It Could Happen Here Weekly 61

It is three pm in the winter, so it's all of those at once. So for here that is true. That is true. It is seven here, it's regular evening time. Yeah, no winter included, you know, just rain Unhot's the two moods of the web. Yeah, which winter is it right now? Is did rain to a hot winter? Neither? There? Winters never? Well, I hope that winter never comes to the island. If it does, I think will be in some deep ship. You know. If you guys get snowing, its time frestle

to reevaluate our practices when that happen. Until the absolutely that means the parrots have migrated to Alaska. Oh, God, they knew a lot of movements around the evening time, so I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to pack up and leave us all behind. Well this is it could happen here as as you might be aware, a podcast about things falling apart, and today's episode is brought to us by Andrew Hello of the YouTube channel Andrewism. Just avoid confusion with other Andrews, you know, I did

not realize. Yeah, that's right, son of the Queen. Yeah, you know, you can talk about Prince Andrew. You can talk about Andrew teeth. You know, it's like distinguished myself, you know. Yeah, you're the best, Andrew. I appreciate that anytime, buddy. So I'd like to spend some time today tonight what is time really and to talk about the concept of d growth, you know, where it comes from, what it means, what it needs, and all that other fun stuff. Are

you guys familiar with the growth US as a concept? Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, I mean, and it's yeah, I I please please. I mean it's one of those things that gets a lot of like uh flak on one hand for people saying that it's basically eco fascism, and then you have folks being like, no, it's a it's a perfectly reasonable response to the kind of endless growth attitude that got us into the environmental catastrophe we're currently experiencing.

That's yeah, I think that Having released a video on Decruth last week and having read through some of the comments have received, um, I've come to the conclusion that's there's no getting through to some people. Yeah. People, people love to listen to like a third of what you say and then get really angry at what they think

you said. Every time we talk about like the value of of things like you know, the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective, you know, hacking different medicines or training people being medics. Somebody hops on the subred and said, I think it's kind of able. Is that they think that, you know, people can replace doctors with with street medics. Like, no one, no one's ever made that case. That that's not a

thing that anyone has ever said. I'm going to make it my entire life mission to only specifically make this case some gauze and water in a bag. Yeah, doctors, but they they must all die when the revolution comes. They will only be replaced the street that X, it's gonna be great. I'm texting all of this to our friends cover right now, Dr Whoda. Yeah, it's just it's just ridiculous. So people will literally project what they think you said onto what you actually said. It's very very

obvious when it's taken place. I don't know how they will feel embarrassed. You know, a lot of times I barely comment on things. I barely respond to things, and when I do, I check and recheck and re check what the person has said. Then I check and recheck and recheck what I see before I get the statement, because I don't know how do I feel embarrassed? Yeah, like everybody who has watched the video conceded you haven't

watched it. They've just had like a term search and then appeared and yeah, and like, yeah, come to engage you pretty much pretty much. But I mean, if I were to be a sleeve for the algorithm, I would say all that engagement helps, right, Yeah, yeah, I'm sure it doesn't helps. It helps one thing for sure, Yeah, help get us to a better place. Unfortunately, and speaking of things that do not help us get to a better place, I think it's the growth primarily is about

confronting this destructive ideology of growthism. You know, something we see all around us, something we interact with on a failure regular basis. You see the images of the Amazon rainforest being cut down to be um, turning into soy firms until eventually it's made into a cattle grease in fields. You talk about the constant expansion of oil infrastructure, You talk about the constant expansion of mining operations, You talk about the continued rise of fast fashion. That people are

extremely defensive whenever you try to criticize it. Um, all of these systems, all of these industries, all of these practices, is uh part of part and parcel, or rather products of this ideology of growth is um that capitalism is driven by. And I know it may be strange for some people to sort of deep program from this idea that growth is like an unadulterated could uncontroversially positive because

you know, natures like all about growth, right. You know, when you think of growth, you think of a plant speaking out of the soil. You think of a baby kitten growing up to be a cat. You talk about like babies becoming toddlers, becoming young children, becoming older children, becoming, you know, tweens and teens and then finally adults and then from there Joe biden. Um. But you know, there's this whole idea of growth, and that growth is like

