It Could Happen Here Weekly 3

can make your own decisions. This is it could happen here, a podcast that I opened perfectly as a professional, as a man who makes all of his money from the podcasts uh no, notes, How is syphilis doing these days? You don't hear a lot from syphilis? Is it? Is it holding up? Okay, yeah, it's around. It's fine, Thank you for asking it. I didn't know that it's not the same thread it used to be. It comes back in waves every now and then. It has had a good run for a couple of years, kind of like

Star Trek. Right, yeah, yeah, there's a well, I don't think there's like new versions of it. I think it's like the same, good old syphilis pretty much. I don't think it changes drastically, So it's like Star Trek on Netflix. Yeah, yeah, okay, well, good to hear from syphilis. This has been your syphilis update. That's gonna do it for us this week until next week. I've been Robert Evans, Dr Cavejota, and of course Garrison Davis. Alright,

b everyone by. It would be pretty funny to just do that, so FA, to just drop a one and a half minute episode on, But only if we put in ads. M yeah, we really like every word. We have a full ad break in between. Yeah, then then people would probably complain lest about the nine dads that are in our episodes. Right now, I can talk about what are we what are we doing right now? What is this episode about? What's going on? I'm assuming you guys want to talk about the coronavirus or I don't know.

I can talk about whatever you want, but I think that's probably what you guys has brought me on for. All Right, what do we what is this coronavirus? Is this a problem? It's a little problem. It's not good to hear it's it's it's not great. So why didn't you give me a heads up on this? So? Yeah, that that's me not giving you heads up on the plank The figures talking about hear anything about this is the thing, that's why you got those two jabs in your arms and that random parking lot. Oh I thought

that was heroin. Sorry. First of all, can can we talk about the use of the word jab. I don't love it. It's I mean, you're not James Bond, you don't. Let's not use jab. I prefer it's fair. I prefer what I think is the proper medical term vein fucked. Yeah, but it's not really your vein either. It's really just intra muscular fucked. Oh right, muscle fucked yeah. I mean, what are the cool kids calling it? Is it a poke? What do we want the teens call? Is it? Are

they calling it the TikTok's? Yeah, it's called it's called the TikTok. I don't know. I've I've been been working on. I've been working on all all day Today've been working to find this proud boy who's pretending to take COVID vaccines but it's actually steroids. Um. He calls the critical support, he calls the extracurriculars. Okay, So that honestly rules, that's extremely funny. I'm hoping an article will be by the time this podcast airs. So, uh, who's the article for

I'm not sure yet. I'm talking with Opossum Press. Okay, cool, Well that's funny, Garrison. What is today's episode about. Well, we we wanted to talk to We wanted to talk to Kava about both what the current plague situation is because a lot of people seem to think it's over, a lot of people seem to think it's not over. Um. And then also, how is COVID and all the stuff is still affecting our hospital and medical system? Um? Is there supply shortages for medical supplies? What's going on in

different areas? Yeah, because all of that, all that kind of stuff got you. Yes, is the answer? Yes, the answer, that's the answer. Yeah, it's a it's still a problem. I don't think. Uh, don't listen to anyone who tells you that it's not um. Don't listen to anyone who gives you too Sonny of forecast on it. But it you know, it's different in different places, is the along

the short of it. In places where the vaccinations are higher and where there's mandates and there's reasonable laws about things, the rates are going down California, but also like Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont. These are places with high vaccination rates. The rates of cases are going down in those places. Places like Mississippi, West Virginia, Idaho, Alabama, these are places where like it's

vaccination rates and the cases are going way up. You guys might have heard of a couple of things happening, Like there was that forty six year old guy named Daniel Wilkinson. He's like a vet who developed something called gallstone pancreatitis, which I could talk to you guys about for hours. I won't, don't worry, but I could. I'm

just like you know, I could. I mean declared it's not a total DNR, but like anyone who has um cardiac arrest is on a DNR now in Idaho because they just don't have the resources to be well, that's not entire I mean what Okay, So that's not your fault. You got wrong, because there were there were doctors that were sort of spreading that story about now they are

and what's called the crisis standard of care. But and in part of that means that hospitals could go to putting everyone on DNR, which means do not resuscitate, which means if you have a cardiac arrest, they won't do anything about it. That's that's not what's actually happening. It could happen when they institute this crisis standard of care. What it means is that if a hospital gets so short on their ventilators and they just don't have any more room, then they could implement that. I mean, I

don't know I even heard of anyone. I was I was asking around uh to see if any doctors in Idahoo could tell me of a hospital that's actually doing it. I haven't seen or heard of one that's actually doing

it yet, but they could. The point is, it's it's that bad, but that's a reasonable discussion where doctors have to discuss kind of like they were back in the day in New York, where they have to be like, okay, does this person do we put the you know, the young lady on the mental lator or the old guy? You know? Then we have to decide and they make those decisions. It's really awful. It's a position no doctor wants to be in. And now that's becoming a reality.

It's brutal. It's brutal out there, and and that's bleeding into other states nearby. You know, So that situation because his doctor like couldn't find a and I see you bed for him. Is that? That? Is that the story you're talking about. That's the story. So he's this guy who had a problem that can be fixed. I mean, it's a procedure called an e r CP that he can get done at specialty centers. And he didn't live far from Houston. Houston has plenty of the specialty centers

that can do it. They have great gas from urologists like myself, not as good, but you know, the same sort of thing. And they could do it if they if they you know, if they had the availability to get him in. But they didn't, and so he died. Is something that he shouldn't love. It's basically the example.

And I'm sure there's more examples of that. And what really worries me is the examples that you're not hearing yet, like cases they're delayed now, cancer screening, things that are being delayed now in these hospitals that we're gonna be paying down the road. That's that's the ship that really

scares me. Just people not going in for things in general. Yeah, exactly, I have friends other than you who work and e R s and stuff, um nurses and the doctor, um and bull it's up in the p m W. But the ship they're saying it is like into days crap, like like I they are working on like building capacity and making sure they have things to like treat their friends because it's they're like the advices, do not go to the hospital like if if, if at all possible,

because there's just not capacity for you unless it's like literally an immediate life and death thing. It's it's almost uh not worth like trying because there's just nothing. There's no slack the system is and it's it's it's starting to turn. It looks like here in in in the Portland area, but like it's it's frightening, like these are not people who would be bullshitting or or are are are prone to panic. You know, they're e er professionals, but um, it's it's it's fucked up, like it's it's it.

It's this thing where like the scary thing to me is not even necessarily where we are right now, because it does like there is some kind of broadly positive news in a lot of areas about like where the pandemic is going It's just like this situation won't be fixed when case numbers go down. It's it's it's going to be permanent damage has been done to this system.

And I guess what I'm wondering first off, like from what you're seeing, like, what what is the extent of the permanent damage done to our our emergency medical system in particular and our our ability to even like get care at the moment. Yeah, that's a really good question. I don't I don't know. It kind of goes back to I think what Garrison want to talk about, which is like the collapse of the medical system. I think we talk about it a lot in terms of we're

on the edge of collapse, we're near collapse. I think there are places in this country where it already has collapsed. I think that's pretty evident. It's really it's not homogeneous in any way across this country. There are certainly places that are better than others, and there's certainly places that have a lot more uh leeway and flexibility, but everywhere

is strained right now. And in regards to your question about permanent damage, I'll answer that in regards to just the personnel you know, because um, because of the show that I have, the House of Pod follow us on Twitter at the House of Pod, and I talked to a lot of doctors and nurses from all over the country, talk to them a lot, and it's bad. I mean, the stress that they're under, the pts D that they're that they're dealing with, the burnout. The level of burnout

is just intense. It's intense and and it's I think we were talking about moral injury and burnout before all this started, and now it is to a point where I don't know what's going to happen to the medical system, just in terms of the personnel when this is all over. I know a lot of people who are getting out of medicine, getting out clinical medicine. I mean out of like would I would say, out of just my immediate

friend group. I can think of a couple off hand, excellent doctors, really great I c u e R doctors who are already planning their exit. And when I don't know, I mean in the next coming years, that's gonna be a major issue, and I don't know how we're going to address that and our nurses in the I c u. S Man the stuff they have to put up with is and is insane. You just see it in their

eyes eyes are broken. Like I was. I volunteered on the wards a couple of weeks ago, and people, they're the doctors and nurses taking care of these COVID patients day in day out, like they there's like a little bit of their soul that's been broken. And just see it in their eyes, like I was there for like just a week, and it's terrifying. You know, you're going into a room with a patient with COVID. It's scary, you know, even no matter how much ppe protective equipment

you have on, like you're always a little scared. And I just think years of that that weighs on a person in a way I don't I mean, I am worried about. I don't know how we going to address that. M Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, And it's frustrating because like from the perspective of people listening, right, the thing you want to ask is like, well, how can I help? And it's like, well you can't because you're already If

you're listening to the show, I assume you're masking. I assume you've gotten vaccinated if you don't have like a condition that that renders you unable to get the vaccine, you're you're I I think our listeners tend to be pretty responsible people. It's just not enough because of the country decided to like Leroy Jenkins, a plague and ud Garrison. Do you know that reference? Is that? Geerence? I'm familiar with Leroy Jenkins. That's good. Were you born when Leroy

Jenkins became a thing, I don't know. You would have been like three, would have been Yeah, yeah, it was. It was Deadpool that brought him to your attention, isn't it. No, No, I it came to my attention just doing general internet nothing. Yeah. It was one of the first. It was the first

meme that you could show your parents pretty much. I guess they were like Badger Badger, mushroom, a couple of others in that category, but like, it was one of the first memes that wasn't a man's gaping asshole prolapsed. But I showed my parents that all the time. I don't know. Yeah, there was a beautiful moment back in the day with somebody got seat to stadium. Yeah, that's what brought you into medicine. This is what I saw work.

They were so proud of me, like, look at look at our son, look at our boy, look at our boy. He can tell us exactly why that man's asshole looks that way. I have a weird job, I guess. One of my questions is, with the assumption that people are taking the actual plague related steps they can to reduce their burden to the medical system, what can people realistically do.

I mean, I think part of that is and this is and I'm not going to have you to like explain how you can take care of your own medical treatments in an emergency on a podcast. That's not the time or the place, although I do think it's probably a good idea for people to read up on first aid and basic life saving emergency like it's always a good idea to have some training there. But yeah, I mean, do you have other advice? You know, you're exactly right.

The people that are listening to this podcast are totally on board already, and they're super supportive, and we appreciate that. I mean that is not unnoticed. I mean, um, you know, it's having people like uh outside the hospitals every now and then applauding doctors. I know it's cheesy, but it's great. I'll take that over the blue angels flying overhead any day, you know. So it's that's that stuff is really important, and masking and taking care of themselves is is great,

you know. Um. The the real practical things that people can do, I think is help contribute to sites that will help get the rest of the world vaccinate. I mean, we can definitely talk about that the question of boosters here versus you know, vaccines for the first time elsewhere. But there that's the one thing I would recommend right now if you want to help, um, let's put our money into places where we can get vaccines to other places. And I think that every little bit of that helps

in the long run. And that's the sort of thing that we could use. Other than that, I mean, I just hope that people are still going into medicine and in nursing, you know. That's the only thing I can still hope is that people who haven't interest in it, you know, continue to do it. And and for those people who are just their training, those years of their formative years are during this time. I just want to let them know. I swear it gets better. It's not

always gonna be like this. And if you make it through this, you're gonna be an amazing clinician. You're gonna be an amazing nurse, You're gonna be an amazing doctor. And I really want you guys to keep doing it. That's that's one thing I would say to Yeah, I mean, and I I'll certainly add that if you're someone who's contemplating a medical career, please please, I mean, just from a there's a couple of things on that, like, just from a perspective of what the world needs. It's what

the world needs. But also, if you're listening to this stuff we're saying about the crumbles, about the possibility of the collapse, if you're someone who who foresees things getting potentially much more difficult in the future, not a lot of things more useful in a bad situation than somebody with medical training. I don't count on that getting me through the apocalypse. I'm I'm soft. I am so so. I went camping and I couldn't handle it. A couple of weeks ago, I went camping. It was awful. There

was so much dust. It was an awful experience. But I just thought, if the apocalypse comes, I will hopefully get placed in a very nice tent because I'm a doctor,

so I'm counting on that to get me through. There are there are so many dumbass boogaloo type quote unquote preppers who focus on the guns and the gear or in the dried food, but the throwing knives in the shirt throwing knives, but don't even have an IFFAC an individual first aid kit or like a tourniquet, And like the talk to you talk to like like I mean, this is a little off topic, but like talk to combat marines about like their favorite person. It's always the corman.

It's the guy who knows or the lady who knows how to like patch a bullet wound and whatnot. Like there's there's nothing more useful in any situation pretty much that that is dangerous than somebody who can do medicine. So please, if you're if you're studying to do medicine, if you're contemplating becoming an e MT or a paramedic or a nurse or whatever, good God, we need you

so badly. Yeah, we've talked to a little bit about just in the medical system in general, and then we can also kind of discuss more stuff related to how COVID's impacting certain areas more than others. And like, let's say someone who's someone who's listening, who's in one of these areas that it has only vaccinated, you know, not not a lot of people are going on with masks on, and you know, school starting back up, maybe they have kids are going to their school system. I know in

Texas they have you know, child deaths are rising. That sounds very frightening to be that kind of person who, like you know, would like like to see that stuff happened in their state, but it's just not really possible.

And I don't know, with so much of the rest of the world kind of slowly taking back restrictions, and I'm sure it feels very jarring to be in a situation like that and kind of like there's really nothing you can do right besides you right, because you can talk to your family, talk to your friends, but like overall, it's hard to hard to make you know, a big impact in a state, you know, like Texas, Alabama, like Idaho, all the ones that you that you were mentioning before

from a medical kind of perspective, is there is there any way people can kind of start to talk about those things with their family and because the way we've been trying to get people take the vaccine with their marketing we've been doing has not been super successful in these demographics. Um, do you think there's other conversations that can get people to slowly kind of be more, be more able to you know, contemplate that. Yeah, that's a

that's a tough question. It's particularly tough if you're someone who is believes in the importance of vaccines and you're or the importance of masks and that sort of thing, and you're in a place where you're a minority. That is tough. The first thing I'll say is definitely know that the vaccine helps. You're in a much better position

because of the vaccine. When I was on the wards and I was looking at patients that they're almost all unvaccinated, those are the people that end up in the hospital. You can't still get into the hospitalized if you have the vaccine, but it's it's much less likely. And you know, not that these people don't count, they count just as much. But if you don't have an underlying problem like a

liver transplant or some immune suppression. Then you're less likely to have a really bad outcome with COVID if you're vaccinated, So just know that it helps. You still might get it. It'll suck, um, but but the most part, you're gonna stay out of the hospital. And that really, I think is something have a little comfort in. It really does

seem to work. You know. Outside of that, the schools thing is a real concern for me, and I'm gonna feel a lot better than We're going to be in a much better position once we are able to get kids vaccinated. So there's there's two things. You guys probably heard that there was, um this this committee that met to advise the FDA about booster shots. That's one thing. So booster shots are gonna go out to people who need them, uh sixty five and older people at high risk,

people in high risk occupations. They're gonna like frontline workers. So there's gonna be booster shots coming out. And then the data coming out now about five yeah, yeah, and that's pretty promising. Um, it looks like they're gonna do okay with lower doses. So they use about one third the dose of the vaccine. That the adults get and it seems to work. We haven't seen much other than the pre press release from UH Fighter, but you know, if you really pick at it, it looks promising. So

I am that's something that makes me hopeful. That's something I'm definitely clinging to. I think there's no way we're getting out of this without vaccinating kids. That just has to happen. Um. I think once that starts rolling out, and hopefully it will soon. I mean I don't want to put a date on it, but I'm hoping within the next couple of months this starts happening. So you know, once, once that starts happening, I'm gonna feel a lot more comfortable.

I think people in those situations are gonna feel a lot more comfortable too. Yeah. Yeah. The booster thing is an interesting question to me. I mean, they're a standpoint particularly, you know, I think I think it's not a fair narrative to say it has to be one or the other, and I think people are saying that. I don't think. I think we can do it. I think we can produce enough vaccine here for people who haven't got it yet, and enough for the boosters and start supplying more to

the world. I mean, we can do more our government sharing fiser Maderna definitely need to do more in that regards. They definitely need to do more in terms of production. They haven't hit their goals in a lot of these places. And but it's also not like they haven't done anything yet. They give about like a you know, two hundred million doses are being donated just this week. I think, so they are doing things. That's happening. It's just we need more of it. Everything needs we need more of it.

