, I that is actually true.

Speaker 1 (56:25):
There's a few examples of this in the series
Jesus and Maggie.
They build bonds with thehilltop survivors.
That's how she usurps Gregory,because Gregory is just spending
time in his office drinking gin.
Maggie is out there with thepeople shaking hands, talking to
them, solving their problems.
Jesus is the same way.

(56:46):
He's a very hands-on person.
He's out there gettingeverybody the things that they
need, because he's very giftedin exploring the wasteland, and
they're making those bonds real.
They're cementing those bondsby being in person.
Another great example is justthe way that Rick contacts the

(57:07):
other communities.
He could send messengers to allthe communities at once and
save a lot of time, but he knowshe has to be there in person.
He has to go, talk to Ezekiel.
He has to make that journey,despite the fact that it's very
far away, very dangerous andvery expensive, fuel-wise and
time-wise for them to be away,especially when they have so

(57:29):
much that they need to do inorder to just stay alive.
But he knows that he has to gothere and he has to talk to
Ezekiel, because if they're notface-to-face, talking and
explaining these things, ezekielwill never understand.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Which really is also.
I think some of these reallybuild on each other.
Because the next one ispractice corporeal politics
Corporeal fancy word for bodypolitics.
It means showing up physically,attending protests, meetings,
elections.
Presence matters.
Having those one-to-oneconnections and building that
trust in real time and learninghow to work together in real
time is going to be what makesthe difference.

Speaker 1 (58:03):
And, like I was just saying, rick and Maggie, they
personally attend these meetingswith Ezekiel.
Also, they go to Oceanside andeven though they don't convince
Oceanside right away to jointhem, they do show up and save
their asses.
At the end they plant a seed.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
And he went to Jadis and the garbage people to build
a physical alliance instead ofjust sending messages, and even
though Jadis and the garbagepeople betray Rick, he had to do
it.
The only way that he could doit is in person, and they ended
up actually making arelationship between him and
their people.
They just happened to get abetter deal from Negan, and
that's how they work.
They want a better deal.
Yeah, number 14.

(58:46):
I love this one.
This is my favorite one.
Establish a private life,create safe spaces outside the
reach of the regime, protectfamily, culture and identity.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
This is why I make everybody I love talk to me on
Signal now.
Yeah, you want to talk to me.
You're on the end-to-endencrypted chat.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
Right For the private life?
Yeah, um, this is.
This is about taking care ofyourself, this is about
protecting your culture and youridentity.
So this is, like you know,maybe having friends over and
listening to music and, forbrief moments, just pretending
that everything's okay and justgoing about business as usual to

(59:28):
maintain your own sanity.
So there was a great episodewith Rick and Michonne where
they are trying to find weaponsand not finding a whole lot.
They have no food, they have noweapons, they have no nothing.
Negan wants his shit at the endof the week and they need guns.
And they go out and they're notfinding a whole lot of anything

(59:50):
because, you know, at thispoint in the world, everything's
kind of been picked over, um,and they are just going to be
out there alone and just enjoyeach other's company.
And they sure do intent, um,and while they're doing that,
they're just like you know, theyjust keep on pushing it out,
one day at a time they're like Idon't want to go back, let's

(01:00:12):
just stay out here a few moredays, like.
They're just like trying tojust live in this moment as much
as they can, and they end upfinding everything that they
need accidentally, because theystayed out longer than they
intended to yeah, and then theyhad a lovely love affair.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Well, they were already in love, but they did it
a lot, I think yeah.
It's implied they boned so much.
I think that might be when thebaby was made.
That's a possibility.

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Really possible.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
I'm not, I can't, don't quote me on that.
I'd have to look at thetimeline.
I think small things like this,like choosing not to look at
social media on the weekends, islike one of my things, or Dan
and I, you know, yesterdaymorning we were talking about
stuff, obviously on the drive tobreakfast.
We got to breakfast, we talkedabout a little bit more and then
I looked at Dan and I said Ithink I'm done for the weekend
and you're like good Cause, Ialso am done and doing that is

(01:01:02):
really important.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yeah, and the you know this is.
It's important because it'srefusing to let, in this case,
negan own all aspects of yourlife.
And that's kind of how it feelslike the news is right now,

(01:01:35):
because I feel like the orangeHitler is just permeating
everything that I see or do.
I can't go on the internetwithout seeing something fucking
horrible from this fuckingasshole.
Yeah, he's just doing more andmore asshole things.
This weekend he said that he isgetting rid of Veterans Day,
and you know there's so manythings to be upset about and
this is not one of them.