a natural part of life. That is true. But growth in life does not go on and on and on and on. You know. Organisms grow up to a certain point and then they maintain a healthy equilibrium, or at least they try to. Um. Of course, health is not necessarily a natural state of affairs, because viruses are just as natural as the cells they attack. And then you can also get all uh femeral and talk about personal growth and how life is a constant journey of personal

growth and whatever. But speaking materially, we can physically, growth has a limit. People grow up to a certain height, certain size, and so on, and when growth doesn't stop, that's when we start run into problems. As I understand, the reason that cancer is so difficult to cure is because your own body turning against you. It's your it's some of the many trillions of your own cells deciding okay, time to just grow and grow and grow without limit.

And what happens in most of those cases, and many of those cases rather unfortunately people die as a result. So our bodies and our own bodies, we understand that growth is not always positive, and yet that's sick logic of growth for its own sake is exactly what the global economy relies on. So that's just think that's too

much growth, too much money, too much stuff. And you have all these wealthy nations to continue to expand and grow and attempt to hold I heard one person use the analogy a camemberhood was um talking about how capitalism is now attempting to the new frontiers. For capitalism is to expand and colonize our own minds um. And so every economy, every sector, every industry is expected to keep growing,

keep growing, keep growing, no matter what. One of the responses that I got on my video on the growth is that, oh, well you're seeing that growth is this im growthsma is this capitalist thing. But you know China and USSR, and they grew and they industrialized and they are just as susceptible to ecological destruction as any other capitalist country. And that is true, but that's also part of why I would consider those countries to be um state capitalist projects UM and not anything close to what

I envisioned. But of course, the moment you introduce any idea that sounds even vaguely socially oriented, even vaguely ecologically oriented, um, people automatically assume you're trying to go for like new United Soviet Socialist Republic. But I think we need to explore different paths to improve in quality of life, to code and code developing. And that's a tricky subject I'll

get into a bit later. But we need to think of way as that we can help people and help people live better lives without relying and desperating the bias fare. It's a tricky conversation to be had, um, because when people think of growth, they think, if it as a positive, I want you to criticize that positive. They think the inverse.

They think you're trying to make everybody degrade and go down to like a wost quality of life, to rush back to to like a lower life expectancy, What transform a mode of production back to like hunting and gathering. But the truth is that deep growth as a movement, as to stem of thought, is more so about trying to find that balance between a good quality of life for all, not just this unequal quality of life that we see around the world and the capitalism while also

balancing the fact that we live in material world. We live on a planet that has limited resources. We need to balance those resources. We need to consider and be good stewards of you know, uh planet that we share with other living creatures. Capitalism really is driven by this ideology of growthism because it is structurally incentivized. Structurally, it is a structural imperative in the capitalist system. It's not

exclusively driven by greed, as some people assume. I think that's that that this idea that it's all up to like personalities, kind of hampers people's ability to analyze systems because it doesn't matter whether, um, we suddenly put each and every CEO in a position where they are all completely one hundreds and altruistic. It's not that they all

being driven by greed. It's because under capitalism, you know, capitalists own capital, and capital that is stagnant is capital that is losing its value, and so they look for things to invest in so they can grow their capital. Capital being anything from real estate, factories, machinery, intellectual property, financial assets. What is the money that they used to make more money? If it's stagnant, it's losing value, and they're trying to increase its value. UM as they see gold.

Companies that have growing profits year after year, so their capital will grow year after year. And if that crew slews down, they pull out and look elsewhere to invest. Companies that failed to grow will lose their investors and collapse. And so companies do everything their power to maintain growth so they can maintain the investors, regardless of how much havoc they reach upon the world. So if any barriers are preventing their growth, they had to bulldoz those barriers.