We need to ramp up production. Yeah, it's weird because, like you're right, we could produce enough vaccines for the places that don't have them and enough vaccines for boosters over here, and all of that would take is a couple of months of our Afghani stand mad money. But we're not going to do that, and so it probably we will, like I don't know, contribute to an issue effect There's there's a chance that it will contribute to

an issue of vaccine unavailability. But also it's not like if we don't get the boosters, those vaccines will be available because we're just not giving them out. Yeah, in the extent that we need, so I yeah, I don't know, I understand what you're saying. I'll get the booster if they decide to give out boosters because I like not having not the plague damage getting or getting long COVID. Yeah. Yeah, that that seems great. And a lot of the vaccine

has been ce kind of relies. It tracks back to how we've been marketing in it, and I'm I've I've been on the team that's like we should stop using Fauchi because every time Fauci goes on TV to talk about vaccines, more people are going to do like a backfire infactor be like, no, I'm not going to get EXA. Don't trust Fauchi. So there's a particular like marketing thing

that I think we've failed on. Like America is very good at marketing when we can make money, but when it's not related to getting gaining more profit, I think the government is very bad at marketing these types of things. Um. And on the kind of the marketing side of things, I don't know, this is this is kind of old

news at this point. But the whole smoll in testicals thing, um, which we have you have not talked about on this show about but I'm sure you have thoughts about how this thing has kind of balloons, which is that can be like, so, how how the marketing and misinformation relates to this cold, kind current, kind of current problem. Yeah. Yeah, first of all, that particular story, I mean that's hilarious. I mean, like this, I've never I've never seen someone's

excuse for venereal disease becomes such an international issue. Yeah, contribute to the dest probably of hundreds of people, right, Um, you know it's it's the marketing thing is a really great question, and and it's been driving me crazy because like part of me at this point just wants to be like the fucking vaccine, but the fund's wrong with you get the fucking vaccine part of my language and like, um, but then the part of me knows that that doesn't work.

Like I do believe doctors should be able to express their frustration. Um, they need to be able to do that. If we can't do that right now, I mean, it's game over. But they need to at least have that ability where doctors can voice their frustration with antivactors but still give them the same high level of care that we're always going to give them the matter what when they show up in the hospital. But it's not working to do that. We need other approaches. I don't I

don't entirely know what they are. There are some people they're they're so far out there that we're just never going to reach the people, the microchip people. There's like a level of deep programming that will need to happen to those people that we just it's it's too exhausting to do that. You really have to, like, if you can't scale that in any meaningful way for the country,

I think I think, yeah, I don't know. I think calling it the Trump vaccine was the closest we got to have a possibility, and that fucking I'm interested in your thoughts on the fucking bright Bart article and if you're not aware, if you're less online than us, and God bless you if you are right Bart, the which

is I don't know. CNN for Fascists came up with an article blaming the Democrats for the fact that Republicans don't want to take the vaccine and saying it's a secret Liberal plot to exterminate conservatives because conservatives refused to take vaccines because they're fundamentally oppositional defiant, um, and like it's it's the fault of people who are telling them to take the vaccine that they're not taking the vaccine because obviously, why would you trust the liberal on anything?

But also they're trying to kill us. We're going to lose the election because we're all dying because we refuse to get vaccinated for a preventable disease. Anyway, how do you feel about that guy? I don't. I don't love it. I don't love it. Um. I'm vaguely familiar with bright Bart. I don't know that exact article because I have enough

pain in my life already. But um, but you know, I do wonder It's like when they put out articles like this, or Tucker Carlson goes out and he does his thing questioning vaccine, just asking questions about vaccines that lead to vaccine hesitancy, Like what calculations are they doing? Are they doing calcular? Is this just him being callous in not giving a funk and just doing it, or is there some calculation that him and some sort of right wing fink tank are doing where they're like, hey,

look this sells to our audience. They love it. Let's keep doing it. Yes, we are going to lose ex portion of our audience because of this, but we still have plenty of audience left. Like, I don't, I wonder how that's happening. Like it is hurting. It is true, it is hurting them more than than other people. It's

hurting everyone. Everyone's getting affected by this, um but there it's those states that are being affected, the people not getting vaccinated who are listening to people like Tucker Carlson. So I don't, I don't understand what their endgame is here, Like this is their market? Why why not protected? And that I do not have a good answer for. I was hoping one of you guys would. Um. You know,

it's there's a lot going on there. I think a decent chunk of it is the assumption that whatever they lose in terms of dead followers won't be worth more than continuing the cash bonanza. That is owning the lips, right because that's all that that's all, that's the entirety of the right wing media. It's just owning the lips. It's just oppositional defiant, it's just hating anything democrats do.

So you you kind of can't. You're a cuck if you tell people to receive basic medical care if Democrats are taking that basic medical care right, Um, so it's a pride thing for a lot of them. To two things I love is when you when you use the word cuck or when you do Ben Shapiro's voice, Like those are like two of my favorite things that you do. It's you're saying really well, far beyond anything rational on

the right. Um, and it's it's difficult to like I I I think the calculation is just like I think a lot of these guys is the same thing with climate change. Like they're smart enough to know that they're contributing to an uninhabitable world, but they want to cash in first. They want to get as much as they can out before it falls apart. And I think that's all any of these people care about. Because I think

there are the true believers. The radio guys are true believers, right, the radio guys who keep dying because they don't be vaccinated. Those guys did believe that it was some sort of weird conspiracy, it was the communist whatever. Um. Clearly because they did management level, yeah, mid management level. They don't know all the stuff that they're being told from above and they kind of believe it enough to where they

kill themselves for the company. I think for Tucker, it's more a matter of like, hey, I keep making money and I maintain my power if I If I continue to hold this line, you you lose power, you get weaker. It's like when Trump bood for telling people to take the vaccine. You know, yeah, yeah, um yeah, crazy. You can't go back with this ship. You just can't, and you certainly can't admit to ever having been wrong. Right Yeah, man,

it's good ship. What a what a fun note to end of the episode on what a good society we've built? Oh bravo, m hm ah, well cover it. People can find you by looking up the House of Pod. Yes, uh was slightly less depressing, but not not super uplifting either at this point. Uh. Follow us at the House of Pot at Twitter, and you can listen to our podcast pretty much anywhere are you listen to podcast. We'll talk about medical type things, but not so deep into

the woods that it's not entertaining, I hope. Yeah the woods, Yeah, the woods. We have fun guests ranging from the world's best medical experts to you know, you guys. The best medical experts. You guys are right up there for medicine, right. There's no better medicine than just a big fat pile of cocaine. And the good thing about cocaine is it's a sterilizing agent. So if you're worried about COVID getting in your nasal passages, just rail cocaine before you and

after you go into the store. It's like getting a COVID test, but more fun. Legally, I have to tell you that's false. Well, we all have our opinions about how cocaine works, and I have my fact, have my facts. Now, if you excuse me, I'm gonna go pick up a single item at the grocery store. Welcome to It could Happen Here pod podcast that is today about the fact

that ten years ago it did happen. And when when when I When I say it did happen, I mean we occupied an extremely large number of places, and we did so in interesting and incredibly bizarre ways. And with with with me to talk about this is Garrison as always. I like that you used the Twitter handle for our podcast, not the actual name, but that's fine. Where can it? Where can it go? For it? But helloon with me.

I have I have my special guest, Vicky Ostrowil, who is an agitator, who is a writer, who has done many many things, probably most famously writing the book In Defense of Looting um from Bold Press, bold Type Press, Bultypress. Yeah, very good book. People got very bad, people got very angry. Yeah,

thank you. It's it's really I'm really excited to be here to to talk about the the anniversary of Occupy from which is basically, you know, when I and I all got this whole train rolling, so yeah, and the the other the other thing um that that it is probably relevant here is that Vicky was one of the first people at occupy and and a little correct me if I'm wrong about this. I found an oblique reference to this in one of the things I read. You

facilitated the first meeting. Yes, the yeah, yeah, I guess it's on the record now, yeah, I uh yeah, during um, during the general New York City General Assembly it was called in August UM, there was you know, uh ad Busters hopefully called for a general assembly, and you know, a bunch of us sort of went down there and there was a tanky party there um doing a general assembly, which was just them on speakers, um doing their regular ranting. Um hadn't changed much in ten years, um and uh

and we um. Yeah, so a bunch of us just went and sat down, uh you know, to the side of it, and started an actual general assembly. And by by by happenstance, I I associated that meeting and it was the first and last Occupy Mediamate pasilitation. Yeah. Okay, so I want to rule back a little bit too, just before the start of occupied because Yeah, the more thinking about this, the more have just realized that two thousand eleven was just a profoundly weird time in a

lot of ways. I think people have forgotten, like the entire American security state is at this point being terrorized by you joint anonymous lull sick hacking campaign called anti Sick, the symbol of which he is a guy in a guy fox mask wearing a monocle and a top hat. And this was just like normal, Yes, this was the thing that I was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, it's it's the it's it's the it's the anti sex top hat,

full faced guy in a monocle. Fun fact about that, just before we forget David Gramer rest in Peace who was there in the early days organizing claimed and um that he had he had heard and talked to the some of the like overheard the police talking about the reason they didn't sweep the occupying encampment the first day when we were pretty weak, frankly, or the first week, was because there were a bunch of guy fox masks and they were scared. They were scared they were going

to get hacked. If they were scared, they were going to hack them and steal there. So it was a weird time indeed. Yeah, Yeah, And I think that the the other thing that's you know, I think important about this time period if we're looking back at what occupied was, is that so this is this is three years after the the financial collapse, and you know, so I think this is you know, in the room to two eleven,

there's been a few there's been a few protests. There's been there was a big thing increased two eight that was kind of related, kind of unrelated. But I think in my sense of you know, I was like, I don't know, I was like thirteen. I was like I was like an actual baby child. But my senseitive was kind of just like like there's that there's this like sense that everyone just kind of waiting for something to happen. Yeah, and it's just like hadn't and it just like kept

going and kept going and kept going. And then you know, and then and then Genesia starts and suddenly there's you know, they're there. There's Protestant Tunisia, there's pert Egypt. There's like people fighting tanks in the street in Bahrain, and you know, and this this is you know, this this becomes down at the up spring and it starts to spread to a lot of places. And Vicky, I want to talk I want to ask you about this because you you

were in Spain when it starts started there. I want to talk about what what what was going on there? And yeah, so I wasn't there when it started. Um, but but but yes, um basically you know, and then and I want to shout out like there were there were a bunch of like movements, like in two thousand eight, right after the crash, there were a bunch of protests, like outside Wall Street. They were very small, but they

were like sort of the like produced some images. And then there was you know, in two thousand uh nine, there's the Oscar Grant rebellion in Oakland, and you have the Madison occupation earlier in two thousand eleven, UM, where they where the workers unions took over the state House. Yeah,

everyone does. It was actually really important at the time. Um. But yeah, so so you know, so I think I'm glad you brought up Greece because I think actually Greece really that that sort of anarchist rebellion thousand nine really kicked off the cycle in a certain way, but also didn't quite It wasn't quite the first domino, you know, it was sort of more of a like forecast. So yeah,

so Arab spring, uh, you know, is huge. It's this huge, huge event, and the US media is loving it because obviously like these sort of old you know, quote unquote Marxist dictators are falling, um, and so of course the US is like all about it, um, which of course later later on the return of the tankies will use to um to confuse everyone on the US left and destroy all solidarity with Syria anyway. Um, But that's neither

herener there. Um. So then then in then in that summer, um, you get this this wave of early summer like May in June, In fact, the fifteenth of May was when the movement started in Spain and then it starts student again in Greece. And it was similar to occupy and that there was these people coming together in these sort

of encampments in the center of the city. Uh. Um. I don't know if people remember um or or know this history economically, but Spain and Greece had recently been sort of going through these like big big booms, economic booms just for about five or six years that turned out to be real estate bubbles funded by their entry into the EU, and two thousand ages smashed that and they were just like incredibly impoverished. I mean like Spain

was facing something like fifty youth unemployment. Greece was like similar. Spain has recovered more than Greece has in the intervening years, but it's still bad. Um So so yeah, so you had all these it was it was you know, predominantly young folks who were um you know, had been pushed out of the economy, who had been pushed out of their homes, whose families had loft their homes, um gathering together and it was all over both countries and it was huge. Um. I happened to just be in Barcelona.

I had been on a planned vacation with some friends. Um, you know that we had we had planned like sort of six months earlier when it while popped off, and I had also just started my writing Um, I would say career, but that's very generous. Um. I had started technically being paid for writing things. And they were like, oh, right about it, Like, let's like cover it while you're there. And because no one in the US was talking about what was going on in Spain when my article popped up,

like and this is like, this is really strange. But it was like the early days of Twitter as well, um two eleven, Like I guess Twitter started two nine or something, and so like so the the one of the accounts from the camp tweets out my article. So I went there the next day. I was like I wrote that article and then I was like embedded for a week. And I was there for like kind of the height of the popular power of the movement in Barcelona.

Only for a week, but I was there on the day when there was a two and a half million person march through Barcelona just like still probably the biggest march I've ever been part of it and probably who ever will be UM was like lat and so you know, so that goes on for for a few months in Greece and Barcelona, it sort of hits similar limits that occupy would eventually hit, which is that like you know that that if you can take the space away from people,

that's that's the common ground, and like you can't really have the movement without the encampment. And also all the way in which the camps sort of force a kind of internal naval gazing and people like get really obsessed with maintaining the camp rather than the struggle with the city at large. All of those, all of those contradictions sort of like came up in Spain and Greece as well. But at the time, you know, I was there for

the height of it. I come back to New York, I'm like, this is going to happen in the US, like it has to. UM. I think a lot of folks who had been watching felt that way as well. UM. I actually took part in this thing called bloomberg Ville, which was like, yeah, fifty people on a sidewalk. Um was quite from Michael Bloomberg, right, Um, fifty people on

a sidewalk fifty people was general. I was like, when we were doing really well and mostly fifteen of us, It's like fifteen of us on a flidewalk um in the financial district, like getting yelled at by cops, um, you know, sleeping on cardboard, you know, occupy style, but without any attention or solidarity. Um. And but because I had been in Barcelona and I still have these carbrads in Barcelona, I was like, oh my god, we're doing

it in New York. So we had this thing where bloomberg Ville, which is like twenty people like got to talk to a general assembly in Barcelona at the height of its power, like on a like internet link, like a really early internet link, you know. Um, and you know so so so, so there was all this energy

that was happening. And then I think, really crucially, the London riots pop off, and that doesn't get talked about very much and anymore partially because of the UK left really stabbed here's the bath during that and and and have and and repressed the memory of it largely, um, and have suffered ever since, in my opinion, strategically. UM. But you know that was for us in the US, that was huge. It was huge watching um, watching those

riots unfold. Like you know, again, this was like early live streaming, so like we were like watching live feeds of the riots, you know, which is like it was not a thing that you could really do without a TV before. There was just like there was a lot of stuff going on that felt exciting and and it was and really important and inevitable that it would come to the US because things were so messed up over here.

I think we should talk about what a general assembly actually is because I think a lot of people aren't you We're going to have like never actually ran into what exactly is going on, or have sort of forgotten in the last ten years after they sort of fallen out of favor. Sure, yeah, I mean it's UM. It was never my favorite either, honestly, but it's a it's a meeting style UM designed UM. It actually does largely actually come from from European anarchist traditions, UM from from

Spain and Greece. But as as many of us know, UM, a lot of those traditions go back further UM and have crossed crossed the water general Somebody's actually there's a long history of them in indigenous communities in Turtle Island, for example. So it's an old meeting style UM in which UM, the Quakers also the Quakers UM famously also sort of uh sort of co opted it from from

indigenous folks out here on the East coast. UM. But UM it's a meeting style in which, uh, you know, with the exception of a facilitator which is occasionally but not always present, UM, everyone is able to speak UM together. There is something, there's an agenda sometimes, but it's basically a meeting designed where everyone present in the meeting has like an equal voice and it's not really designed generally for UM decision making specifically or with like really specific

goals in mind. Often although there will be sort of like things that are trying to get settled UM. But it's it's it's it's designed to allow, you know, a very very multi vocal approach and for everyone to sort of put in their their thoughts and their ideas UM. And often is connected, although not necessarily, but is often connected to consensus UM operation where UM things can't get sort of decided on unless everyone sort of agrees UM.