(01:01:55):
And it actually had theopposite effect on me this
weekend.
But, like you know, I shouldhave avoided seeing that in the
first place and just kept it tomyself.
But this had the oppositeeffect and I just laughed out
loud because it's like it'salready on the fucking calendar.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
Asshole, it's having a temper tantrum.
Basically, yeah, because theylearned about, or trump learned
about, the june 6th protests,veteran protests that's coming,
yeah, and it's like, like whatare you gonna do?

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
take away my uh, my once a year free denny's meal,
like I don't get the fucking dayoff, asshole.
I have to work on veterans dayjust like everybody else.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
And it is that balance of like.
I think there's a lot of pushto want to know everything all
the time and, as we talked aboutin previous episodes, we all
know that that's not actuallysustainable, because our little
human brains were meant to hangout with like 50 other people in
the woods.
This is too much information.
So we've also talked in thepast about how it's helpful to

(01:02:54):
like pick a thing that is yourthing or a couple of things that
are your thing.
Make sure you're up to date onthat.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Yeah, I think that's very similar to establishing a
private life Like you're, justif you just pick one fight,
don't try to fight all thefights, because you're just
going to burn yourself out.
They win by making you give up.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Yeah, pick one fight, but know who's working on other
things and act together whenyou need to.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:19):
Which is great.
I really love Timothy Snyder'sbrain because it's almost like
he really thought this through.
Number 15 is contribute to goodcauses, support causes,
organizations and groups workingfor truth and justice.

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
Yeah, there's a lot of them out there right now.
Of course, do your research soyou're not just getting scammed
by some guy who's like, yeah,contribute to me, I can fix all
of it to me, I can fix all of it.
But there's places like ActBlue, which is under attack right
now, which is primarily a fundfor Democrat politicians.

(01:03:59):
They do a lot of other stufftoo, and they are responsible
for a lot of organizing ofgrassroots events.
But you can find your own.
You don't have to pick that one.
There's so many others.
Pick what you like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Pick local.

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Yeah, pick local.

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
You know what's really great there's not a
chapter near us, otherwise I'dbe a part of it is Food, not
Bombs.
Check them out, yeah, but justsomething that can make a
tangible local difference isgreat, and or just a broader
difference, and focus on thatand then you can have the rest
of your life back.
Yeah, it's also really.
I think 14 and 15 are goodreminders about the agency that
we have.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
uh, that and that can make you feel better too if you
remember that you can actuallydo something um, it's hard to
find like a direct example ofthis in the walking dead because
there aren't, you know, therearen there, aren't like
nonprofits in the Walking Deaduniverse.
But one example I could thinkof is Gabriel.

(01:04:56):
When he is captured by Neganand he's at the sanctuary he
meets the good Dr Carson, whowas taken away from the hilltop
during a time where Maggieneeded a doctor and before Sadiq
showed up, and before Sadiqshowed up, yes, and Gabriel has
this flu thing going on and he'sbeen temporarily blinded by it.
He's blind because he put deadpeople juice on him and now he

(01:05:19):
has this fever.
So he risks everything to getDr Carson out of the sanctuary
and back to Hilltop and it's awild episode.
I don't remember how that went.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
That's why we'll watch it again one day, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
I don't know if Dr Carson made it, maybe he did, I
don't remember.
I think another good example,and this happens at the end of
season eight, I want to say butMaggie meets this new group, um,
and it is, it's, it's threewomen and they're traveling in a
van and they are trading, uh,food and goods, things that the

(01:06:00):
survivors need for things likerecords, like vinyl records,
music, music.
They're specific, no spokenword, but they're collecting
music and they are also givingout survival guides.
They've written a survivalguide how to restart society.

(01:06:23):
They're giving out knowledgeand we don't learn a whole lot
about these people, but we doknow that Maggie, at one point,
goes with them and tries to helptheir cause.
And that's a great example of agood cause in that world,
because you know very expensiveto operate by giving out food
and supplies and knowledge justfor vinyl records, truly, um.