You know, Environmental protections are barriers, labor lowers are barriers, protections, policies are barriers. The commons were a barrier, Indigenous populations were a barrier, and so on and so forth. All of these acts of violence open up these new frontiers for growth, for appropriation, for accumulation, and so incomes the growth. Or the French term for it is the croissant um, and I know that I likely pronounced that incorrectly. It's

the French. We can disrespect them precisely. I think um things to sit down, reflect on their new cluing, the empire um. But anyway, this idea of the growth really first was developed. I have to say that I appreciate what the intellectuals have come up with. They're good at sitting down and thinking about stuff. I'll give them that. I'll give them that. So there's one French intellectual guy named Andrea Course in vent two coined the tomb de

consin French. For the growth go has basically posed a question that remains at the center of the growth is the Earth's balance, for which no growth or even the growth of material production is a necessary condition compatible with

the survival of the capitalist system. I would Mangae to say, no, it is not in any way compactible with this mavel the capitalist system, because we have seen it in this short period of time that the capitalism has existed, it has rapidly triggered the capital scene, or as some people regrettably called the anthropocene. It has rapidly triggered the sixth great mass extinction event um. And so I do not believe that the Earth's balance it's compatible with its survival.

And so the Croissant movement of activists mainly flourished in Lyon in the early two thousand's. In the week of protests for car free cities, communal meals in the streets, food cooperatives, and campaigns against advertising. It went from France to Italy, where agreed and anti globalization activists h mobilized against this whole concept of capitalisms, constant encroachments and expansion and growth expanded into Catalonia in Spain in two thousand six.

It eventually built up to the size where I could sustain a movement a magazine rather Crossan which currently sells a few thousand copies a month. Around the same time, in two thousand four, a research and activist named France Swash Schneider took a year long walking tour on a donkey to disseminate the growth throughout France and that received

some media coverage. Eventually, Schneider founded an academic collective known as Research and the Growth along with Dennis Bayonne and February Free Poo, and they eventually began international conferences went in Paris into those and eight and the second in Barcelona. So the English term de growth was officially used for the first time at the Paris conference, which really marked the booth of the international research community around the growth.

Following the success of the conferences in Paris and Barcelona. Other conferences were held in Montreal in twenty eleven, Venice and twelve, Leipzig fourteen uh and the growth as an idea spread to groups in Flanders, Switzerland, Finland, Poland, Greece, Germany, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic like guess it's a check here now, Mexico, Brazil,

Puerto Rico, Canada, Bulgaria, Romania and elsewhere. The growth as an idea, as in a movement has been getting ground, despite the criticisms that somehow that oh, well, you can't call it something negative like the growth, because people wouldn't be you know, happy with it or whatever. Um. And I'll get to that criticism in a bit. But it's been steadily gruin since it was first you know, developed in the nineteen seventies. Um. At this point in time, if you go on the the Growth website, you will

find thousands of articles and studies in their library. And of course it's not to say that because of concept has a lot of followers or thinkers or published works, it's automatically h a, okay, ultimately correct. But at this point in time, I think a lot of people are looking at direction we are going in and recognizing that we cannot continue along this path of growth, and so they are actively looking for a way out, looking for a way to find that balance, recognizing that capitalism is

not compatible with the Earth's balance. And so the Growth ultimately rejects the illusion of growth. It calls to re politicize the public debate that has been colonized by the idiom of economism um that has been driven towards as a social objective, economic growth. The Growth is a project advocating for the democratically lead shrinking of production and consumption with the aim of achieving social justice and ecological sustainability.

I think when some people care degrowth, despite all the explanations out there, despite even consumers explanations, they might still have this idea and they had the degrowth is this thing where bunch of armed, government sponsored environmental activists roll up and take your car and your house and force you to live in a cave. Um. But de grow that. How we de grow our economy is going to rely

on the popular um involvement of the people. You know, It's not like you could just snap your fingers or just decreate and make it so, Um, it's not meant to be like how it is under new liberalism, where

you have all this austerity. The growth is supposed to be all of us coming together to this to figure out how we can live in alignment with our biosphere, with our bioregion, with the planet, scaling down our individual and our community um supply chains, and localizing our consumption in order to reduce the reliance on this highly extractive,

highly growth dependent, cabulist global capitalists economy. The growth also signifies a direction, a desired direction, one in which society is use fewer natural resources and organize and live much differently than they live today. The ideas of you know, sharing, which is something we teach the preschoolers, simplicity, conviviality, care, and the commons primary concepts in terms of what a

deecret society should look like. Uh. In one of my previous podcast episodes that would have discussed the Commons a bit, so if anyone is curious about what the Commons are,