And in occupy UM that was the general assembly was sort of UM was a bit controversial because it was just whoever showed up obviously participates in it. So, you know, unlike unlike you know, an organizational meeting where you you know, everyone knows each other and you have to have a you know, you have to be there with an invite or whatever. Um, you know, whatever cranky wing nut UM wanted to show up could um And that had pluses and minuses. It was charming sometimes, but it was also

very frustrating. UM. And in in New York where I was UM, it was made almost impossible to function by this thing called the people's mike um oh, which I think still happens sometimes people even Mike check um and and then everyone repeats what was said. But that means that it takes four times as long to talk as normal. So when you have a wing nut, you know, like advocating for wrong Paul, and then you've got thirty people echoing him every four words, it makes it makes discussion

completely impossible. And a microhistory of the People's mic. The reason that happened was because in the first week in Zukkati park Um, whenever we got on a megaphone, police would come and a rest whoever was on the megaphone because you weren't allowed to use amplified sound in New York. And one organizer was like, oh no, no, we can like use the people's mic. We can repeat back to each old And this is when we they're still mostly like thirty to forty people in the park at any

one time. It's very small. That didn't feel so bad, but then when the movement really up big, the people's mike became completely unwieldy and also was a response to a was a cowardly response to police repression frankly um, and was a way of So the people's mic is is, in my opinion, reactionary form anyway, that is hit. So

it's been ten years. I haven't been able to complain about this in like eight years, Thank you so much, UM anyway, So yeah, the general Assembly is just a meeting form um that often often associated with anarchy, anarchist practice or radical democratic practice um in which sort of consensus is aimed for by allowing everyone to speak there much I would say, yeah, So this, this I think gets us back to where we open this episode, which is add Busters calls an event with literally no plans

to like do anything. They're just like, yeah, everyone, we're occupied in Wall Street. And then yeah, and you know, as it's talking about the beginning of it, you guys basically hijack well sort of, I mean, so Adbusters. Adbusters doesn't show up, like you said, there's I've never met an Adbusters person, um, And it was funny, like we would do jokes about it. But I think it's also

thinking about this in preparation for this interview. It's also interesting because Adbusters in their culture jamming is kind of like one of the results of the sort of altar globalization movement of the like late nineties and early two thousands, the summit hopping stuff, um, the energy movement of like one generation ahead of occupy UM. So I think it's sort of appropriate that Adbusters sort of like you know, was present in this legacy in a certain way, and

a lot of those organizers were as well. But yes, I'm sorry, I did I just jump in for you. No, no, no,

it's okay. UM. The yeah, so so so so a bunch of people I don't actually know who calls for an August second, you know, general assembly to talk about the call for September seventeenth to occupy Wall Street UM and at that at that point, that's when the thing I was describing earlier like happens where where UM, you know, we a bunch of folks and and I really want to underline this, most of them were people who had been in Spain or Greece. UM. David Graeber was also,

There was like a lot of old heads. There was like a there was a comrade from Japan. UM. It was a very international crew who had like had experience in these movements. Over the summer, UM came and had this general Assembly and sort of ran it that way

and broke out. We had we broke off working groups and then there was meetings sort of once a week and then working group needs within that UM and general assemblies from August two until September seventeenth, at which point, UM, you know, occupy the date, the date that Adbusters had called for actually happened. So my my impression of this, and I was I was very small. I had very

limited idea of what was going on. The way I remember in the media is that like the there, the media was weirdly interested in it in a way that I've never seen them. I've never seen them cover another social movement that wasn't like literally burning their offices down, and it was like it was like in the beginning it was I mean, you know, obviously the right wing media is losing their minds, but they were kind of kind of supportive of it, and I think, I don't know,

I always say you think about this. One of the things that that happens in both in both Greece and in Spain is that the product movement of the squares is these electoral movements, and these electoral movements just fail like catastrophically, like Starsia takes power, like like the they like you, they they have they have they have a

like their their finance minister is a left communist. He's like he is the most fire left person ever like to hold office since like the Spanish anarchists in ninety six and they employed austerity. Anyways, in Spain you get put demos and it's like, wow, okay, you have you know, they had this thing called the electoral war machine. They're they're gonna take over the Spantish but because something they

just it collapsed. It just doesn't work. They've they've never like they've they've they've they've never taken power they've never really got anywhere. They they successfully evicted a bunch of squats in Catalonia. But yeah, but and I think this is my impression of it, was that I think the US media thought they could they could do this to occupy and and I think they kind it. It's weird because looking so you know, like I I come in and like to to this kind of stuff from autun seventeen,

and I think it it's like it weirdly worked. But it worked because they were able to create the anti occupy people. Yeah, so it's like yeah, and so they did finally get their like cadre of like pseudo left organizers so they could used to build Democratic Party. It's just it was like Jocobin and then I'll think the whole, the whole sort of anti occupy group. Yeah, so those folks were actually UM active during Occupy UM critiquing the people who now most loudly UM claim the legacy of

Occupy UM. You know, as you said, Jacobin, a lot of those sort of social democratic groups UM at the time, UM and those of us who were there, remember they hated Occupy. They would show up, but they like would critique it constantly. They would write all these articles about how it was terrible, how there were no demands, it was too disorganized, And then I think, you know, when Black Revolt got put on the table, they were like,

bring back Occupy, we like that better. But but I think to be as harsh as possible, but um, I think like, um, you know, yes, there was there was a lot of media coverage. It didn't feel super friendly at the time. Um, there was a lot of there was a lot of media coverage, Like the media was very curious, it was very interested, but a lot of that coverage was like why do they have no demands? Like why are they so disorganized? Why are they so smelly? Whatever?

Like there was a lot of like there was a lot of slander in the press, but also a lot of attention, um, which you know, it turned turned out was as good as you could get, but at the time didn't didn't feel very good. Particularly, I think, yeah, but yes, those those forces, those forces were already present um in you know, in in occupy itself, um, you know, sort of denouncing it um for its disorganization, um and then eventually claiming that it was the reason that Bernie

Sanders happened, um, which isn't totally wrong. Yeah, I want to be really clear, like I think, and I think what we'll get into this more. But I think like the thing that about the thing that was important about Occupy and the thing that the people who in my opinion, like my comrades during Occupy or people I who were like doing Occupy stuff but like who I didn't know, but like now we I you know, I roll with them.

Most of us have the have the you know, the analysis, like it was really important that we were doing politics in the street. It was really important that we were back together they were talking politics. And then there were really really intense, extreme limits to what Occupy could have done. Um and I think Oakland really pushed those um and and you know, and got to those but um and I think the folks who are like no, no no, Occupy was good at the time, we're like Occupy is terrible.

Um And I think that's worth notice, noting and thinking about. So I think, yeah, before we sort of go into talk a bit about what happened Oakland, to talk about some of their stuff so on on day to day basis,

like what is occupy actually doing? Because I think that's also been sort of lost in this whole, Like everyone remembers like the slogans, and every remembers the fact that there's a thing, but you know, like that there's there's a bunch of working groups and they're doing things like what was that like like day to day and then on a sort of brought our little yeah so so um So, first of all, again I was only in

New York. I spent some time at occupied Boston as well. UM, but like I don't have a sense of what other places were like, so I really can't, I mean other than having heard from people, So I want to be very clear that I'm like mostly addressing that. UM. I think the thing that was going on was that Zuccatti Park,

Like the park was like total chaos. UM. Part of that was because there was a drum circle that basically was going twenty four hours a day um there, which meant that whenever you were down there, and it was like a canyon. Zacotti Park is surrounded by skyscrapers, so it was just this incredible cacophony all the time, UM, which I think was cool. It really ruined a lot of finance bros, like like like orally with an a there um. But I think like, but it also was

pretty intense and unpleasant. Sometimes you were like please stop, oh my god, like that's at one point in general assembly, I think decided that drums were like only acceptable during certain hours, like near the end of the movement, like the drums the drum circle got reproached, when in fact they were like actually the biggest agents of chaos in Zuccati parks that which is another important lesson. But um, yeah,

I think so. So, you know. Also, because I had been in bloomberg Ville, because I've been in Barcelona, I didn't invest myself very heavily in camp management stuff, so

I mostly was doing um work. One of the things that I think it's forgotten about is that there were snake marches basically three or four a day every day after after the first week when we were really small, when it got big, they were just constant, constant marches through the city, just like always going off, like you would run and you'd be on one march, you run into another march, like on a Saturday or Sunday, when like people were really like out there like it was

it was really like there was a lot of mayhem. There would be big planned marches that would then be bigger. Um. So there was like a lot of like um, what people now would call direct action, when I would call largely like sort of symbolic practice for direct action. Mostly, UM, I don't mind, I like marches. I certainly got my miles in then like I don't feel like I need to do that again. But but you know, so then

at the camp people were just living there. There were a lot of like a lot of punks, a lot of like you know, a lot of homeless folks obviously, and some and some encampments had more at a higher concentration about house people. Some in New York because of all the media spectacle and all the money that came in. We had a lot of nonprofit grifters by the end in the encampment. But there's also like a library, um, a free library with all these books that like would

be donated. Um, there's a lot of like you know, political agitation. There were people standing around them the you know the corners of the park, you know, with with signs and you're yelling at people. And it's also important to remember that like Zuccati Park in New York is tiny, it's tiny. We had originally wanted to do it on this big plaza like City Bank plaza. Um, and the cops had heard about that and fence it off. So on the seventeenth we just like we just, um, what's

the word we get? We we did a oh my god football metaphors. This we called an audible thank you. So we said, Zuccatti is this tiny little park. It's incredibly dense and it's surrounded by you know, like I said that skyscrapers. It's in this really weird part of the city that no one would ever spend any time and if they didn't have to otherwise. Um. So that's sort of So there's all this stuff going on, and they're all these their general assemblies twice a day, um, which,

as I said in New York, were particularly unhelpful. UM. But I think anarchists and a lot of cities who have talked to you, like I had a comrade down in DC one in Denver, they sort of said that the general assemblies either quickly like got shifted or got or became irrelevant. UM. I think the general ssemblies were not We're not in the end where we're symbolically important but not but not really driving force UM of my

experience UM. And then there would be there would be, like I said, there'd be a lot of organizing outside of the park. There'd be a lot of like meetings and you know, talks and UM direct actions and marches, UM. And then there would be you know, uh, I guess that's kind of the extent of it, right, is that there was like a lot of direct action that but there was always this park where you could go and like run into people and like hook up with people,

meet people and like do a weird thing. And I think that was really like the heart of the movement was the fact that there was this place you could go meet someone and like link into something weird and maybe cool and maybe not it doesn't matter, but like there was always something to do kind of and it was constant, was like this our twenty four hour right

like experience. And I think that was really what UM, what separated it from from other from other movement waves that we've had, we've had since UM and was was was probably I think it's greatest strength in many ways. Yeah, I think that that was That was the impression that I got. And part of us also was when I when I was in college, like every once in a while you just get assigned like some person writing but occupy, and it was like most of them were just extremely

cranky about the whole thing. But sure, you know, one of one of the things I think was interesting about it is that everyone seemed to engree, at least to some extent, that part of what was going on was that it's it's it's this way to do I don't know if I did any new formation is quite the right word for it, but it's it's this way to sort of like rebuild social connections and rebuild like social sort of bonds in a way that just had you know,

as public space becomes just the cops. And like there's there's a table in Chinatown that I like call the Cops table, and I'm really mad about that, like because this is Chicago, Chinatown and I would like go there star in front the library, and there's a sign sign on the table that says, if you loiter at this table, you will be arrested. It's like this is a picnic table,

Like the cops are you? This table is threatening that it is going to arrest you if you use it for what's using you know, for what you're supposed to use tables for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, And I think I think that's right. I think like it was, you know, there was a lot of UM at the time. A lot of people were talking about UM embarrassingly about Heart and negre is sort of like multitude stuff. Really, I really a much better book that was important was also UM,

David Graber's debt UM. But I think, like, you know, and there was like a lot of like people saying things about like the Agora you know, UM democracy list sort of political the political encounter space of encounter UM, and that stuff wasn't all wrong, Like I mean, I'm sort of being a little sarcastic with a lot of it, but like, but I think, like like there there was

a lot of you know, UM. Part of how we should I think we should understand UM, the over discussed under under you know, like over analyzed word neoliberalism like

has largely become meaningless. One of the things I should I think I think it's valuable for understanding is a process by which capitalism responded to the Long Sixties by disorganizing its production process such to the Long Sixties could never happen again, Right, So like like the four the control the like the concentration of workers within within production in such a way that they could be agitated by students and then like sort of radically unionized wildcat and

sort of like almost overthrow a government, right, Like the neoliberalism is like you know it smashes the unions, yes, but it also all so like distributes out the active production, right, so that so that that's not so easily done. And I think one of the real problems of you know that was facing social movement, um, you know, in the in the period, you know, the the long period, like you know, you had stuff like in the US again

that is where you know the best. But like you know, you have the l A uprising which is huge, um, and you have you know the globe the summit hopping movement and anti globalization, which you know what could attack a target. But there wasn't really a sense of like how it felt hard to do a local struggle um beyond like literally like a revolutionary riot like l A, which you know you can't really precipitate um And you

can't really precipitate a movement either obviously. But I think like but like but like uh a political political movement, a form of political organizing that didn't require something on the level of George Floyd, which is what the l A rebellion was, right, UM. But that also didn't require like, uh, an action from capital that you were like striking against, right, like the the you know, the Summits or whatever. UM. And that that again, and like all of these eras

are very important. This is not to like you know, obviously like this is with with respect for those movements UM, but yeah, we felt I think it felt like we were in a political wilderness. And I think that that, like UM occupy really and the movement of the squares globally, I think UM really like demonstrated that it was possible to practice a kind of street politics even without UM you know, a shop floor where you can organize, even without UM, you know, a a capital p party to

organize within UM. And I think that was really important. I think it also scared a lot of people who and and continues to who are committed to those politics UM and UM to the twenty century workers movement or the nineteenth and twenty century labor movement, which they somehow fantasize will come back UM if they just wish hard enough and write enough books or whatever. Um And I think like, um so, I think that was powerful. I also think like like yeah, sorry, we can move on

to legacy later. But I think that was like I think that was very much like an important thing. Was was just like and you know, um, I graduated college in two thousand nine, um so I was like part of that millennial generation that like, you know, had gone into incredibly deep debt. Like we'd have a college degree and then like the bottom fill out of the economy

there were no jobs. Um And Like I think there were a lot of you know, like people who like had anticipated a middle class life um of some kind. Not that I really had at that point, but whatever, like, but but a lot of people, like in my economic cohort like had um uh suddenly facing you know, proletarianization, right. And I think that was one of the strengths of

the movement. I think that was that, you know, like I mentioned the statistics in great in Spain and Greece, Like, I think that was a global aspect of this kind of movement um uh arab spring to Like there was there was a lot of like that was really a response to the economic crisis. Obviously those folks were already more proletarian than the people who the young people and in the squares movements. UM. But they they innovated, They created the tactics in in Arab Spring right UM Terrer Square,

most famously in Cairo. UM and UM. I think like those creating a meeting place where UM, you didn't require a preconstructed like political community UM in order to engage was a strength and a weakness UM. And I think it also, you know, as a result of the dynamics of the General Assembly, the dynamics of the sort of volunteerist nature of that what I'm describing UM, it led to a lot of people who were already confident, who are already feeling good, being able to like take more

power right like UM. Uh. And I think it also was a very white movement UM. Certainly in New York, but but I think, I think across the country, UM, it was largely it was largely you know, it was it was majority white in a way that you know, by higher percentages than any movement that we've really been part of since UM was UM. And that was obviously a limit UM for for reasons that will be obvious to everyone, including the idea that like a lot of

people pushed that like the police are part of the right. Okay, so let's let's let's talk about the police, because you know, like that's you know, that's that's one of the other extremely important aspects of this is this immense militarization. I mean, okay, so I think that the militarization of the police as a phrase, I think it's somewhat misleading in that like

the cops have always like shot people. Yeah, but you know, there there's yeah, there, there's there's there's still like there's an intense sort of ramp up of the prison sector. There's you have this intense boom in the size of prisons.

You have, yeah, you have you have increasing parts of the economy that are just the entire towns that used to be sort of manufacturing sectors, you used to be sort of involved in sort of industrial production that are just like the economy is now just there's a prison

there and right. And I think this is also looking back, one of the things that looked like occupy kind of ran ran up into because you know, occupies this attempt to like you know, form a democratic space and it relies crucially on this this thing that is nominally in the Constitution but doesn't exist, which is the like the right to freedom of speech and the right to freedom of assembly and freedom assembly like that is that is

like that is bullshit. It does not exist. If you like, if you actually believe that this exists, like, try getting like seventy people into a space and see how like just like I don't know, like into a street or just just like into into like have one people on a park and just like see how fast the cops show up, because you know, it's like yeah, the first time yeah that I was, I was at any kind of protests, cops immediately wanted to take anything I was holding.