(01:06:47):
But they're doing it becausethey they want to preserve
culture and they want to educatepeople and help them survive.

Speaker 2 (01:06:54):
Perfect example of a good cause and they're the woman
that she meets is an example ofsomebody who's just focused on
that one thing yeah um, or evenmaggie focusing on building up
an army and the skill set of thehilltop people is like.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
That's the contribution she focused on
making, which was kind ofpivotal, and ezekiel helped
people uh escape the the dreadof the apocalypse by creating a
fantasy world where he where hewas a king and he had a pet
tiger he was a very regal king.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Yeah, I also might have bought into it.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
I was like, fine, he was a good leader yeah, even if,
even if all of his leadershipskills he learned from
Shakespeare, he did a great jobNumber 16.

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Learn from peers in other countries.
We don't get to do that in thisseries until Daryl Dixon and
France, yeah, but I think we candraw parallels to the other
communities in learning fromeach other.
The subtitle here is learnresistance techniques from those
who have faced tyrannyelsewhere.

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
And we have a lot of examples of that in the real
world.
But in the Walking Dead, rickadapts Ezekiel's more strategic
patience after realizing thatbrute force like attacking the
outpost, for example, would notdefeat Negan, and he learns a
lot from Ezekiel to be morepatient, to be more strategic,

(01:08:10):
to plan his moment and to traphis enemy.
This next one is something thatI'm doing at work every single
day, because I work with a lotof people whose political ideas
I don't know and I don't thinkthat they're great, because I

(01:08:31):
mean, let's be fair, I don'twork with the smartest people in
the world.
Listen for dangerous words.
Watch for euphemisms thatjustify cruelty, like loyalty,
purity, enemy of the people.
In the real world we have wordslike illegals, some other words

(01:08:55):
that I'm not going to say.
Lots of words have been used tojustify cruelty towards people,
and now those are the wordsthat a lot of white supremacists
think it's unfair, that they'renot allowed to say anymore, and
they think that they are beingscrutinized unfairly for not

(01:09:18):
being able to use those horriblewords.
That's true.
So in the Walking Dead, simonechoes Negan's ruthless
philosophy of people are aresource.
He doesn't like saying this,but it's something that Negan
drills into him Simon's kind ofa psychopath.
Simon just wants to put bulletsin all of his problems.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Yeah, and I have been thinking and understanding more
and more how people get to thatconclusion, but it is still not
the best conclusion to come to.

Speaker 1 (01:09:49):
Yeah, but Dwight and the others.
They listen carefully andrealize that Simon's extremism
could be used against Negan.
Later Simon thinks that Negan'sapproach isn't the best
approach, that they are usingtoo many resources, that they
are wasting their time withpeople that should just be wiped
off the face of the earth.

(01:10:10):
So eventually Simon stages hisown revolution against Negan
because he wants to be in charge.

Speaker 2 (01:10:19):
He would have been an awful dictator too.
Yeah, glad that didn't happen.
He would have been a psychopath.
18, be calm when theunthinkable happens.
Practice resilience so you canact whenever disaster strikes.
I need to work on this.

Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
I'm not very good at being calm when bad things
happen.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
This is where practice in advance is going to
help you in the moment.
So, in the same way that we'veseen a lot of great posts out
there and reminders to practicesaying nothing when things are
hard, which is an example ofbeing calm, shut the fuck up,
don't say anything.
That's practice.
Meditation practice helps,mantra practice helps.
I don't know what your practiceis, but like what is the thing

(01:11:00):
that helps you calm yourself?
Practice that on a daily basisso that when you're in the
moment where something awful ishappening, you can rely on that
to help get you back to a spaceto be able to act and not react
in just rage, anger or terror.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
I found writing hilarious roasts about people in
the government is the way thatI can contain my rage the best
and stay calm.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
So when the unthinkable happens, you're
watching me be arrested andtaken away by ICE.
You're going to just make ajoke about it to make yourself
calm.

Speaker 1 (01:11:32):
No, that doesn't seem like an appropriate response to
the situation.
However, if I'm witnessing onthe street somebody being hauled
off by masked men, I might saysomething along the lines of uh
hey, hey guys, what's up?