they could check that out. Um. And of course on my channel also speak about the Commons as an institution and about libraries of things, and so the growth has offered a sort of a framework that connects all these different ideas, concepts, proposals UM with the criticism of growth, with the criticism of GDP, with the criticism of commodification UM the process that converts social products and socio ecological

services and relations into commodities of the monetary value. On the constructive side, because the growth is not just limited to criticism, do you imagines reproductive economies of care, the reclamation of all and the creation of new commons man need and natural caring for commons in communal forms of living and producing UM, liberating our time from work and making it available to caring for our communities and caring

for our ecology. Because if you think about all of the activities that are currently so needed at this point in time in terms of ecological restoration, in terms of um DE growth, they're not profitable. You know, planting man grooves to shore up our shows, to defend our shows from your waning from storms is not profitable. Replanting forests

and sparking nature's processes of eclosial restoration not profitable. And of course there is a whole sorts of ecosystem, economic, political, ecosystem dedicated to these kinds of projects with all the NGOs and government organizations involved in replanting the Sahel region in Africa, for example, creasingly create green wall. But those projects tend to be righte with issues and a lack of intendence because they do not involve local communities in

the decision making surrounding um that process of restoration. And on top of that, of course, these projects are not embedded in broad ut project for the growth. So a government a government might be planting trees, planting forests in one part of the country and extracting and drilling in another part of the country, and so there needs to be an integration of all these different projects with a

brother push and direction towards the growth. I want to go back around to this idea that UM the growth is a critique of GDP as a concept. UM the growth is not necessarily the same as negative GDP growth. But when you consider how GDP is measured, as it's counted, it's about financial transactions and not necessarily the non financial ones. And so if we were to crean our economy, if we were to DeCrow our society, UM we're not going to be seeing the really grows. Domestic activity increases of

two or three percent. Yeah, there's there's an old like two eleven slogan that's, uh if when the bank takes your house, that increases GDP, Right, that is true. That is true. A lot of uh, positive and constructive and beneficial actions that people do on a regular basis do not contribute to g P, whereas entire destructive industries contributes significantly its every month. We started this by talking by comparing kind of the quest for endless growth to a cancer,

but I almost think it's a better comparison. Is Like, you know, there was that article early this year about how specific kinds of people, particularly like rich weirdos in the tech industry, are paying thousands of dollars to have their legs broken and like lengthened so that they can like that's that's that's a that's a shipload of how act Like, Yeah, I mean it's weaker, they can never we can never run again. But you are technically taller, so we'll count on as growth. Yeah, go up. Much

of a coward to wear platforms? Yeah yeah, so you don't. You don't have the hotspot to be a short king. Unbelievable. Sometimes I do think that like when anthropologists on civilization the wonder why were so fascinated about line go up? But then they realized that the whole point of the civilization was line go up. Like that that was oddity, truly, truly, it's it's it's I don't know. My eyes my eyes bleed sometimes thinking about how this whole system is structured

and how it just continues to chug along. But um, that's why I spend so much time writing and reading and talking about these issues, right, trying to find a whee out. And so that is also what de with advocates are looking to do, the looking for a way out, you know, a way for a better life first of all, which brings me to the whole criticism of the growth

that is essentially optics. Right. They say it's not appropriate to use a negative word to signify desired positive changes, but the growth advocates deliberately choose I mean, in my videw I said that I'm fine with either quality growth or qualitate post growth or whatever. But the growth advocates

have chosen the term de growth for a reason. The use of negation for a positive project is aimed towards creating that sort of um questioning, you know, towards getting people to reconsider this idea of growth as a ultimate could to de colonize imagination that has been dominated by this whole capitalist conception of the future, consistent of you know, line go up. Is this automatic assumption and association of growth with better that the word the growth wants to dismantle,

wants to be constructed sod. Growth is a deliberately subversive slogan. And of course the growth is not aimed at, you know, deconstructing the most necessary sectors, the devolved in the most necessary sectors. We're not talking about de grow and education, de grow in, medical care, de grow in you know, well, renewable energy is kind of a tricky subject, but DeCrow and renewable energy, UM, it's more so about primarily and first of all targets in the most duty and destructive industries,