You're not you're not allowed to. The first thing if if if if you have anything in your hands, that's that that is a that is a problem. Yeah, it's like the First Amendment is just it's super completely superseded by traffic laws, like laws about like sidewalk maintenance, like no, it's it's all fair like none if it like you're

you're not you're not allowed to. And this is this is I think is partially what this is kind of a talk about this parts I think why there's so much focused on the right about the first minute because they want to they want to draw attention away from the fact that, like the actual thing that's fake about it is that you can't gather people and meet anywhere, and they want to draw it into these like inane like this professor like said the N word a bunch

of times in class. Isn't it bad that people are mad at them? But but if I think also go to time, this sort of back to occupy, you know. Okay, So, so occupy functions right insofar as there is a a physical location where people can go and physically interact with each other. And that's a problem because at some point the police are just like no, and they start clearing

the encampments. And I think this is this is the other thing that occupy is that outside of like parts of Oakland and that that's a whole other thing that Yeah, but it's it's it's incredibly studiously non violent in a way that like nothing I've ever seen before since is yeah. So,

so so there's a lot there. I'm gonna I want to talk about it because that's there's a lot um But yeah, so I think I think the militarization of the police thesis um is is incomplete if you don't also talk about the policification of the military, right, so, like part of what happens with with the great expansion

of them of the carstral state. Part of that is also a response to the Vietnam War um and and mass resistance within you know, the troops they were like in the Vietnam the in like the last two years when ground troops are there in Vietnam, there's like four hundred fragging incidents where where um you know, where where

privates and recruits killed their officers. The U. S. Army during the during Vietnam was on the brink of of collapse in the way that like like the Russian Army was looking in it was like like like the numbers I think I think still number one point. There was like forty of the army by the end of Vietnam was either on strike or just like not following orders. Yeah, no,

it was. It was complete. There was the re in the that Nixon pursues vietnamalization, which is when they just start doing air campaigns, bombing and napalm is because they couldn't rely on ground troops anymore. They just they were useless. They were all high. Um, you know the talk about you know, there's a lot of talking about like Heroin, but like that was actually kind of a form of

resistance within the lines in a complicated way. Whatever. Okay, that's all very So the military realizes that it can't function as a mass military in the model that nation states have done since the Napoleonic Wars, right, which is like the mass you know, the mass recruitment of the citizen soldier. Um, that's sort of how war is fought

between you know, eighteen ten and nineteen seventy. And then it becomes clear that that's not gonna work anymore because because the aims of the countries and the power of nationalism have become too abstracted. Fascism has done too much damage to that image. There's just like there's it doesn't really work anymore. So the military turns into a sort of what it always was also, which is like a colonial policing force. And so the police the military drift

towards one another in form and function. Okay, So in occupy um, one of the acrohistories that I think it's forgotten is that like I mean, because because it took a week, and like, who remembers this week except for like weirdos like me who were there. Um is it like there was no one at Zuccatti in the first

first week. And one of the big things that happened was these these these you know, young white girls got caught in a police net and pepper sprayed, and there was this video that went around with them getting pepper sprayed and screaming. Is particularly this this woman on her knees, you know, screaming with with tears and pepper sprayed going down her face, and that really outraged people because you know, they were you know, it was police depression and police violence.

So in terms of the question of non violence, yes, um, there was a lot of non violence. It was a constant fight that took honestly took until the George Floyd uprising for the right outside to win. Frankly, but but but but during occupy there was you know, there was a lot of non violence nonsense, um, And I think like but but another thing that happened though was that like you know, like I said, people were marching every day. So even in New York, where I think the political

height was kind of achieved. October first, when we took the Brooklyn Bridge. Um, I think I think New York never really like had a big moment again, Like it was largely sort of like smaller things after that. But um, but like and there was a mass arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge. We marched over the Brooklyn Bridge. The brookn Bridge got shut down. They arrested seven hundred of US. Um. It was the first big infrastructure shutdown that happened in the US since the l A Riots. It was it

was a big deal at the time. Now it happened. Can I put a note doubt though, specifically for the Brooklyn Bridge if you're because people I've seen every every single time there's one of these movements, people try to take the Brooklyn Bridge and they all got arrested. It's like, can can you all, like please, I am begging you, if you're going to try to take a bridge, make sure you have a way out, Like, yeah, you have to hold one of the sites to get arrested. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

you got a way out. A bridge is designed to not have a way out, exactly. Please please don't all get arrested. It's it's in fact bad and yeah, sorry exactly. I have seen it. Few people successed. We take bridges a few times, but that's because there was like three cop cars and like fifteen thousand people. If you have like a block with two hundred kids, you're not going to be able to hold the bridge. Yeah, welcome to it had happened. Here a podcast about a crumbling empire

and planting seeds in the spaces between. Here's part two of our interview with Vicky Oustle while about the legacy of Occupy Wall Street. But but you know, like you were saying, you know, like that that you know, don't

get arrested, it's bad. So I think when occupy really started, you know, we were mostly people who had been educated by the co optation of the civil rights movement, which is that it was all non violent and that the whole thing was getting arrested and Martin Luther King was like the only voice that made any sense, and that was what was affective. Blah blah blah blah blah. Um. We had all learned that in school, right, we had all been trained that like non violence was like the

only thing that made sense and that worked. Um. And I think like those of us who learned about it at all in school, which is certainly not everyone. But like I think, like like the the experience of occupy of like every day just getting beat up by the

cops every day, like getting attacked, getting arrested. Some people got really some people got really nihilistically nonviolent, Like some people like really dug in and they're like like like we're like no, like there is nothing we can do except be beaten and turn of this like real masochistic game. But that happens. That still happens all the time. Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's one. That's one common response. But another thing that happened was that people started breaking through that that

that ship. People. People started on the ground, Like I remember a march, you know, early on, you know, the police would attack and everyone would sort of like de try to de escalate, and people would try to like you know, like like talk to the cops or whatever. And like by November when right before the camps got cleared, I remember being on a march where we stole all of their orange betting there using and you're just holding it over our head at a large and like trapping

cops in it. So like even in New York where things never got that intense, um like in some ways in terms of direct action like that lesson on the ground, like you have to be you have to be very ideologically committed to get hit with the baton three times and still think the police are on your side. You know, you have to, like really, you have to really be drinking the kool aid. And some people are like some

people really do want to believe that. But I think, um, I think that was one So during occupy, like those of us who hated the police were pretty lonely even though the police were beating us up. But by the end of occupy, the seeds had really been sown for a lot of generational understanding of the police that didn't necessarily immediately so fruit like it wasn't immediately obvious, but I think, like, I think like folks who stayed in

struggle from there grew more and more anti police. Yeah, that was that in general, that was well, okay, so mystres was less with occupying more with like the two dozen beteen stuff in Turkey, but it like that that was because I was brought up in that like the sort of like Foe Gandhi and like, yeah, MLK civilis a Beans and then it was like like I watched Turkey happened and it was like, hey, here's my friend

just like getting his ribs broken by a cop. And then like there's Raba and you know, and Ba is sort of where with the Egyptian movement dies and Ba they just you know, they bring out the machine guns and they just shoot everyone. Yeah, and at a certain point, like you know, this is the limited non violence, right?

Is that what happens if they just shoot you? And and Gandhi you know, if what if you ever want to like go down to the Gandhi rabbit hole, like Gandhi like writes this letter to like like the Jews of Germany where he's telling them to like throw themselves on the blades of the Nazis, and it's like this, it's it's this is this is like, yes, it sucks. This is ridiculous, Like just this is like it's being

complacent for abuse. UM. Anyone Too Studios has a really good video on why non violence helps the state UM and how basically activists that try to force other you know, demonstrators to adhere strictly to non violence, that's basically that's that's them, and that's them basically saying that if like that, that's them endorsing the police beating somebody up like like that, Like that's it's it's not actually tied to any kind of movement, and it doesn't actually help, Like I and

we could actually see this last year with like the first few weeks of like you know, abuse from the state actually making headlines and actually changing people. But after a while it just didn't matter, Like a cop could put someone down and pummel their face in like August,

and like who gives a ship? Nobody, Like it doesn't it doesn't matter, you know, Like that's that's why I found it funny when you talked about, like, you know, people getting mad because cops were like macing people when they surrounto them, And I'm like, if that happened, no one, no one would give a ship, Like yeah, well, like I think, not not at all anymore. Yeah, totally. Well, I think I think part of it is the first time that you see it, it's like what on earth?

Like this? This I think has been one of the things that's been the core of the whole sort of nineteen like late sort of cycle revolutions. Is that like if if you're just like a dude in a grocery store and some guy runs in, is like running away from the cops and then like fifteen riot cops and just start beating the showout of them, which is the

thing that happens like a lot. Like if you just see that, right, there's no way you can actually like like if you ordinary person just witness the cops running up and just beating the show someone, like, there's no way you can't not be sort of radicalized against the police by it. But like, yeah, but there's there's a certain point where you hit it. The decentilization happens more quickly than what it should. Um, and we stopped caring.

I agree. I agree with both of you that like that, Like both it is shocking and radicalizing and we get desensitized because there is so much spectacular pressure to naturalize the police and non violence ideology is part of that is part of naturalizing police violence, right, Like, there's nothing you can do about the police violence. Um, so all you can do is control yourself, and therefore you should

you know, you should be better or whatever. Yeah, Gandhi had this whole fantasy about Um, the perfect army would march unarmed into machine gun fire, um and would just

be mowed down. It's it's he's a fascist, frankly. Um And and yeah, and you only need to look at his opinions about black Africans when he was when he Africot to see that even if you even if you just read like like even if you just read like self reliance, it's like this is you know, it's what everything I want to talk about with with the peace police though, which is that like they're also like in terms of like fighting, like inflicting violence on other protesters,

Like they are the most violent like of of of the factions you see in a pro that does happen very well, maybe maybe not the most like it does happen like like they beat people up. Like yeah, I was just gonna say, like it ties into like protest security, and when protest security is usually working with these more like peace police type organizers, and then they use protest security to literally beat up people who are doing more radical action against the state. Um. That happens all the time. Yes,

oh yeah, protest security. When I see protest security or marshals, um, I know exactly that that the that we're in a bad We're in a bad march. Um. The only time I've ever been physically assaulted by another protester was during Occupy actually, um during after the night after you've been evicted, um, which is like November, I think. UM. And if people don't remember, Obama and the FBI coordinated this nationally, all

the occupying encampments got swept within a week of each other. UM. On that march, Um, We're marching around even march arout all night, UM. And I'm just dragging a trash can into the street because we're being followed by police cars, and I'm literally attempting to like do some education at the same time. I'm like pulling in the trash can in the street, and I'm yelling, you know, I am doing this because I want to protect us from police violence. Like if this is in the street, then the cop

cars can't catch us as much. That's why we build barakat. I'm like literally trying to like yell this because, like, you know, because pulling a trash can the streets incredibly and effective ultimately, so it was like literally it was literally just like for education purposes. At that point, basically anyway, especially since a lot of people would like pull them

back out of the street. Whatever. This guy runs up on me and grabs me by the collar and lifts me up and like threatens me with this fucking fist, and he says, if my mom can't get to work tomorrow because of you, like I'll beat the ship out of you. And we're like we're marching in Manhattan, and like one a m I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? And like he would have he would have hurt me, like pretty bad if a friend of mine had like luckily had my back and like de

escalated a bit. That's the only time I've ever been like physically like brought up like into a fight um with by by another protester. Was was a guy insisting that me dragging a trash can into the street was

beyond the pale. But I want to just talk a bit more, but like how systematic the violence was, like because Okay, So originally I was gonna try to get someone from Occupy Oaklands to come talk about this, and I talked to a lot of people and the biggest thing that I got was that no one would talk about it on the record because they got because Oakland had Oakland had a blacklist, and if if you were inoccupy and like anyone else found out about it, like

people like people couldn't people spent half a decade just not being able to find jobs because they just play black listed everyone. And like to this day, like the thing I was told was like, yeah, I'm I won't talk about this because you know, like if if I talk about this, like I will be fired. All of my family everyone around me will be fired. And there's

like I think, like this is the ever thing. But when we talked about sort of the collapsive occupy, the the extent to which after Obamba in the f bare ordered the camps closed, the policy is that the cops are going to torture anyone who attempts to like gather

in a place yep, yep. For for two years, you couldn't have a meeting outside without the police attacking basically, and um and um and yeah, I mean it was it was you know, I think like a lot of um the people who now claim that that occupy is the reason that they do politics or whatever, for burning Sanders or whatever. Um. At the time, they were saying that the reason it collapses because there was no UM organization. There was no structure, there was no political party, there

was no you know whatever, there was no demands. And like it's true that it was poorly organized, like there's no doubt, um, but like we got beat out of the streets, Like we got beat out of the streets, and like people tried for six months really intensely, and for another six months after that less intensely to restart

that energy. Um. There was all this works forwards, like a general strike on May Day, UM two thousand twelve, which ended up not really working, which is actually exactly the kind of demand filled one day of action kind of politics that they were demanding actually really failed, which I think is telling. But but in the meantime, like you know, like occupy, like Jocattie got cleared. But for a while, there was the thing No one remembers this, I don't think, but there was a thing up in

um uh Union Square, UM. There was an occupation for three weeks. There was like all the Union Square freaks um and like a bunch of occupiers UM. And yeah, the cops just like it was just like batons out on site. For a few years in New York, and I know it was like that everywhere else or most everywhere else, and that that came down from on high that like the police were just like, oh, what was

dangerous about this was people gathering in public? So we really need to like we really need to like enforce the Second Amendment being meaningless now, we really need to stop meetings from happening in public. UM. And that violence was super intense and super real, and a lot of people got beaten out of the movement, you know, and a lot of people got really demoralized and left. And

I understand why. Um, it was scary and awful, and there was a lot of repression and um, you know, and it and it, and it has continued to sort of that that kind of repression has continued to escalate. UM. But what has successfully happened in our movements, I think, to our to our credit, is that we haven't actually formed the kinds of hierarchical organizations that allow for more effective police repression. All the police have right now against us,

for the most part, is batons in the street. Um. They have a lot more trouble infiltrating, UM, a lot more trouble, which doesn't mean, they aren't trying like crazy, but they have a lot more trouble um um taking down the movements in the in a sort of cointel pro way, right. Um. The modes of oppression have changed

a bit. Um. But that's also because we don't have it's a combination of the fact that we don't have those forms of organization, but we also don't have those forms of organization because they don't emerge spontaneously from our living conditions like they used to. UM. So I think it's it's you can't just give credit to any one thing.

There's a lot of different factors at play. I think I will say one of one of the other things that that I've noticed, and I think I think I'm pretty sure this has happened to talk people are talking

about that occupies it. Like the first thing if you have a group of people who are just they're the first thing the cops trying to do is a point a leader so that they have one person that they can do to with this this and this lets them sort of this this sort of like access point to which they sort of break like the demands of the crowd is that they find one person they point in the lead and they get that person to sort of like be the liaison. My favorite Occupied joke. I gotta

give respect to Occupy Denver. This is the best joke that ever happened. And Occupy they announced the beginning of one week on Friday, we are going to announce our leader. Occupy Denver has chosen a leader, and the whole movement got so upset and everyone was so angry. I was like, what the fuck? And like they had this like big press conference and their leader was a Golden Retriever. It was like a who knows to Occupied Denver? Whoever organ is that prank? I love you, I guess. Yeah, speaking

thinking of kudos to a place. The last thing I wanted to talk about was the giant like port occupation strike thing in Oakland, because I mean that that wasn't the first time people had done it, Like I know, I know during the anti war movements even do like two eight there's one of people trying to occupy ports. But in Oakland they like did it. They really they put like footy I was in people like in this

in the Port of Oakland and they shut it down. Yeah, And I think that was like that was one of the things. One of the stories kind of been lost from this because like, you know, like that was the point. Like so like I know people in Oakland who like they got like drugged, repeatedly drugged by police informants because

particularly Oakland. Also Oakland is also way the walking by Oakland bood is way way less white than any other movements, and they get like the kind of police oppression they get is like it's just like yeah, you know again like people people being repeatedly drugged by informants, like cops shooting people in the face, like the you know, you have you have the black list, you have all this stuff.

And I think, you know, part of it, yeah, yeah, And I think part of it is because part of it's because it's a bunch of non white people and that's you know, that's just what happens. But I think another part of it was also that there was this fear about Yes, so so the reason the port strike is able to happen is because there's sort of there's a complicated game here where the people like sort of

got involved in in like longshoreman union politics. But that sort of like fusion of of give all the people in the street and then they start showing down ports and that, like like the cops like lose their minds over that. Like that that I think was like extremely scary to them in a lot of wiz. Yeah, I mean, you know, I would you know, I would defer to anyone from Oakland who was who was there during that. You know, I have comrades there, I've talked to you

have read about it since. But you know, I think I think part of the heightened police oppression and the heightened power of the Oakland occupied Oakland folks was Oscar Grant rebellion. Like I mentioned the two thousand nine which had happened, which had you know, I have been a few hundred people, but it had been really rowdy. They'd been like looting and smashing. Um maybe maybe more than a few hundred, maybe near a thousand people on the big on the first snight. UM. And you also obviously

have the legacy of the Black Panthers in Oakland. So you know, the Black Panther Party, you know, forms in Oakland at last, in Oakland a decade and a half longer than it does anywhere else in the country. UM. So there's a lot of like and you also have the really really intense textrification in the Bay that's happening.

So there's an incredible political and economic pressure in the Bay combined with this history of radicalism that really you know, um, but yeah, I think also the other thing that's really interesting. I think what you said, like you you put your you know, you hit the nail on the head, Like it was largely like it was terrifying that it was the most effective direct action in the occupy movement, I

think was that port shutdown. I think, without a doubt, like the biggest mass direct action that that occupy achieved, Um, was that November twelve? Was that was that with the data that I don't remember near the end of the

near the end of the cycle. Um. And I think like the other thing about um about that though, that that was very similar to the altar globalization movement, right where the unions had sort of teamed up with you know, like in Seattle there's a lot of trade unions on the ground next to all the black blocks, right, um. And I think like that that image, Um, I think

really it's really interesting. It really terrified the police, and it really it could be it could have been a vector for a certain kind of like labor first politics that could have emerged, but instead, like the labor first people have turned out to be all electoralists. Yeah, it seems that that's sort of a weird blip that hasn't

really returned. Um. Yeah. And it's interesting too because like because now like you know, like the like the the a f l C. I oh, just like you know a f l C A is like no cop unions great, And it's like there's this there's this sort of like split between the street movements and organized labor because they're off doing like electoral stuff and like cops ship, which is this sort of yeah, and and and and have been now for for seven decades, you know, I mean,

I mean really like like the buying off of the unions and the New Deal, um, you know, with some brief you know, with brief windows of like wildcat action in the seventies and the nineties. Um, the buying off of the unions has has never really gone away. Industrial un is UM in the US has has long been and in and in Europe everywhere where everywhere where those developed in the early twenty century, that labor movement UM, they've really been successfully bought off. And I don't think

there is. Uh. I don't think that those unions are like a big easy route to power anymore than I don't. I don't like I think they're going to overthrow the government.