(01:11:53):
Um, did you run out of uh,two-year-olds with cancer to
deport, burn?
Are you arresting adults nowinstead of children, I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
you could say that, yeah, if I was getting arrested,
um, not that I think that'sgoing to happen, because again
peon over here.
But who fucking knows in thisworld, who knows?
Sasha is a great example ofthis.
At first she is enraged becauseobviously her love, abraham, is
also brutally murdered.
He didn't get as much care fromthe broad public watching the
show as Glenn and I agree,honestly he wasn't that great of

(01:12:25):
a character.
But whatever, sasha loved himand she was pretty upset for a
long time.
Somebody loved him.
But she found a way to get to aplace of calm and clarity about
how she's going to fight back.
And she actually does a suicideinfiltration mission against
Negan and fucks up his planspretty badly and she had to

(01:12:45):
maintain her calm to do that andhave a really clear resolution
on what she needed to do next.

Speaker 1 (01:12:50):
Negan very much wanted to turn Sasha into one of
his lieutenants.
He saw the potential of Sasha,yeah, and she makes him believe
that she wants to help him andthat she's willing to do
whatever it takes, as long asnone of her friends in
Alexandria get killed.
And he's like well, if you joinme and do what you're supposed

(01:13:13):
to, then I can guarantee youthat no one will unnecessarily
die as long as everything goeswell.
You have to convince him ofthat, that's your job.
And she says okay.
And then she makes contact withEugene and gets him to sneak
her a pill that would poison hera ricin pill that he'd made

(01:13:37):
previously for somebody else andthen didn't give it to them and
hides inside of a casket andthat he has control of Sasha and
that's how he's going todominate Alexandria.
But when he opens it up, she isfully a zombie and almost takes

(01:13:58):
a bite out of Negan's neck andit completely fucks up his
entire plan and causes chaos.

Speaker 2 (01:14:05):
I was trying not to spoil this, but you're doing a
really good job of describing it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Yeah, I feel like you've got to understand that
moment.
But, yeah, spoiler, I guessNumber 19.
This is something that I'vedecided to put more on display.
I have recently bought a hatthat identifies me as a veteran.

(01:14:29):
I tried to buy the leastobnoxious veteran hat and let me
tell you that is difficult.

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
It's a great hat, though you look cute in it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
Yeah, thank you, Number 19,.
Be a patriot.
Patriotism means supportingdemocratic ideals, not
unthinking loyalty to leaders.
I think this also applies totaking back the idea of
patriotism away from the peoplewho want to pervert the meaning
of it.
So Maggie frames the Hilltops'resistance as fighting for their

(01:15:02):
children's future, not justrevenge, a true civic-minded
rebellion.
Same with Rick, same withEzekiel.
They're fighting for theirexistence.
They are fighting withpatriotism for their own
communities, not for their ownpersonal grievances.
And right now, when we're outthere protesting in the streets

(01:15:26):
and whatever comes after, that'ssomething that we have to
remember.
We have to take back thatpatriotism and say we are doing
this for our country, not justbecause we don't like it when
people wearing a lot of bronzerare in charge.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Right, and that leaves us with number 20, a
really great way to end.
Be as courageous as you can uswith number 20, a really great
way to end Be as courageous asyou can.

Speaker 1 (01:15:51):
Sometimes you have to risk everything to resist
tyranny.
Yeah, so in the finalconfrontation at the end of the
war against Negan, negan reallyhas the drop on them.
He has figured out their endgoal, their end plan and he has
shown up with every fighter.
He has Every fighter hasammunition, fully automatic
weapons, and they're not goingto let them get away.

(01:16:14):
He's like you know what.
You're no longer a.
In all likelihood, they'regoing to have to give their own
lives to free themselves fromthe future of Negan's wrath.

(01:16:35):
And they have decided alltogether, collectively, we would
rather die than be ruled by you.
And we're going to fight eventhough you have us completely
surrounded, and all you have todo is just fire on us and we're
all dead.
And they decide we're still notbending the knee.
Um, and then something happens,and I'm not going to spoil that

(01:16:58):
oh my god, that's funny, sohopefully that inspiring.