you know, the financial sector. UM. We would prefer to see institutions like health and education flourish rather than crew or develop. We want to change that is qualitative, not necessarily quantitative. You want to see a flourishing of the arts, of flourishing of philosophies, a flourishing of um vernacular architectures and flourishing of the creativity of people. And that's qualitative. It's not about oh well, line go up, so things more good. You know. It's not about we have ten

industrial outputs last year, now we have twelve. That's so good. You know, we want something. We want quality to change that. And if most people really sit down and think about what they want in their life, I don't think a lot of people are gonna are gonna think of, oh well, I want next year's iPhone to have a twelve increase in the camera quality. You know, it's more so that you want better you know, rest um more um, connected communities,

healthier commute or healthier UM I guess city layout. UM. It's more conducive to interaction. It's more conducive to small scale movement. It's not about, like I said, you know, it's not about trying to get line to go up. Cryptocurrency, as I think about it, it's like perhaps the best example or like n f T s right, like they created a bunch of value that literally created nothing. I had nothing other than exchange value exactly exactly. It's just nonsense. Yeah,

pretend money. I talk for a moment about like development as a concept, right, because another common criticism of the growth is that, oh, well, what about the global South, what about the Third world? What about all the poor countries and poor people of the world. You just want

to leave them behind? And from one I find it strange because the person in question, at least the video response that I got, simplicitly assumes that I am from like a global North nichetion and I'm just fine sitting down with my you know, um, same day Amazon delivery and Starbucks and um, sprawling suburbs and whatever it is

that you know, they imagine my lifestyle is like. But I think first and foremost parts of the whole move a t growth is to consider, um, like I said, reason, improving people's quality of life worldwide, which capitalism is not interested in. Coupitism will maintain a perpetual underclass because they're easier to exploit. And so this is whole idea of development, right that has this baggage. Um, it's very colonial baggage. But it's development is really like growth. It's meant to

have like a limit. It's an unfolding towards a predetermined end. You know, an embryo eventually develops into a fetus, so she eventually develops into a baby. She eventually develops into a child, she eventually develops into an adult who then ages and dies. But development for the sake of development, with no end, with no ams, with no goals, with no sense of um self critique or questioning, It's a

disaster waiting to happen. I can look at my own country and from Trenon to Vigo for those who don't know, and think of things that need to get better, right, Things that would really improve people's quality of life. UM. To think about the fact that we really need to get rid of our reliance and cars and bring back our training system UM that was dismantled so long ago. I could think about the fact that we need to improve our food or autonomy because we are extremely reliant

on food imports. UM. Things like that I can think about that would improve people's ability to live well and sustainably on this island. But those things, those aims, those are those are cools, right. I'm just thinking, oh, development, development, development. I'm thinking, Okay, there's point B. How do I get there from point A? How are we going to meet people's basic needs? And this whole and the whole deep with projects is really about that whole conversation between the

globle North and the Global Salt. Right, the global North needs to reduce their demand for a lot of the resources and goods so that they're more accessible to the Global Salt. But in making those things more accessible, places in the Global Salt are not meant to follow the same path that the Goloble North took that put us in our mess. The whole ideas that we need to find a different path, We need to find a different trajectory.

We need to think for ourselves instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses in order to determine what a good life would mean for us in our ecological niche, in our geographical situation. Yeah, what us. It's like we did, we did we we did. We did this in China, right,

like we did the entire development thing. And the product is now like people literally sucking eighteen miles on foot after having broken out of a fox con factory that they've been locked in and forced to make iPhones because someone had like three people have gotten COVID, so they

just like locked everyone in the factory. So like you know it, Yeah, and I think it's also sort of like briefly worth mentioning that like development as a concept and the sort of developmental economics field was like this was like specifically developed in sort of the bowels of the American State Department as as a response to like basically as like as a way as a kind of like simplified capitalist version of Marxist theory they could throw out to sort of like explain what was happening in

like as as as as a sort of an alternative Demarxism for like all these sort of like newly post colonial nations. And you know, it's gone about as well as you would expect. I think the valles of the State Department to be alternative department. Like, well this has been fun. Um, I love I don't know thinking about capital. I mean this is it's this is important because like we always need to be thinking about what comes next.