I mean, but I will say, yeah, this is this is my my also my the thing that I plug every time is at the a f l C. I O over through a end a like yeah, like like they they they there are people on the ground were like directing like like we're directing a bunch of the anti a end a stuff and it's like and it was the and it was the union bureaucracy is like more recently in two thousand one, who are in the wake of September eleventh, who transformed the anti globalization rhetoric

into buy American, which it turned out was often buying prison made materials. But like that was that was the union, the union sort of um defanged defanged alter globalization into

buy American. And there's there's a thing, like there's a whole another story there about how that like how anti orbalization turned from like you know, the Zapatistas too, like Trump which is incredibly depressing and yeah, goes goes through this line of sort of like the replacement of internationalism with nationalism and that kind of like by local stuff and the fact that like these people sort of just decided that, you know personally after Seattle part steption at eleven,

they're just like we're not doing direct action again. And in Oakland's like Oaklands like like that. That's like that's like the one big exception to that was that moment and then it just kind of just has never happened again. And that's partially because that that union that I LW is I l W I think out there is on the on the poorts that was a particularly like radical union that had happened in Wildcats like and and was like like more democratic than any of the many of

the other unions and in in those those hips. But uh yeah, but that's that's also like a big story for another time. The connotation of global anti global nation over the twenty year period. Yeah, you know, it's just kind of corny, but like what what can we actually learn from what happened there, what went wrong and sort

of what the limits of it was. Yeah, Okay, So the legacy, So I think one legacy that um, the legacy that is most widely accepted and known, which we can go over quickly, is that it reintroduced class discourse, largely into the popular you know, the n which is a very very bad class politics. But like, you know, like UM, like the you know, it reintroduced some of that sort of class war class war discourse and UM and I think more important than that, but but not

that dissimilar. It UM reintroduced um street politics into the US. UM. I think part of the legacy that gets forgotten UM because like the general the global nous of the wave

gets forgotten as well. Like is that when when ship pops off in New York, everyone in the world knows, or at least they did then, right, because America had been so successfully you know, appeased politically for so long that I think that when occupy popped off, UM in rather it really like signals to the world, like the rest of the world like, oh, like this is real, like even in the you know, even in the center

of empire, like like people are rising up. Um. It's hard to remember and it's weird, but like there was an occupy in uh New York, in a UK, there was one in Tel Aviv. There was actually kind of like a pro Palestinian occupy in Tel Aviv briefly UM.

And you know, I think maybe the most powerful sort of immediate tactical UM offshoot of occupied was occupyed Nigeria UM in the first weeks of UM when President good Luck Jonathan um took took the fuel subsidies away, and they were like sort of two weeks of really intense revolutionary rioting UM in in Nigeria that that then called themselves occupy as a way of being legible. It's the

rest of the world, UM. I think the other legacies though that are that are a little more sort of subtle, I guess is like that a lot of folks still in the struggle now, Like I will still meet people, you know, my age who like I've met I have two comrades here in Philly who I didn't know at the time, but who were organizing in New York right, Like we probably hung out in rooms together, like we

probably like we were probably in the same spaces. But like so like a lot of folks, you know it each of these waves that has come has left, you know, some people leave, some people swing right, but like there's a residue of folks that like becomes the base for the next movement. And I think like occupy really did provide a lot of people in a way that the gap between alter globalization and occupy didn't produce nearly as large a contingent of people, although of course there are

those people, um. But I think also like really importantly like the tactics of occupy. Like one of the things that was incredible about the George Floyd uprising was that every tactic that we um have tried in the last ten years re emerged. Right. There was a prison strike, there were indigenous blockades, there were me Too style callouts UM, which of course developed out of um punk and queer scene callouts that have been going on for a decade.

But there were occupations, right. You had the chairs in Seattle, which we can you know, well, well what we're yeah, we will get to that one day in any case, in any case, like I think like that that has remained in the repertoire of poltarian struggle, like as a result of of occupy and and and if it had just been occupied, maybe it wouldn't as a result of the global movement of the squares, which obviously goes until

Terrier Squareen and Turkey. I think it's probably the Gezi Park in a Turkey, um, which is like the last big moment of the squares really um, But that five year wave, like it was really really important, um globally, really really important locally as well, UM in terms of building activists, building a class of of well, I don't you know whatever, building revolutionaries, whatever you want to call them, the good version of the thing, not the bad version.

You produced a lot of them, um and um. And I think like in terms of its limits and like what we can learn from it, Like, I think I think taking the police more seriously it was really important.

I think taking police violence more seriously it was a really important legacy of occupy, I think, Um, I think pushing towards the limit of what total democracy meant a lot of people and Occupy remember that like a lot of Ron Paul people are like weirdo like and the Fed cranks and like right wingers like spoken Occupy and

like that. That that total open populism of of Occupy I think was both probably its greatest strength and its ultimate limit, right, which was that like it was never going to be able to really like sharpen itself into the into the knife and it wanted to be to

like really change the face of global capital or whatever. Um, because of because there were so many white, yeah, middle class and like like a bunch of the like a lot of the like the current for right media people came out it like Center Fairbanks was like an occupy streamer Spool, Yeah, you're welcome. For Tim Poole UMO was filming on the last day, a bunch of us um doing some things, and Tim Pool did not manage to continue filming, is all I'll say. And after that is

when he started swinging right, So you're welcome over. Um anyway, Sorry, that guy is a fucking asshole. He was an asshole then. Though. I think what's important to know is that a lot of these people were suss as hell back then to occupy folks, like they were around and occupy because of the nature of occupy, like but like they were we already didn't like them, you know, like a lot of

these people were already unpopular, were already disliked in the movement. Um. So yeah, um, but yeah, I think I think so, I think you know, there is there there are all these different legacies um from it that I think, um, Ultimately,

the legacy things that emerged are much more important than occupy. Um. I think, you know, one of the things about it was that it really was just like the reemergence of street politics, and like, like as the re emergence of street politics, like it was pretty limited, and it was not that effective at changing things, um. And also it was incredibly effective at leading to those last decades of

struggle in the US. And I think you can't, you know, I think there's a tendency to want to judge movements by the immediate results that they produce, you know. Um. And like, you know, I think was it is? Am I about to quote now? I think I am? Was it? Like when when he gets asked, you know, what was the what was the you know, in in the twentieth anniversary of the Chinese Revolution, he gets asked, like what was the what was the outcome of the Chinese Revolution?

He says, it's too early to tell, right, Like, I think, like that maybe that's I don't remember who that is. They were right, Yeah, they were right. A lot more people died than what we thought. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they successfully transitioned to capitalism and they yeah, yeah, it was yeah, so, um, so what was the result of occupy. It's too early to tell, um, but I think like I also think like the things that we've talked about here um, where

we're core components of what what why it matters. I do think one other kind of effect that it's had. And It's hard for me to gauge this because I've only been around post occupy, but I feel like now when people try to get stuff started, they really fall kind of into an occupy mindset where they're like, the only way to make this successful is to hold this space. And I think that is really a default way that even more experience, like both experienced organizers and new organizers

really kind of keep you saying the word default. It's because like that's just that's just really like what they go into. You saw this in a lot of different cities last year. Really they like people trying to set up spaces to hold um. A lot of them did not work, you know a lot of them. A lot of them were like, oh, yeah, we're trying to try to hold the space for like an hour, because then the cops pushed us out right and you know, in a place like the chairs they got extended out a

bit longer that Chad has had its own problems. Um and other cities in the Pacific Northwest. This happened a city, it happened. It happened a lot of places. I mean, like I think George Floyd Square is maybe one of the more honestly successful ones, um for how they were able to actually kind of keep police away, and they did they avoided turning it into this big media thing

like like with the Chaz did um. And I don't know, I think I grew very I saw a lot of people kind of grow kind of frustrated with this like kind of occupy mentality because what that kind of results in is people just setting up outside of a police headquarters and trying to stay there for as long as possible, which is like that's not doing anything, You're just kind

of waiting to get beat up. Um. Yeah. Yeah, but it's complicated though, right, Like in defense of that tactic, like I think like like that was also very color. That was also very core to Ferguson. Right, they held West Florescence for a week and a half. Now, they did it much. They didn't do it by setting up tents and sitting there. Um. And also like you know, like like a thing that gets forgotten a lot in the lot in the histories. You know, Occupy Ice it

was pretty smile. I was big here in Philly, it was it was massive here in Portland. Yeah. Yeah. So so like there were moments when that tactic really does like it's important to have a space to meet in, and I think we did learn that, but I also agree that it has become like any tactic that works once it becomes a fetish, right. Yeah, it's always trying to balance space because like you know, the two big things that have happened the past ten years, it's occupying

Hong Kong. So people try to balance these two kind of almost opposing things like hold this space and be water. That's kind of the two things that people yell at the street back and forth, and no one really knows what to do because we're just yelling slogans and and

and I they're saying about this. So they're like the one time the people in Hong Kong got pinned down when when they had to they had in versity siege, it was a ship show, like you know what I was like the people in Hong Kong, like, you know, okay, like even when they're like they they did not have by by by the time you're getting to the sort of decision of the universities like that, like you know, like they had like Moloto they had like like Molotov workshops,

Like there were people like standing on the roof shooting bows and arrows and cops and it like it just wasn't enough. And I mean and part partially personally, that has to do with the fact that, like you know, Hong Kong is in a uniquely bad position insofar as it is one city and it's like the the the only possible way that asssocal we've been in Hong Kong, like ever just doesn't get crushed by just the fact that they're outnumbered, like a thousand to one is if

it spreads. But like yeah, and it became this you know, like that that moments like yeah that this that that the whole problem with with friend to hold space because really apparent there because even if you have an extremely large number of people right like like attacking one isolated space in mass even think the cops are really good at and I think they're really bad at is trying to deal with like you know, like five hundred people,

like seven hundred instances of five hundred people going through places because it just aren't enough of them. But yeah, that was what was that Like the head of who wasn't it was a big in the in the National Police. In the National Police, uh you know whatever, um said that like we can very easily handle one march of ten thousand people, but we can't handle ten marches of

one people. It was you gotta see this in Chicago, feel like this is this is this is how the police lost control of of of the miracle Mile was like yeah, it was just there's people everywhere for everywhere and yeah I don't know, yeah I know, And that's and that's how that's that's what you know. I mean certainly in Philly where it was where it was very very powerful. That's what the George Floyd rebellion looked like, was with people were everywhere in Philly, all the neighborhoods.

You know, people didn't you know, like we were out there, you know whatever, um and like they're like people didn't know what was going on three block South, you know what I mean. Like it was like that, like there was just there were fights happening everywhere and under those conditions, the police can't can't, no matter how militarized they are, they can't act um effectively anyway they can act, they

certainly will. They will act like pigs. Um. But but I think, like, yeah, so I think that that that sort of dispersion, But I think the other there's so there's I'm going to promote a really really weird o crank book right now twentie century like literary weirdos. Guy uh alias Connetti um Italian wrote this book called Crowds and Power, where he attempts to he attempts to describe the entirety of human history and anthropology in terms of crowds.

This is obviously impossible and ridiculous. But that book has the best descriptions of crowd dynamics I have ever encountered anywhere. And I like, I like people who take big swings because they end up they miss miss has lots of interesting stuff. Um. I think that's why people like Settlers by Jason Kai so much. Like I think the thesis wasn't great, but there's so much incredible stuff in that book that like it works anyway. Um that having a really wild thesis allows you to like really like get

into some Yeah. So anyway, one of the things that Connetti talks about in that book is that UM a crowd, UH, an open crowd, as he describes it, an open crowd is UM must constantly be growing and the moment it

stops growing, it starts shrinking. Right like this, I think that dynamic in terms of both movement and like a momentary protest or riot, right is like really real, I can And I think one of the things that UM, particularly organizers are trained to do and like that that that we learned to do, especially in law periods, and we're like organizing these little you know, you know, these little crystallized groups of like hard cadre or whatever. Is that?

Like you that like what we learn as organized is something that is defendable. But once you start defending something, you start losing it because we cannot take on the state or the police in a head on confrontation. UM. And this is this can be confusing because sometimes you can successfully defend for a few weeks, maybe even a

few months. You can defend a space sometimes, but once people get really interested in the defending, then they begin forming bureaucracies, governments, internal policing, security forces, whatever it is, they start becoming the like the the they start under my ning the very thing that made it powerful, which was the sudden, rapid growth, the sudden like you know, like like big explosion of power and self recognition that

comes in the beginning of movement. And I think, I don't think there's a way to will that problem away, Like I don't think we can just like think our way out of it, like it's just a problem. But I do think that like one thing that we could take from the experience of occupy and the experience the last decade is that like if you do, you know, consider yourself someone who wants to participate in these kind of movements, which is probably why you're listening to this podcast.

Um right now, Um, don't try and defend, Like, don't try and defend. Like some things will need to be defended sometimes obviously, but like if your main thing is like the thing, we should never defend something we've achieved so far. Um, we should never not be willing to destroy it in order to like build something bigger, right, Like we should never no movement thing that we have, be it an occupy part, be it be it like a take in space to sending that should never outweigh

the possibility of expanding. And if that's our strategic mindset, Obviously, moment to moment you can't just be thinking that constantly. But the strategic mindset is like what we have now is only good to the extent that it can turn into something more UM rather than we have to defend what we have now. If you can think that way, I think it opens up a lot of strategic possibilities UM.

And I think it's it's what has worked over the last decade that I've seen is UM when people attack, when people expand, when people try to do try to do new stuff. It doesn't always work and it doesn't always hold. But that's what When that stuff stops happening, the movement is doomed. I think. I think that I think that's a really good way to wrap things up. I think that's a nice, beautiful sentiment. I kind of view this type of thing in more than just protests

and you know, and into different pastors of life. I think you can always learn from past experiences, from past struggles, but if you try to perfectly replicate them, your as totally gonna fail. You can you should always learn and move on, but you should not be focused on any kind of replication. Is there any of your bookstore writings you'd want to plug before we wrap up here? Sure? Yeah, I mean I wrote a book that came out last year, UM called in Defensive Looting. UM. Came out UM with

bold type. UM. I am currently also writing. UM. I'm obsessed with movies. I write a movie review UM column for the Al Jazeera plus UM I did not know news letter. Yeah, the news letter sub stack. UM. If you want to read. I mean it's really it is really movie reviews. So if you want, you know, cranky anarchist theory, it's not the spot for you. UM. Otherwise, Yeah, I'm I'm on a pretty long social media break right now, but good for you there. Eventually I'll probably come back

inevitably unfortunately. Yeah, you know, I just have I have writing popping up every every now and then, and UM, and if you read it, I would appreciate it. Well. Yeah, totally wonderful. Thank you, and yeah, thank you for so much for coming on to talk about UM occupying stuff that I think a lot of people hear about, but you know, at least all of my generation does not fully kind of grasp it. Um it is. It is literally my pleasure. Like I you know, I wasted so

much of my life thinking about this. I'm so glad to be able to share some of it with some people. I'm so so glad you're able to join us too. This is I've I've been looking forward to us for a while. Yeah, that's very excited. All right, that wraps up us today. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram at cool Zone Media and Happen Here pod. We'll be back in for a few more episodes this week. Audios. Uh, that was the introduction, I did it, Sophie. Sophie is saying,

that's an acceptable introduction. You know what podcast this is. You clicked on it, so I don't need to tell you the title. I don't need to say who we are. I'm just going to dive right into the fucking episode. No I'm not. This is It could Happen Here a podcast about things falling apart and uh and what to maybe do to to arrest that and do something better

in its place, and uh. You know, folks who are are regular listeners who listened to the original scripted episodes of it could happen here the first fifteen episodes, which I certainly recommend to everybody. Know that one area in which I kind of separate from a lot of particularly more liberal folks and even some folks on the left is an embrace of the fact that, uh, firearms are sometimes necessary tools, especially in times of collapse when things get bad. Um. Now that said, we're also not uh

kind of gun culture people here. We try not, for one thing, recommend that everybody necessarily pick up a gun. There's a lot of people, perfectly nice people who shouldn't have them, who don't need to have them, you know, if you're dealing with suicidal ideation or whatever. We're not. The point is, we try to be very careful about how we we talk about firearms as a potentially useful you've been potentially necessary tool in the times that we're in.