Speaker 2 (01:17:07):
I can definitely say that just listening to it and
talking about it, this feelslike a hype fest.
I'm like, yeah, what are wegoing to do next, dan?
I'm like punching the air rightnow, if you can picture me
doing that oh the air.
But I think the big lesson hereis that the Walking Dead is
more than just entertainment.
It's more than just gore forthe sake of gore.
There are real things you cantake away from it and it's

(01:17:34):
certainly maybe a little morefun way to get a summary of On
Tyranny by Timothy Snyder.
I hope that you've enjoyed itand found something that you can
hold on to.
It's great to have examples.
At the end of the day, thecommunities in the Walking Dead
did not defeat Negan just bysurviving.
They did it by learning thatleadership has to be collective,
that trauma shows up in manyways and survival is part of it.
But you can't just stop atsurvival.
You have to figure out what youneed next and that real change

(01:17:55):
takes strategy, connection andcourage and ultimately,
believing in a better world andlike what that looks like,
imagining what else this couldbe.
It's not just defense.
We got to think offense.
Where are we fighting for?
What kind of a world do we wanthave?
Because otherwise we're goingto just return back to some kind
of status quo.
We're going to get a Simon orthen a Negan you know like, or
it'll be slightly less intensebut still awful for a lot of

(01:18:17):
people.
Because, as always, I thinkit's important to remind
ourselves, if you're living inthe U S, that things are really
bad now, but a lot of whatthey're doing was already
happening.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Yeah, it was just externalized elsewhere or to
other people who were not white,straight and Christian.

Speaker 2 (01:18:37):
Yeah, and naturalized citizens.
So we'll leave you with that.
This was yeah, go fight thegood fight.
Yeah, punch the air.
Or somebody a Nazi specifically?
Yeah, Punch the air.
Or somebody a Nazi specifically, yeah, and that's what Dan
wants to do.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
Yeah, one day I'm going to punch me a Nazi.
Thanks for joining the zombiebook club.
I hope that this lived up toepisode 92.
, episode about Negan and hisdictatorship.
I know that was a banger for alot of people, so I hope this
one was at least half as good.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
I really want to just know if anybody's going to go
back and watch it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Oh yeah, let us know.
Let us know if we sold you onan episode 92.
If you want to support us, youcan leave a rating or a review.
You could join a protest, yeahthat'd be great.

Speaker 2 (01:19:27):
Yeah, tell review, you could join a protest?

Speaker 1 (01:19:28):
Yeah, that'd be great .

Speaker 2 (01:19:29):
Tell us about what you're doing too.
I love hearing what people aredoing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:31):
You could donate to a good cause.
Or you could send us avoicemail up to three minutes
Actually send us a voicemail upto three minutes and tell us how
you plan to fight back againsttyranny.
Just leave out anything violentAt 614-699-0006.
We do not want DHI listening toour voicemails.

(01:19:51):
So, yeah, you can also sign upfor our newsletter there, you
can, so you can stay in touchwith us or follow us on
Instagram at zombie book clubpodcast, or you can join the
Brain Munchers collectiveDiscord and all of those links
are in the description.

(01:20:12):
Thanks for listening everybody.
The end is, oh so very nigh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
But that means a new dawn is coming.
Dun, dun, dun Yup.
Keep the hope alive, you gottaremember.
I just keep remembering thateven if we don't fix this in our
lifetime or in the next fouryears, if we give up, that means
we are giving that freedom upand collective liberation
possibility up for the folks tocome after us.

(01:20:38):
So we just gotta keep going andwe keep on believing.
You know, I think that's gonnabe the song for this post.

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
Yeah don't stop believing.
Just hold on to that feeling.
I'm not singing it because Icannot hit those notes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
bye everybody, bye everyone.
Don't stop believing, just holdon to that feeling.
I'm not singing it because Icannot hit those notes.

Speaker 1 (01:20:49):
Bye everybody, bye everyone, Bye, don't stop Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
Just hold on to that feeling.

All Episodes

How The Walking Dead Taught Us To Resist Tyranny | Zombie Book Club Ep 95

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}How The Walking Dead Taught Us To Resist Tyranny | Zombie Book Club Ep 95