This is constantly like a problem that the left has and certainly a problem the liberals have, which is that, um, the vision of the future is very rarely anything more than fighting against kind of the demons of the moment, as opposed to like what does it actually look like to get ourselves to a better place, to a place that's more sustainable, both in an environmental level and in like in a manner of human ecology too, And um, yeah, I think this is like, this is kind of the

hard work that people need to be thinking about. Wherever you wind up landing on on d growth as either a concept or as a term like, these are the paths we have to start beating out of the bush, you know, exactly. So there are many potential that already been thought up, and there are many that have yet to be imagined. In Ecuador, the project of Sumac, Say and really the rest of Latin America, the idea of green vivere in much of South Africa, the concept of

Ubuntu in India, the Gandhian economy of permanence. All of these projects are more explore alternatives to quote and quote development, alternats of trajectories to a good life UM that is rooted in environmental justice, that is based in a retreat from the narrow confines of the global norths imagination UM and what that imagination has promoted worldwide and what's upon

the rest of the world. The growth requires us to think for ourselves, to think creatively about how we plan on creating a good life in the context of capitalism's degradation, the Earth's degradation due to climate change, and what that will mean for our future is we really need to sit and think about what our future as a species, what of our future as regions, our future as communities, of future as individuals is going to look like, what trajectory, what path we want to take, and how we begin

that journey. And so in the second part of this two part series, I intend to discuss what concepts are essential for the growth, the steps we can take to move towards the growth, and how we can integrate the growth in anarchist politics. All right, and that's going to be the end of part one. Come back tomorrow for part two and uh, probably more discussion of that weird surgery rich people get to have their legs broken repeatedly

until they're taller. Hello, and welcome back to it could happen here, um a show where things happen people talk about it, Yes, in this present location. That's correct. Last episode we spoke about the concept of the growth and what it means to de grow, how the growth as a movement came about, what inspired the critique that the growth pushes, and what the growth means for those of us who live in the Global South, how we can go about imagining um new and different paths to a

better life within ecological limits. This episode will continue in that conversation talking about what is essential for the growth. As I discussed in the previous episode, the growth is about striving for self determined life and dignity for all. It means an economy in a society that can sustain

the natural basis of life. It means reduction of production consumption the globe on the north and the liberation the one sided Western paradigm of development so that the Global South can explore their own, our own, self determined paths of social organization. The growth means an extension of democratic

decision making to allow for real political participation. The growth means that social changes organized and oriented towards sufficiency and self sufficiency and ecological sustainability, rather than the pursuits of a line grew up a pursuit of economic growth, regardless of its impact on people, planet, and the growth of course advocates for the creation of open, connected and localized economies, there are several steps that need to be taken in

order to achieve a d growth society, achieve a degrowth will to deeprou For one, I think that, as Jason Hickel advocates in his book Less is More, we absolutely need to put an end to the practice of planned obso lessons, whether it be in household appliances and tools and furniture and computers. We need to shift away from this idea of products being produced to break down in

a certain timeline and require replacement. UM. I personally have witnessed a lot of older technologies that continue to last to this day before because they were invented before this whole practice the plant obs lessons really came about. Yeah, but my family, we have a microwave that is like a decade older than I am, and it still works fine. Wow. Yeah, And I mean in my own lifetime, I've had to

purchase multiple microwaves, so it's it's ridiculous. Yeah, That's always one of the things that I always thought like there was a real sort of like this is how you this is how you appeal to conservative people with this is just like hey, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna bring back like nineteen sixties microwaves where everything is a dial and it doesn't break every Yeah, because I think, yeah, I think what's what's missing in the conversation about t

growth is a lot of people like me, they assume, because they react to negative that everybody else will, you know, they kind of project their own reaction to others. But I think political spectrum aside um or political chart or how are you gonna um map out the unmappable UM. I think that people generally, as I was discussing the previous episode, want a good life, and that requires qualitative

changes far more than it requires quantitative changes. Of course, there are places where quantitative changes are needed to make

some things accessible to that population. UM. But we already over produce a lot of different things UM, And a lot of overproduction is completely necessary because it is based and planned obs lessons in order to increase profits, and so that needs to Once that is discarded, I think people have will will best be able to access that quality of life because we look at a lot of

the sudden expenses that people have to deal with. You know, you've fridge suddenly breaking down, your stove suddenly breaking down in my careave for your toolster certainly breaking now and or you're washing machine. Um. I think in this year, the and had to fix the washing machine three or four times because it's just constantly breaks down. And when instead we can save that those resources see at that time,