And today, since we're a few weeks into this, we've covered producing food, We've covered some medical stuff. We've talked about uh, community organizing, and a number of other things that I think our priorities for most people before you know, getting strapped. Today we're gonna talk a little bit about getting strapped. And my guest today is Paul. Paul, do you want to kind of introduce your background in brief

so people know why why you're on here. Sure, Robert, I was in the Marine Corps and infantry, and after that I went to security consulting and then to the Federal Protective Service and finally the A T F some of our funnest agencies. Yeah, all my favorite organizations there. Well, they're better than the the what is it, the f d A. Yeah, they beat the f d A. I mean in terms of body count, they're certainly better than the f d A. And what what do you do now,

Paul that you're you're you're out of that line of work. Uh, well, I do two things. I got a day job at disney World and then, uh, the side gig is we run a explosives and machine guns supply company, also body armor, a handful of other things, but that's the big thing is destructive devices. Yeah. And uh, you've you've got I think experience that a lot of people, particularly on this

side of the political I'll lack. You know. One of the one of the downsides of kind of rejecting the federal government in the military and all its forms, is that there's a lot of people who may accept the validity of being armed and don't really have much in the way of practical training, and firearms are tools that to use most efficlessly do require training. In practice. You can't just um, you can pick them up and be dangerous, but not in a way that is particularly protective to

you in your community. Oh yeah, Um, so I wanted to talk about kind of recommendations and and everything. We talk about nothing. We're not talking in the context of forming a militia or in the context of you know, showing up with guns to to yell at people at a protest. If that's the thing you're choosing to do, that's a whole different ball game. We're talking about, um, kind of responsibly arming yourself and your community in a way that is not going to get you in legal trouble. Um.

It is also not going to endanger them. Because one of the things you have to accept about firearms is that, um, there's a risk you know, related to owning a firearm. Um. Not just the risk that like you know, suicide risk raises if you have a gun in the house, but just um, if you don't use them properly. Even carrying a gun, you know, it's not unheard of for people carrying guns to have those weapons taken from them and used against them. It happens to police, and it happens

to to armed citizens. So it's it's a matter of um, you know. I think when you accept that you're going to be armed, there's something incumbent upon you to understand the risks of being armed. And I guess that's kind of where I want to start, Like, what are some of the big pitfalls you see people uh fall into, like um that I think traditionally training is supposed to

help allay to some degree. Uh. Well, probably number one is uh Grandpa has gone in the closet that's been there for forty years unfired, and somebody just picks it up and throw some ammo in it to go Huna deer, and you know it's got a barrel obstruction or something

that just blows up, you know. Um. But number two and and the one that can be mitigated by training rather than just general uh not being stupid, because it's kind of stupid to pick something up that's really old and just try to shoot it is um not shooting yourself. And when you do go out to the range, not shooting other people, and then not shooting people in your own home. Um, you know, you don't as much as

you might want to, say, defend your own home. Do you want to shoot your wife when she comes home at two thirty in the morning, uh, after work and wakes you up? And there are ways to mitigate that, and and it's really easy and it's really cheap. So yeah, let's let's let's start with some of those just if you're if you're new too, if you've decided I need a gun for whatever reason, you purchase a gun. Um, you know, I think the most basic first things are

in terms of like actually making that relatively safe. Is number one, knowing which which kind of firearm to purchase? And number two, And these are not in order of importance, These are both very important. Number two is securing that weapon properly, as opposed to just having it laying loose in the house, which is never the best place. The best way to store a firearm, is it. Um, yeah,

I mean I I own a number of personal firearms. Um, you know, I'm in my office right now where I got a locked door where nobody can get in, and I got a gun safe back behind the monitors. Um, and you know, I'm comfortable with that. But if if it was in a place where kids could get at it, you don't want to just stuff it in, uh, in a sock in the closet, which is actually what my

mom did when I was a kid. Yeah, I mean safe storage and I mean really being able to identify your target is probably the biggest preventer of like inter family accident because I know, you know, we do talk about safe storage, kids and all that. But um, back to the wife coming home, if you just put a light on your gun, a hundred dollar light, you can look at the thing that you're shooting in the middle of the night and uh not shoot someone you don't

want to shoot. Yeah. I would go so far as to say that, like, if you've got a home defense weapon without a light on it, um, you don't fully have a home defense weapon. Yeah, you know, Um, it's gonna be useless in roughly half of the situation. And statistically, like if you're looking at when people are actually tend to be endangered in their own homes, the vast majority

of the situations in which you might be in danger. Um, when it comes to weapons selection, Uh, this is another area where like if you go on maybe one of the worst places in the world to have this discussion as Twitter, because everybody has the opinions on Twitter. Um. I tend to say because I think most people when they're looking for a first gun, if they're if they're committed, just like thinking of personal defense, they're going to go

for like a lock or something. And I think unless you're planning on carrying a gun, And you can correct me if you disagree here, but I tend to think a handgun again, unless you're intending on carrying a concealed weapon, is the last thing that you should own as a gun owner. Um. I got a mixed opinion on that. I mean, yeah, I think that, uh, the handiness of a handgun can outweigh some of the issues. I know

you guys dealt with fires up there, we have hurricanes. Um, being able to stick a handgun into a backpack you know it can go a long way, or being ab um, keep keep it on you in your car because here we're depend on state laws. Everything you say depends on state laws. Yeah, there are states where you can yeah. Yeah, if you're in California and you're in one of the counties that it doesn't issue a concealed carry of license

like l A. It's really hard to get one. From what I understand, you got to get to San Berndino if you want to get one of those. Yeah, I mean, first off, like tooth, I got a short list of guns, and like two thirds of the list illegal in California. They're they're not roster. But for what's most usable against our most handy, it's probably a handgun. But if you're expecting a threat more than like thirty feet away, have something other than a handgun. Handguns they suck at hurting people,

they suck at killing people. Yeah, they're they're ineffective. They're hard to use, I mean, say thirty ft away. But if you're not training regularly, hitting something reliably in a stressful situation at thirty with a hand can be difficult. It's not easy. Yeah, um, it's not easy, and I tend to recommend number one. There are some options, like even if you're sticking with a handgun, there are different

kind of um like uh options for that. Like I I'm a big advocate of pistol caliber carbines, which is essentially the size of a small rifle so you can fit them easily in a backpack. Every backpack I've owned, you can you can stick something like um like a Sazy scorpion and without much difficulty. And because they're so When you're talking about what makes a weapon easy year to use, number one of the number one things is size. So the longer the barrel, the more accurate it is.

The heavier the gun, the less recoil is a problem, the easier it is to use it. Range um and a pistol caliber carbine. You know, you stick a light on that. That's a really good home defense weapon. Oh absolutely, yeah, I mean especially uh people will argue about the different types of magazines, but if you buy one that takes a glock magazine and you have a glock, you can build a full little load out that's just takes all the same magazines. One is more accurate, one is a handgun, UM,

and you know all the same AMMO. You're not having to uh figure out and read a bunch on on what kind of AMMO you need and stuff like that. You just buy one and it works for everything. Yeah, And when when you're talking about AMMO, I think one of the most important things, like especially if you're worried about a survival situation is availability? Um, which is the nice thing about like what we call the NATO caliber.

So the NATO calibers are nine millimeter seven six two by fifty one better known as three o eight your grandpa's hunting rifle seven te um or it's thirty six but whatever, UM and then five five six slash two to three and those are the rounds that's like five six is the standard. That's what's in your bog standard a r UM. And so almost no matter what happens, UM, including you know Ammo crunches, you will be able to find some amounts of the calibers genital through your neigh

and you're going to find a box of bullets. They might not even own a gun and they got a boxing nine millimeter. Yeah, everybody's got nine millionaire and UM. So yeah, I think that the basics of like, um, what to get if you're looking at kind of just a basic defensive arm. UM, you know how to store it safely? You know, those kind of questions are important,

UM when it comes to training. Uh, what are some of in your opinion, like the mistakes that you see people make when it comes to kind of of practicing training with their weapon. Um, going to an n R a basic like four hour class and thinking that you are a god. Um, they're there are people who have spent um five days a week going to classes and doing training. Because there's practice and then there's training. Training is where someone teaches you something. Uh, practices where you

go with what you're already taught. Right. Um, So there there are people that spend all that time and there's still not the best in the world. Um, there are people who do a ton of practice. Jerry Micklich, you know, I don't know if you ever seen him shoot, but he's uh, he's like the fastest gun in the world or something like that. Um, his videos are crazy. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean he'll he'll outshoot a full auto gun. Yeah, with with revolvers and it's just like, you know, it's

just absolutely mind blowing. Um. But now he's like he's like he's like Michael Jordan or something. You know, you

just get people who have it's just that natural ability. Um, certainly married with a practicing But yeah, continue, if if you had a fight, a gunfight, which they really don't happen that much, but if you had a gun fight between Um, a guy with a high point C nine who had taken the cheapest quote reliable handguns on the face there if you had a guy with that that had had paid five hundred dollars for a training class over weekend and still went uh went to the shooting

range every week and practiced, and um or not even every week, just every month, and then did dry fire drills once a month in his garage or whatever. Versus a guy who went out and bought a Wilson Combat three thousand dollar nineteen eleven but had only taken the n R A class. I will bet on the guy with the eight or the C nine all day long, um, even if he's only got one bullet, you know, yeah,

don't don't care, He'll win. And often like for all of it, for all the guys you see, you know, with in all of their tactical gear and whatnot and their spare mag's taking a three hundred rounds out. If you actually look at most defensive shootings, um, it's very common and I think like like three to five rounds, three to five rounds generally closer than thirty feet, sometimes closer than like ten or fifteen that sits in my pocket most of the time. It's nineteen It's so tiny. Um.

It has more bullets than I'll ever need to gunfight. Probably, I think I want to pivot from this point to um. We started this by it introducing that you you spent some time in the A t F, spent some time in the FPS. I haven't had any personal interactions with the A t F, but I have met some FPS guys support. You know, I'm kind of curious, especially as because I came in contact with you through your through

your Twitter, where you're very my personal Twitter. Yeah, and you're you're quite politically active now, um in a way that I think is surprising people for someone with your background. Are you comfortable with kind of tracing sort of the broad strokes of your journey there, because I think that's instructive um for folks oh at FPS specifically, well, just kind of what brought you from there to hear? Oh um. So I got kind of uh, oh man, what What's what's the word for when you just get uh? I

don't know. I just I got to a point. I showed up for for work at four thirty in the morning, and I was literally shuffling through some some paperwork and and was getting ready to file a warrant and just kind of realized I I didn't think that it needed to happen, And you know, I talked to my supervising agent about it, and UM, was kind of told too bad, and and I put in for some vacation time him and ended up putting him a resignation while I was on vacation. I mean that that's the gist of how

I became not a cop. Yeah, And UM, I'm wondering, kind of what do you think? Is there anything that kind of I don't know what looks different to you now as you've kind of left that behind. Was it like sort of, Um, I'm guessing there's like a period like a goldfish, you know, in a new bowl of of acclamation to to life outside of being a cop? Um? Like, what what were the first kind of things that started to shift in your perspective when you left that that

thought space. I'll tell you what, watching or reading whatever, an article or a YouTube video, especially now that body cams are more and more prevalent, is watching something, reading the the press release and going But that's that's not what happened like I just watched it, and and and going from being able to justify it in your own mind and literally argue with people and be a hundred percent convinced like that was a good shoot. Um Castillo,

what it was? Philandro Castillo? Yeah, oh god? And he was, man, if you've if you've gotten lost track of this shooting in between all the others. Filando was a black man, a legal gun owner with a legal concealed carry permit, who was pulled over with his girlfriend and child in a car and hands on the wheel, told the officer he had a gun, uh, and got shot. Um, you know,

and it did the thing you're supposed to do. Although now actually since then, you will get like some states will and some training classes will recommend if it's not legally required and you're carrying a gun, don't say anything for that reason. But I mean, yeah, the command to not reach for the gun to being shot multiple times in the chest was like under two seconds. Hum. So I mean, I mean the decision was already made as soon as as soon as he gave the command, the

decision was made. And here's what that brings me to in terms of a question that's relevant to the topic of community self defensive potential community armed self defense, because that's not that is a that is a cop problem, but that's not just a cop problem. And what happened everybody problem in the chop and the chairs in Seattle,

the the autonomous zone is evidence of that. You had this situation where people, after nights and nights of mostly inaccurate warnings about proud boys coming to attack, got amped up. They had guns, some kids drove by in a car and they fucking shot him to death. Um. And it is the same, it's the same mental thing happening. You don't have to have a badge for that, that mindset to infect, especially when you're carrying a gun. Um, how

do you, in your opinion, fight back against that? Buck chill? Uh? You know, like like honestly, Um, if you were a teenager, which we grew up in almost the same place you're from, Plane, Oh, I'm from Capel, so I would have argued with you about them being the same place when the same but they're the same place. Yeah, they're absolutely the same place. Yeah one has uh one has uh woot dot com and the other one has raytheon so you know, and

a bunch of hospitals. Um. But uh, you and I grew up in the same time, same place, same types of schools. How many times did you see in like high school or even middle school, just a guy hit on a girl and then the girl's boyfriend comes over and just starts fighting him, like like like the guy had no reason to know, he didn't know he was doing anything wrong. Um. And I'm not suggesting, I'm sorry.

What I'm pointing out is that, Um, it's almost ingrained in us at a societal level to to react violently to maintain like our personal position. And if that means that I'm in my neighborhood and I don't recognize someone, it may seem like violence is the right way to go. That's actually what what you're doing. When like what's it called, Karen ng You know where you call somebody the black

kid yell uh selling water bottles or whatever. Um, I know that was one in New York where the police came and harassed you know, some like twelve year old black kids because they were selling water bottles. Um, it's the same thing. I mean, you know in that case, you're not personally doing the violence, You're just calling somebody else to do it for you, um, because you know the police are kind of violence, violence of monopoly and

all that. Yeah. Yeah, and that's some one of the most I think important things about that is the idea of UM violence is like like when you when you're willing to accept violence to kind of maintain your your your social position or something. UM. And I think that has a huge amount to do with with the kind of violence you see UM at protests with like we've had, you know, protests quote unquote security here in Portland, people of declaring themselves security and what does that mean shooting

other kids within guns for graffiti? Like, but it is it is a matter for it's they're not doing it to protect anybody. They're doing it because they've declared themselves security. Somebody doesn't listen to what they say and their ego is hurt. It's the same thing that again cops do. It's this it's a human mindset. It's not just a a cop mindset. And UM, I think you when you're talking about like, I think there's a couple of things.

Number One, if you're going to be armed and if you're going to be armed in a community self defense role, one of the things you have to accept, is that, like you're not, as a person who is armed and cares about the defense of your community, you're not a separate thing from them. I think that's one of the areas where which policing goes wrong. May view yourselves as separate. Yeah, and I know you guys have a big problem with that. Um,

we do here too. I live in a metro and our metro police, like them, don't even live in the county. They all go the same here. Yeah. Yeah, they don't even not just the city, they don't live in the whole county. Um. And that's despite they get a living allowance if they'll live in the city, and there's a bunch of if they live in the city, they get a take home car. There's a bunch of incentives to try and get people to live here, and they still

won't do it. They want to go live in the next sheriff over, the next county where yeah, we have a very vocal sheriff the next county over. Who's who's really racist and all that ship? Um? And I yeah, I think if you're if you're talking about like the potential of again of like armed community self defense, Um, you almost I almost would prefer phrasing it differently community self defense, you know, UM, which should community? Yeah, yeah, community,

And you're not the gun isn't what you are. You're not you're not security, you're not self defense because you're armed. Your self defense because you're a member of the community. And if you personally choose to be armed, that is an option that is expanded to you specifically because you're armed. But it doesn't change fun. It shouldn't change what you are. And if it does, there's a phrase that I think is really useful, um, the finger pulls the trigger and

if you want to avoid or the trigger pulls the finger. Sorry. And it's this idea that when you show up armed, and you're showing up armed as someone like your purpose there is to be armed, you're at at heavy risk of the weapon guiding your responses. Um. And that's the most important thing in any circumstance to avoid if you're carrying a weapon. If um, if you've got a hammer, everything's a nail is yeah. Well and and uh, the last twenty years we've had kind of a with the

War on Terror. You've seen a proliferation in media around UM making Navy Seals and all that ship look really really really cool. Uh, every other movie is about that, even though like really they're just drunk guys who yell at people a lot and who occasionally commit murder to protect Or Was that was that the Seals? Was that the Green Berets who killed that guy to protect a drug trafficking Greg? I mean probably both. Oh you know

that that was the Green Berets in North Carolina? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean it crosses all all borders. Um. But one thing that's come out of that is we we've started to call those guys operators. Right, So you've gone from a gun being a tool that someone trains there to use too, they are merely an operator of a weapons system. Um. And it it's kind of dehumanizing, like it it allows you to get out of the thought on that. Um, it's exactly what you were talking about. Where where the

triggers really pulling the finger at that point? Um? Yeah, And it's it's I think there's a number of I don't know, there's a number of tactics and more than we can get through, and that we'll be talking with some other community to self defense people at some point in the near future about this, because this is a big topic, right, and it's not one I haven't seen anyone do it super well yet in the United States, like we anytime you have kind of persistent right wingers

do every once in a while. Yeah, yeah, they take over blm Land. Yeah, but then they die. I forgot about that. Yeah they did die, get killed. Um. And I think that it's it's a it's a really messy topic because of you know, what you brought up is a valid point, all the everything that all the kind of social baggage there is around weaponry in this in this country and in our in our culture, this kind of like worship of the gun. And if you think like the left is any more immune to that than

the right, you're wrong. You see the same you know, toxic behavior all around. You have to be extremely cognizant of it, even if you know it's something at the risk for there is um weapons in general have a mental impact on us carrying them. Um. And there is there is a level of just like being around weaponry

that is entrancing. It's it's a human thing. You know, we make weapons, it's we're tool using apes and weapons are some of the first tools that we made that that are responsible for why you know, we get to tell the dogs and the cats what to do. UM. And you have to you have to really approach being armed from a standpoint of rejecting a lot of that

if you're going to do it responsibly. I mean, among other things, the idea that you might have to use a gun UM has to be you're you're very close to your worst nightmare, UM, because it would be it would be if you ever actually had to use one. UM at minimum, you're talking like when you actually look at like legal self defense shoots, you're talking minimum. The next if you kill somebody, at least minimum, the next year of your life is dealing with the legal consequences

of that. Sure, and probably hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yeah, I mean, if you're having if if if IF file, if charges get filed, you're talking hundreds of thousands of

dollars for like a capital defense case, if not millions. Yeah, And and that's in you know, there's one of the gun YouTubers that I like to push people towards it for this kind of stuff is a guy named Paul Harold, who is certainly more on the conservative side, but who actually killed somebody in a self defense and went through

the whole legal s f afterwards. And he has a couple of videos where he talks about it and he gives I think, pretty good advice on that that is that is completely without ego, because it's it was a nightmare for him. It was the worst experience of his life, which is what it's going to be if you ever have to use a gun, and that should be like, that should be the top of your that should be

the top of your mindset. You know, I've been in this situation a couple of times at protests where like someone pulls a knife and starts lunging at people and I have a gun and I'm fifteen feet away, and I never drew in part because it never quite crossed that line for me, and I knew that giving people the chance to deescalate was vastly more important than um

introducing a second weapon to the situation immediately. And if things had gone differently, perhaps I would feel differently about my choices in that moment, But um, they didn't and nobody got hurt. And that's always the best case scenario, even if it's somebody you really dislike who is who is threatening people with a weapon. I swear that happened up in Olympia like two weeks ago. Yeah, well the shooting in Olympia, which was a guy named Tiny who

got shot. Um, and there's video of it. It's absolutely not a legally justified shoot for sure. Like, yeah he was he was like forty feet away, you know. Um, yeah, but he's really tall. He is big, he is I think that counts for something. He was tall, he was tall, he was chasing them, he was armed. Um. Not making a moral case here. I think legally they would have had a trouble had they stayed around. Now, of course they've got I believe they've been arrested at this point.

Oh have they? I just heard visits think so so sorry. I don't mean to crash it for a second. I think I saw our best friend Andy post something about three days ago. Three Yeah, okay, so they did. They did arrest the guy. Yeah, And it's you know, it's another thing if you, um, if you feel if if you're involved in like a shooting that you feel is a justified legal shooting, Um, you don't. You don't leave

the scene. Uh. And in fact, one of the better videos you'll get on like what to Do and uh, this guy's life has gone to ship because of the political nature of your shooting. But the guy in um in Denver who shot that dude at a protest, the pinker, I'll tell you, you know, no, no matter what you want to say about whether or not it was a good shoot, yeah that that he dropped that fucking guy, he dropped head down on his knees. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

it was. You know, again, the court case is not settled out, so I don't know if that guy's story is going to end happily. But in terms of if you want to not get shot yourself and you want to have the maximum chance of defending yourself if you have to shoot somebody in a situation that's legally justified, what that guy did after the shoot is how to handle it, um, And I mean the evidence for that

is he did not get shot. And obviously your mileage with that's going to vary depending on your skin color. Uh yeah, that's a big factor. Yeah. In terms of actual training, people can like pay for if they if they want to take that step, which I think is a good idea. UM who do you do. Do you have kind of like broad recommendations for how people can know if some things you know, because there's this is

certainly a space where there's a lot of grifters and whatnot. Um, yeah, I mean most of the beginner level uh, how to fight with a gun classes are two to three days long like that. That's a good starting point is the fact that you're going to pay probably three to five hundred dollars per day, um, and it's going to be multiple days long. You can't because you're going from a baseline.

You know, they know you already know how to a point and shoot a gun, but they're going to go up from everything on how to draw, how to move, how to reload. Um, you're gonna have some classroom time going over their specific safety instructions and stuff like that. Um. But anything you can do in one day or four hours or forty rounds or whatever, it isn't going to

cut it. Um. You need to go get something, and you need to listen because they're going to ask you to do things that might not be the way you want to do it. You might say, yeah, that's not the way my dad taught me how to reload a handgun. Um. A good example is actually um Tactical Response in Tennessee. They a lot of people hate them, but they have a very specific way that they say, everyone reloads this way in our class. You know, you put it in

and you sling shot the slide. Um. And and people will argue and go, well, I want to just press the button. Well the button is cool and all, but we want you to sling shot the slide. Just do it for this class. Um. Sorry, I got a little off topic there. No, no, no, that that's a good point too, because I mean, just go and listen, um. And you don't have to take everything away. You take what you saw as good usable information and merge that with what you already know, maybe throw away some of

what you already know. When you've got this ball a goo that you can work with for practice. Um. Yeah, yeah, and yeah it is. And to that point when you're talking about like training, one of the differences between handguns and rifles, Like all all shooting, as always, there's a degree of perishable nous to it, but shooting a handgun is a much more perishable skill than shooting a rifle. Um. And it's it's so if you're going to be armed

with a handgun. Um, it really behooves you to take to train, you know, because you're only as good as how often you've been out there, really uh um, and having a state a good foundation like taking some real professional classes will help a lot in that as opposed to just kind of going out to the range every

now and again. But yeah, um, let's talk at the s. The last little bit of this here about kind of the gun that's always on the tip of everybody's tongue when you start talking about being armed and armed self defenses. You know, the A R platform. Um, it's a gun with a lot of baggage, a tremendous amount of cultural baggage, and it's it has become vastly more than just a firearm in our culture. Um what a what? What do

you what? Are kind of? Because I am a big advocate of people who who are open to being armed getting an A R platform. I think it's a great gun to learn. I mean it goes yeah, it goes bang really well almost every time, as long as it's from a reputable manufacturer. Um, despite what some people say, they're very reliable. Um, they're easy to clean, literally as long as you keep them lubricated, even in the field, you keep it lubricated, it will just just keep banging

out rounds um it functions. And you know, we talked about this during the episodes on like you know, food storage and in and whatnot. Like where there's a there's the there's the cheap version. I like stuff where there's there's the cheap version that works, and there's the expensive version that works. And you you have that with an A R. You can get a very inexpensive A R, and you can you can replace every part of that are over the next five years and have a six

thousand dollar gun. I I did um minor price checking last night because I was like, you know, I haven't checked the price the retail prices on stuff right. So in like your your budget tier normal price that that's out right now, you've got like a Ruber a R five five six. There's seven hundred bucks. That's that's dirt cheap, and it's gonna go bang just the same read gun. Yeah. I have a friend who who's who's a R is A five five six and they're very solid. Yeah, they

just they go bang every time. You're not going to break up. Um. I mean, as long as you don't use it like a baseball bat, you're not going to break up, especially now that the Russian steelcase damo has been banned. But then, like the the other end of the spectrum is you got a sick right, Yeah, I've got a couple. Okay, So you know what the rattler is? Oh yeah, that's a fun one. I do not own a rattler, but they are They are cute. Do you know how much? Well, first off, the rattler it's a short,

bare old five five six. It's not really an air of fifteen, but like technically it kind of is. Yeah, um, and it's well, how about this, how much do you think that the rattler costs? Right now, don't don't go look it, just just ta probably bucks would be my guests. Now it's uh now, I actually put it in my category of honorable mentioned slash meme because it's kind of a meme gun. Uh it's so tiny, um, but I

don't want to get shot with it. But that's kind of the spread we were talking about, which is, you know, you can get a seven dollar gun and it'll go bang the exact same way as the rattler. UM. It fires the same bullet um, and you can build up to something not like a rattler, but you can build up to um a bunch of Novesky parts. You can throw a bunch of Novesky parts into that ruger lower and upper that you bought and build a really awesome

gun that will be you know, reliable. Yeah, yeah, and you can you know, I think generally if you're buying like a again, you're you're getting kind of a bargain basement. Are one of the first things that that it's going to behoove you to replaces the optics. You know, it'll probably start with ion sights. But these don't even come with anything. Yeah, usually they come with nothing on them and you have to stick the irons or you stick

a reflex site. There's a whole world of um of optics, and I think one of the actually one of the websites I recommend people check into if you're looking and kind of reading up on this and and doing your due diligence is Pew Pew tactical Um. They do not written from like a super you know, chutty or whatever. Like. You get a lot of very political gun websites that may have some good information but are frustrating to read.

They're not that way. They're written. You know, four people who are not super aggro about guns, but who are are are interested in guns, and you can find really good reviews on stuff. But as a general rule, modern optics beat iron sights every day of the way, like they prefer I I and I do in some case on my a case, I vastly prefer using irons, But that would never be the weapon I would pick if I was in a situation where I needed a weapon, you know. Yeah, I mean I think everyone should learn

how to use iron sights, absolutely. But if I can hand someone a four and fifty dollar a point pro which which is uh the budget version of a high end optic, if I can put a four D and fifty optic with the mountain everything onto a rifle and just go, hey, just just put the dot on what you want to shoot, You're done. Um. Now, there's a lot that goes past that, but we got rid of the entire proper site alignment and all that. They just

got to put the dot on the box and squeeze. Yeah. Yeah, I mean even even the Marine Corps famous for for fielding marksman has gone we're going to switch over to optic based training. Yeah, they're just I mean you look at even guys in like id Lib Province, which is like one of the rebel provinces in Syria that's been persistently under siege for most of the last decade. Um, they're all using fancy optics now like that generally alfin

Ali Baba versions of like brand optics. But does the trick you know, I mean it's a it's a sig Romeo that never got the role market for cig on, Yeah, exactly, and they paid a hundred bucks instead of Yeah. Um, alright, Well, I think that's most of what we can responsibly get through. I do want to end on the caveat we started with this with, which is that um deciding whether or not.

And I we advocate, uh, firearms is an option both as a legal option and something that can be for your community and for you as an individual potentially practical. I don't blanket advise people to buy guns. I think in many cases it's going to be counterproductive. I think you should not own a firearm. Again, if you're someone who struggles with suicidal ideation, they they can be a very dangerous thing to have in your home if that's something that that you battle with. I do think that

they can be owned and used very responsibly. In addition to I think shooting can be a really enjoyable pastime. Um, and I think more than anything in a whole bunch of people who are talking about killing you all have guns. It can behoove you to own a firearm as well if you're a member of one of those communities. So please don't take any of this. As Robert Evans says,

everyone go buy a gun. But if you're going to buy a gun, there's there's a right way and a responsible way to go about it, and there's you know, picking up a random twelve gauge and shoving it under your bed, which is no more shotguns for home defense. Yeah they're not. They're not ideal. Um. Yeah, I mean we can, we can talk about over penetration and stuff, but yeah, I mean just being able to move lead in a direction. They're very bad at it. Yeah, um yeah, yeah,

they're they're they're not. They're not. I mean again, something like uh an a R or a pistol caliber carbine is in a lot of situations going to be a much more practical and and have less risk of hitting stuff you don't want to hit necessarily get get the high point? Um, yeat the yeah they eat cannon. Well we'll discuss that on our whole episode of about high Points. So you've shot yourself in the dick the high points story. All right, Well, um, do you wanna Paul, you've got

any got anything to plug before we roll out here? Uh? Give food to homeless people? Well houseless, houseless I think is yeah. Um, and if you're in an area with a based d S A joined the d S I and then vote out the ship libs. That's what's happening here in Orlando. Um, but yeah, embrace anarchy. Well, I'm Robert Evans. This has been a podcast and uh and remember as we sail out, there's a reason the episode talking about guns came after the episodes talking about storing

and growing food. Welcome back to the it could happen here. Yeah, that's the podcast we're doing right now. It's a podcast about how things are kind of falling apart, but maybe they don't need to, or at least not as much as they have been. I'm Robert Evans with me, as often is my co host Garrison. Davis Garrison, UM say something inciting to the audience. I'm on my second cup of coffee. Yeah, because it is. It is the early morning for you, by which I mean to eleven in

the afternoon. UM, also with us today. Our guest for this episode is David van Douson. Uh. David, you are the president of the State Labor Council for the Vermont a f l c I O and there's a bunch of stuff that's interesting about your organization. Will dig into it in more detail in a second, but first I just want to say hello and thank you for being on the show. Now, David, the big thing, I mean, the Vermont a f l c I has been in

the news a couple of times recently. The most recent one is y'all issued a statement making you the coverage I've seen has said the first labor organization of the US to like support gun rights. I mean like as is stated in a lot of the stuff you've put out, like Blair Mountain. There's a long history of labor organizations

making use of the Second Amendment. But UM, I certainly haven't heard of a labor organization stating at the way you did, which is basically the case you've made, is because far right fascist organizations are so heavily armed and any gut all of the gun control policies being heavily debated, at least among liberals, are likely to ignore those people while restricting the ability of working class and particularly marginalized

people to arm themselves. Um, you do not support those regulations because you support the rights of those groups to be able to defend themselves from fascists. That more or less correct. Well, Look, we believe in the right of the people to defend themselves, but our policies, including that one, are not adopted by the elected leadership, including myself. They're adopted by our members. We believe very firmly and democracy

participaty democracy. So with issues like this, we're happy to bring into our convention, which we recently did, and facilitate a full debate on the issue. So that's exactly what we did. We talked about it, our rank and file members talked about it. They made amendments, They debated passionately different sides of the issue in a respectful way, in

a productive way. A number of amendments were made they were adopted, and then ultimately the resolution was passed with over a two thirds majority of our right file delegates

in favor. So that's where we are right now. Yeah, I've read a bit about this, including you know, there's been some critiques from a representative from the a f T, which is the local teachers union, but there was also a member of the Vermont a f l C i oh who essentially stated, like, hey, I didn't actually agree with this amendment but or with this resolution, but it was made democratically, and like I I support the process by which it was done, which is one of the

things I think is is so interesting here that this isn't like um UM a kind of a group of activists at the top making declaration declarations. This is an organization that is really um dedicated itself. Increasingly too, I think a kind of progressive ism that we we haven't really seen in an organized way, and a lot of the American labor movement until recently. Well, when you're talking about democracy in the labor I mean we could be just as well talking about democracies in society as such.

The fact is is that organized labor today is not particularly democratic and we're looking to change that, and our world is not particularly democratic now. The vision that we hold our slate, our progre us of slate called United, is one where we increased the means for direct protruciserary democracy, both within labor and within our society. So of course we're going to go to our members and our rank and file and ask them to debate the issues of our day and ultimately to make a decision on these

major political and social issues. This was one we again, we do believe that people need to have a rite, the working class needs have a right to defend itself, and we can't bury our head in the stand. Anybody that's even followed a little bit of the news lately will know that between November up until late January, we were one general shy of a coup in this country, in the upside down world that we're now living in.

It was because of the joint chiefs of Staff and the head of the c i A not supporting a coup that a neo fascist cou didn't totally in fold materialized in a more mature form. Let that sink inform it our democracy, or the vestiges of the democracy we have in the United States right now is precarious. Uh. They just because they've been there for two hundred years

doesn't mean they're gonna be there tomorrow. The new playbook from an increasingly far right Republican Party is to limit as much as they possibly could a people's right to vote and to participate in the political process. We see this happening in Texas, We see this happening in Georgia. We see this happening in Florida. We see this happening in Red. Uh. I shouldn't say red, but I should

say Republican states all throughout the US. So these are dangerous, dangerous times, right, so dangerous that our top generals were trying to decide what their position would be and make plans in case a coup, a full encoup, not just a hint of a coup, came into being within the last year of our republic. Now, given those realities and giving the eyes of the far right, given that our former president Donald Trump told the neo fascist Proud Boys

to stand what did you say, stand back and stand by? Yeah, that's right. And now at least they claimed that forty thous members around the United States and they are armed. Uh, you know, we can't just rest in our hurelds and and pretend that the state as such is going to keep us safe. So it seems prudent and reasonable for us to have taken the action and say we defend our constitutional right to bear arms as intended to defend our communities. They defend our unions, to defend the working class.

And one of the things that because we were just talking about the the coup that very nearly got pulled off your organization, at least in UH I believe it was right after the election, issued a statement that if the president illegally attempted to stay in power, the former president, you would participate in an attempt to help organize a general strike. Now that's something we talk about a lot on this show. We're big believers in the potential of

a general strike. Were also big believers that the kind of general strike that we need to i don't know, potentially get climate justice and a number of other major things is an undertaking on par with the space race.