see that energy, see that money. Um, just produce certain quality food the foods time, you know, put an end to those deliberate manufacturing decisions and developing long lasting modular products that can reduce our you know, material and energy use worldwide. I think in a lot of cases, we don't necessarily need more innovation, you know. I don't think we really need like a smart fridge. I think we just need a fridge that works for decades without breaking

down constantly. Yeah, And like like so much of the stuff that's sort of like nominally is informatus, like it's supposed to be. Innovation is just how how how can we make this product in such a way that we can sell consumer data about you from it? Like we don't need to do that. We can simply not. We can simply not. We can simply not exactly exactly. And speaking of things that we can simply not, we can

simply not assault our senses constantly with advertisis. And because advertising just continues to see this purpose of generating social divisions, highlighting class divisions, and manipulating people into consuming stuff they don't need. As a card carrying member of Generations Z, I have not I do not typically watch much TV UM. I used to watch TV because I'm the older gen Z conting gent, but with the rise of streaming services is UM, which I do not use. Yoho hoo. Is

I have to say about that? UM. I have not watched much TV UM. But there's certain reality shoes that I enjoy, like the Amazing Race UM, and so those sense we be showing on TV. I like Jeopardy. I like to watch Jeopardy and the constant deeply unfunny, irritating, annoying, loud, flashy barrage of commercials quite aggravating. UM. Honestly, the goal in age of crucial is being funny. Was a long time ago and now it's just suits. One of the things that I mentioned that in UM in the episode

that we had done on the Commons. One of the things that I one of the positions are held even before I was an anarchist, was my opposition to the advertising industry to advertise it. I can't stand advertising everywhere you walk, everybody, screw everything you watch and listen to, it's also going to sell you something. Um. I would love to be able to go outside and not see ads all the time. I would love to use a

screwth of the incident without seeing ads all the time. Um. And so getting really advertising industry getting rid of while these ads are just pushing us to consume more and more, um and oftentimes just promoting a lot of really harmful societal ideas you know, um, body images, use and alcoholism and a lot of our worst practices and a lot of really terrible things of being promoted through ads. And

so yeah, tear it down and watch consumerism perish. When you think about really history the advertising industry and how it came about as a mass communication student, um, that's something that I would spend some time looking into. Advertising really came about in response to you know, this need that people had, really that that that that companies had

to get people to consume. Because in a lot of cases, you know, people would buy something and a newer model would come out and it would really pay attention to it because I already have the thing. I don't need to get another thing. Um. But you know, you can't run a profitable business that free. So they basically used advertising to push people to consume more, and so we need to get rid of the advertising industry. Another step we can take towards the growth is to shift from

ownership to use. The fruct um usufruct is something that Marie book Chin, social ecologist, talks a lot about um in his book The Ecology of Freed Them and it's essentially the freedom of individuals or groups in a community to access and use, but not destroy, common resources to supply their needs. The term use of fruct comes from Roman property law, I believe, which should include use us the right to use. Sorry, unfortunately I did not take

ladin yeah practice. It's just the right to enjoy the fruit of one's property and abuse us which is the right to destroy one's property. So use us fruct us and abuse us um. And so use of fractice really the combination of the first two principles. Right to access and use and enjoy the fruit of um commonly held property without you the right to destroy it um, so

that everyone can supply their needs. So instead of and I mean two libraries already a concept that it exists around the world, rather than a hundred people in a community each individually order an electric drill, UM, one person or rather one library can host or three or four electric drills and effectively serve everyone's need for a drill when they need it, because unless you're a carpenter or really into arts and crafts, you probably don't need an

electric drill all the time. Another thing that we're really helping or push towards the growth will be getting rid of car dependency, because the consumption of vehicles, the mainstenence of vehicles, the maintenance of the infrastructure of vehicles, use all of those things requires a lot of resources, you know, concrete and oil and gas and metals and great Earth minerals.