You know, you're talking about an enormous task. I'm really interested in picking your brain on when we talk about a national general strike, what is the kind of infrastructure that's actually necessary to make something like that feasible, because there's a lot of talk on like Twitter and Facebook of like, let's just do a general strike on this day in October I six months doesn't go by, as President f l C I o ver month where I don't left this group of some kind of contacted me

to endorse their general strike, right going to shut down on datas and it's yet to happen, at least in our country. So that's a great question. A couple of things. When we voted, and again this wasn't a decision of

myself and the leadership. This was a decision we went back to the rank and file with to our to one of our conventions of our delegates, after our long debate, voted to authorize the elected deecutive Board to call for a general strike in the event of a coup, in the event that there wasn't transfer power on January as

the constitution requires. It was our feeling that in that very specific space and time, in that very specific political climate, um we would be able to call for such a strike and with a serious amount of work and a serious amount of organizing, pull that off and make that happen.

And the thought was if we could do it in Vermont, because the call was a further mon channel strike, then it could spread to other states, which would be absolutely necessary if there was if our country descended into a

fascist dictatorship of some sort. But generally speaking, when we talked about climate issues, when we talked about the fact that millions of Americans don't have healthcare or aren't paid little Way ages, all of these issues are at least these issues together certainly warrant us looking at things like a general strike, but they're a bit it's a bit phind this guide to think that, hey, we got ten grade issues that we want to see progress on, we're

gonna call for our strike is going to happen. The infrastructure is not there, nor is the political will within the large labor bodies at this praised present time. Without participation from organized labor, first of all, I don't think anything is going to happen. So you're gonna have to achieve buy in a certain level. But even with buying from key leaders or even a localized shop stewards, you

still need to have infrastructure in place. So one of the things that lacks in the a f l C I O As a national organization, we don't have an effective network of local union contacts in every shop, at every shift, in every factory that's represented by union, let alone the majority of workplaces at this point that aren't unionized.

So what our top priority is as far as the Vermontney fail diegos over the next two years is to build a network of local union contacts in every single shop and every single shift that we represent folks here in Vermont. So we see this as a way to

increase communication. Without communication, you're not going to be able to pull off mass mobilizations and with and also you're not gonna be able to conduct mass education on issues X, Y or Z. So over a period of two years, we're looking to build this network that would function not as a one way means of communication, but almost a two or three way. Imagine that this is a way for the rank and file to communicate up to the leaders.

This is a way for the leadership to communicate down to the ranks, I mean down to the lunch room level of what it means to be in a union shop. And also ideally it's going to be a way for local union leaders to horizontally communicate with each other. With such a structure in place on a grand scale, on a state scale, on a federal scale, then things like organized general strikes over political issues and social issues become feasible.

And even when they're feasible, though, then we still have the political question of you know, will they be supported by the internationals, will they be supported by the executive board of the National a f c O. And that's a huge conversation, you know. So, Yeah, it's interesting to me hearing your perspective on this, because my experience with kind of activism UM has been much more of kind of the decentralized and kind of much more recent groups,

you know, since occupy. Um, you're dealing with these these structures that in a lot of cases or I mean the A f l c I O goes back like what like a century, right one one way or the other. Yeah, you know, I think, UM, because of kind of how shall I say online, a lot of the discussion about this stuff seems to be organized labor often gets left out.

And one of the things that I think is most important when talking about the value that organized labor has in any kind of discussion if a general strike is what happened during the during the Jet UH negotiations or whatever you want to call them in twenty nineteen, where you you had UM airline workers threatening a general strike that effectively brought it into too a president's saber rattling

over over the budget like it's it's president Sarah Nelson. Yeah, headlines over that and that was the right thing to do about her and would love to sear in a stronger positional leadership the national level. Well, I'm interested because I I see a lot of potential in Obviously organized labor has had a lot of problems, particularly in the last you know, during my lifetime, UM, And I think part of it is what you said earlier, there's it's

not as democratic as it should be at most levels. UM. What you guys have done with United is attempting to reform that, you know within Vermont. I'm wondering, first, how did that kind of come about? You know, twenty nineteen is when you first got got put into office, when when the United State got put in the to the office in Vermont? What was kind of the back story

to that? And then my second is kind of what do you see as necessary to like what what what's what's the fight, as you see it, to get stuff like that done on a larger scale around the country. So our story in Vermont is probably a lot like the story of organized labor in many different places. Our starting point. So in two thousand and seventeen, not that long ago, ah, we had a convention with something like

twenty or twenty five delegates there. Imagine that twenty delegates representing ten at the time, ten thousand we've grown since the but ten thousand members that's called the democracy. So there was a problem, an existential problem. Now I come out of asked me localeen in the northeast kingdom of Vermont. So when I got together with a number of other leaders from different unions different asked me locals, but also United Academics is part of a f T the building trades.

A number of folks, there was a general recognition at the leadership level that something was very wrong. Member participation was weakest can be, and things have to change. And we continually as an organization, you know, with some exceptions, hitch our wagon to the shortcomings that are the Democratic Party. So all of these things together led to inactivity, apathy,

and lack of democracy. So we started going around, we started talking with workers, we started talking with shops across the state, and one of the first things that was striking people would say they would know what union there and be at a PW or asking or whatever it was. But we'd say, listen, we're talking. We're thinking about running a slate progressive slave for office with to take the a f l c i O in a new direction. The next thing they would say, is, what's the a

f l c I M think about that? Right, workers involved, some of which were union stewarts and their locals didn't even know what the a f l c I O was. So that was our starting point. It was an excellent crisis of labor. And mind you, during these what I would call some dark periods, we would often endorse a hundred candidates for state House, nearly all of which being Democrats, and then we they would win. They would win their elections, like largely our candidates win, and then we get nothing

in the state House. Right, There'd be no labor bill, there'd be no advance in a card check. Differently before the organized labor and yet we keep repeating the same mistake year and year out and not figure out that something was wrong. So when we formed the United State as a coalition of a number of different unions to recognized it was time for change, we really brought the discussion into the grassroots level. We developed a ten point

program we called our little read Book. It's now the policy and the platform of the Vermont a fl c I, and we ran an organized campaign based on that right at a very local level. And here we did all the things that you know you should be doing, the phone calls, the emails, the shop visits, all of this and created a sense of excitement going into our two

nine convention. Our two thousand nineteen convention with over if I recall over a hundred and five delegates and alternates, was the largest convention we had up here in in something like thirty plus years. So that was an exciting atmosphere where something was going to be different and something was going to change right. So we swept. We essentially slept those elections. We want all the seats except for one.

We had a follow up convention in two UM sorry election in two where we won every single seat, and then in the last election UM we won all seats except for one where one person who's a good, good person from the building trades ran but was not part of our state. So the real question is what have we done in the intern How are we changing that direct and how are we changing trying to seek to change the capacity of labor, and what lessons does it

add to the national room? How would suppose so on that? For one of the first things we did is we took money out of our lobbying operation and put it into an organizing department, whereby we would hire and we have hired on call organizers to assist our affiliates in either new organizing or internal organizing, therefore delivering an actual

benefits to our affiliate unions. Now, mind you, we represent just about every sector of workers all across the state, but forever they very rarely got a concrete, measurable acts of solidarity from the Federation as such, right because all of a lot of too many of the resources were put in belomming. And we also took a critical eye towards the Democratic Party, and recently we've instead endorsed the Social Democratic for more progressive party slates and their runs

for State House and state at office. In many cases, so we've done a few things differently we're continuing to do things differently. We've expanded the size of our executive board so you we elect more leaders now. We've more than double the size of the delegates afforded to each local so we could have more rank and foot file

voices present when we're meeting at a convention. And we've taken a strong um social justice position where we think that organized labor must work very closely in an alliance, form alliances with groups like Migrant Justice or Black Perspective or environmental organizations like three fifty dot org. And we've done those things, worked on their issues where we have common interests, and we've asked them to support us on art issues where where they may have some common interests.

So those are things that are very different that the national AFLC has not doing. Other state labor federations largely aren't doing enough. And we're hoping now to build that out. And we're engaging conversations seeking to form a national progressive

Caucus within the National Act. And I think that's so important when you talk about kind of on the national level for progressives number one to not not continually kind of reflectively support the Democratic Party when the Democratics parties is failing progressives, which you know, we have a perfect

case study right now in Congress with the the Reconciliation Bill. Um. It often does seem like such an insurmountable task just because the inability like a bill, the three point five trillion dollar infrastructure bill, is so widely supported by Americans, but it it just keeps coming down to this tiny number of folks with uh, you know, financial interests and donors, um, who are who are pushing against something that's widely supported.

And I feel um optimistic when I look at state organizations like what y'all are doing and the fact that I can see something building, but I also it does it is such a titanic task to imagine translating that on a national scale in a way that actually gets us the things that you know, we we really can't wait for when you're talking about some of this infrastructure stuff, when you're talking about healthcare, when you're talking about climate justice, Like,

I do feel the clock ticking um, and I'm wondering what you see as the hope on the national scale for actually putting some muscle behind the progressive movement. Well, look, it's not just the the issues of the Infrastructure bill and the budget bill. It's also the Proact right the bill that is language in the Senate. And let's not lose track of the fact that those efforts are all stalling and likely very likely to fail. And I hope they don't because of Democrats, because the Democratic Party is

not united. They ran on a platform saying they were going to do X, Y and Z, and now when they're in a position to carry it out, they are not going to do it. And Joe Manchin uh far as I'm concerned, uh column a class trader, but I don't think he's ever was part of the working class. He claims to support the Proact, but in the same breath he he won't get rid of the filibuster. So, I mean, that's absolute bullshit as far as I'm concerned.

So how do we change that? Well, the National a f l c I O puts millions and millions and millions of dollars into elections. We have gotten so many of these people elected and back them in Arizona and West Virginia, you name it, and then we get nothing back.

If we were to take that money instead and put it into a robust new organizing department or a recrafted organizing department and actually assigned reel on the ground organizers in every single state in the country to help our affiliates, to help our state federations and their affiliates to internally organized, to build a kind of network I talked was talking to me about before, and to be active and build alliance as the social justice group, our power would be

amplified five million fold. This is the way we do it. Politicians aren't going to do what's right because it's right. Politicians are gonna do what's right when they feel so much pressure that they have to do it. Now, the victories that we saw for working people during the Great Depression under FDR, that wasn't just because FDR thought, you know, this is the right thing to do. It's because people are going on strike, because people were organized because they

were scared of revolutionary change in this country. So turned to meaningful, true, true um major reforms as a way to blunt that perceived threat that they have. And that's what we got to get back to. Not our power is never gonna grow from people who are wearing ties in Washington. Our power is gonna grow based on our solidarity on the shop floor and in our communities. So that's the direction we gotta go, and we got to

do that rapidly, very rapidly. It's been clear to me for quite a while both that the reason workers gained so much in the way of the Great Depression and the only kind of hope we have for doing that now is UM, they have to be scared, you know, to an extent, they have to be scared of of what's arrayed against them, both in its organization and in

its ability to disrupt things. UM. And I'm wondering what you think people listening, people UM, who maybe are not involved in organized labor, Like what what what do you think people can do to further those ends? Like this is like when we when we start talking about national level a f l C, I O politics, that's not something I think most people listening feel like they have any kind of ability to influence. Um, what do you think they can influence? What do you think people can

be doing to build that kind of capacity. Well, you gotta be active, and you've got to engage in the political and social movements. But also most folks, you know, they're going to have a job of some time and a lot of folks aren't getting treated the way they should in their job. Don't care if you work in a coffee shop, in a restaurant, or in a gas station, or in manufacturing, and you could start by organizing with

your coworkers to form a union. Today, you know, you could reach out to a local union to ask for help where you could do it on your own. Frankly, but if we're not organized as working people, and we are we are most of the world. If we're not organized amongst ourselves, we're not going to be able to become that expression of power that we need to be

in order to create the change. If we're just a collection of individuals, then the ruling class, the wealthy, the powerful, the elite, they're gonna have all their ducks in a row to keep us divided and to keep their foot on the pedal of the status quo. So we need to come together, We need to organize in the natural place to organize is in the workplace. In my opinion, yeah, I mean it. It is the natural place to organize.

It's also become an increasingly difficult place to organize. We all watch what Amazon did in Bessemer this year, um

and and that fight is still ongoing to an extent. Um, but it is Uh, it is a continuing challenge, um to to actually effectively unionized in a lot of the industries where it matters most you know, um, like we have some choke point industries, like we talked about aircraft employees that are heavily unionized, thankfully, and that do have a lot of power, as has been demonstrated recently when

they when they go to the mat. Um. But I I'm interested in kind of we we've got, you know, Amazon employees is really one of the areas that I'm looking at where, my god, if if we could actually if something significant could actually get off the ground and a significant number of those workers could get organized, it could make a real difference. Um. But you know you've got effectively what are community organizations for the most part going up against um. You know, Amazon at this point

has more resources in most nation states. Yeah, but so did the Carnegies and the Rockefellas and the folks like this and and arm and it's always been hard, uh too long ago in our country, maybe during our grandfather's day, where there was a very good chance to be shot or at least beat over the head with a club from the Pinkerton's if you try to organize, organizing has never been easy, and such as Columbia today trade unionists are killed at an unbelievable clip, almost on a daily basis,

and yet still they organized. So I'm not suggesting to any of your listeners that if this is easy, what I am that it has to happen. It has to happen. And there's different models too, Like in some places, one of the models that's been effectively used as forming workers centers, right,

So that's not a traditional union. It's a center in a city, or in a community or in a town where workers come together and strategized right at a in a location, to st atogize how to be effective as a group, as a whole, as a class on issues that are important to them, you know, be an economic, be its social, be it um, finding against racism, whatever it may be. That's a model that I suggest folks

could could look into as an alternative way. If, for whatever reason, you don't feel that the time is right for a union in your shop today, although it needs to be tomorrow, take a look at workers center and see if there's one in your community. Get involved, if not get together a few people and see what it would take to start when where you live. But one way or another, we have to be organized, We have to come together. We cannot just be a collection of individuals.

That's a great point, UM, and useful information. I think kind of the last thing I wanted to get into UM was one of the things I first learned about your organization that you issued a solidarity statement back and I think it was two thousand nineteen UM with the YPG and J and Rojaba. UM. And you've issued you know it stated your solidarity with Black Lives Matter, with the Zapatista's currently what they're undergoing in Mexico UM, which

is massive repression from the government yet again. UM. And you know your support of Palestinian rights and of against sort of the U S occupation or not occupation, but a blockade of Cuba. UM. What do you see when we're talking about this struggle, this broad struggle we've be talking about all day, what do you see as the role of internationalism in both in both organizing people in organizing resistance. Well, our starting point today is capital is international.

So if we're going to have a foundational challenge to the power of capital. We also have to be internationalists in our outbow. We supported the YPG, the YPJ and the newly elected government in Rojaba because they are struggling for economic equity and a direct history democracy in that corner of the world. We see this as the most

significant revolution in in the world, uh in generations. I mean this in our mind is on far with the Spanish Civil War and what we saw around Barcelona and the c n T then or the Paris Commune of eight seventy one. If this was happening in Europe, a day wouldn't go by where this wouldn't be front page news. But in the Western world we often the corporate media

terms of blind eye too many of those starters. So they're doing their part, and we have to do our part in our country to the Zabatistas are doing their part in Schiapas in broaderways in some regards in Mexico as such, but we need to reach our hand out and encouragement and say hey, we're here to support you. One of the things we sought to concretely do in the Vermont labor movement is in two thousand nineteen one of our Central Labor count Council's passed the resolutions for it.

We said, look, if you go over to fight and volunteer with the YEPG and y PJ, because there's thousands of volunteers right uh, they're volunteered to go over, if you return and your American will hook you up with a union job, and we'll hook you up with three months of room and board so you could get reacclimated, you could get back into the community and get back

into the local fight through the labor movement. And we were proud to actually have an opportunity to do that for one returning American fighter in our latest resolution in two one, and this one was broader because it was the whole vermonti a FO, not just the Central Labor Council. We again offered, we encourage folks to feel so inclined if they're in that place in their life to volunteer with the YPG and y p A. And if they're Americans and they come back, we're happy to hook you up.

We'll do our best to get you a good union job when you return. So we felt that was a very small least we could do kind of thing, but concrete way to provide solidarity. We all have to stand together. It's really one fight. But the place we're going to be effective is where you live locally, in your town, in your city, and your state and in your country. Yeah. I think that's a great note to end on and

a great thing that you all are doing. And I really do appreciate that, and I appreciate you, David coming on and talking to us today. Um, is there anything else you wanted to to to get out or anything you wanted to like any you know, charities or or mutual aid funds or whatever you wanted to uh push before we kind of roll out today. I'd just like to push for folks to go to workout tomorrow and organize. Organize with your fellow workers and let's change the world solidarity.

Thank you, David. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to ask for your health. There is a Portland area woman, Ruba to mem She's an Arabic interpreter and a Palestinian liberation activist, and she is trying to save her home at the moment. She's got to go fund me. If you go to save Ruba's house, are you be a on go fund bank, you'll find it. Save Ruba's House on go fund Me if you've got a few bucks, um, she could really use it again. Save Ruba's House. Are

you be a at go fund Me? Thanks? Hey, We'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.