And rather than forcing everyone to produce these things we could consume those things, we can instead shift towards walkable model for urban months UM so that people who do need to use vehicles in rural settings, for example, can use them, and you can use them without causing unnecessarily

unnecessary harm contributing to unnecessary harm superfluous harm on the planet. UM. Getting rid of cor dependency would also mean that fewer people would need vehicles, and vehicles that the few vehicles that we do produce UM can be shared in common to save needs that cannot be filled by like bikes or you know, public transportation systems. Another element of deep growth would really be the reduction of our energy material

use through the transformation of our agriculture systems. It is true that we currently produce enough food for I believe ten billion people. A lot of that food is wasted. UM. A lot of food doesn't reach people. UM. It's really an issue of alcation and not necessary production. But at the same time that production is extremely harmful. UM. It relies on a lot of damaging chemicals, relies on the stripping of our top soils, relies on the overuse of antibiotics,

relies on the abuse of animals. UM. The way that we currently feed the world is deeply unequal, extremely inefficient, environmentally degrading, and energy wasting. We cannot continue to treat our farms like factories. We need to find we used to feed ourselves densely and compatibly within the amounts the living world. Scaling down to localized proma culture can help

change of based agricultural systems. Community supported agriculture, urban god aquaponics, cultured meats, aquacultures, and exploring other more traditional forms of food raising will need to be the route that we take. Already, we are killing our soils, we are running out to the fossil fuels that UM, the agricultural industry relies on. And if we continue along the trajectory, we have a big storm coming. Yeah, probably the greatest famine the plant

has ever seen on its way. If we do not aim to build food autonomy, aim to rewild our ecologies, aimed to reconfigure our consumption patterns or food production and consumption patterns two see quester more carbon to allocate two more people to use healthier foods UM and to really to recover the earth. Another important stuff we can take in the growth would be to get rid of what scale down to, especially destructive industries. There is, of course agriculture.

There is UM, the fossil fuels industry, the arms industry, private jet industry, the automobile industry, the airline industries. All of these industries must either be slimmed down or gotten rid of UM because, as the pandemic has showing, very few of the jobs that are currently undertaken around the world are truly essential to maintain in the bare bones of life. And of course we do need to reconfigure the way that we live or ways of life. You

don't have to reflect ecological limits. But even with that reconfiguration, I think we know why industries needed and what on. Um. I always find it strange, This is, I guess a tangent. I always find it strange that politicians are celebrated for bracken about creating new jobs when in reality, I believe and really the vision was in the twentieth century that we would reach a point where fewer and fewer people needed to work, and that we need to work for

less time. Um. And so that really is part of the aim of the growth, reviving that pursuit, reviving that goal because we have reached the point where we can um scale on the amount of time each Polson has to work, skill on amounts of jobs that aren't necessary. Um. If you've read Bullshit Jobs by David Greeable, you'll see

that a lot of particularly service economy jobs ah practically worthless. Um. And I actually saw kind of funny video talking about how at this point office culture is more of a religion. Yeah that's so good. Yeah, so that going and going around. We can surrounds and Twitter. That was really funny. Um. But yeah, we just move around. A bunch of people move around and round numbers. If you've seen, um, the

show Succession, that Succession sufferance. Have you seen the shows Sufferance? UM, it's it's pretty much like an our slash anti work type show. UM. And so I think one more people are coming to the realization that hey, this kind of sucks the fact that we have to work this much. So we need to reduce the amount of time we work, um, the type of work we need to change, type of

work we do. So it's a quantitative and qualitative shift um and something I spoke about in my view on anti work or post work, whatever you want to call it. These changes, these steps to scale and total energy use, can be taken by a broad range of organizations, groups, mass movements, popular assemblies, unions, co operatives, not waiting for the state, but going beyond it. I think we've seen by now. I think if you have not seen right now,

it needs open your eyes. The state is not doing enough or in some cases not doing anything at all, to respond to these crises, and we need to take it into our own hands to do so. UM. I have a video in store UM for December that as one of my patrons jokes might have the alphabet agencies

after me. But there are a lot of different actions that we can take UM to integrate the growth, to move towards a decro society, to de grow our economies, a combination of acts of confrontation and non cooperation and prefiguration in some de growth challenges the dominant growth imperative. It's in the name. It is intentionally subversive in its title because it requires us to think about how we can collectively organize the restructure of all economy and the

downscale of energy and resource use worldwide. The transition back into balance with the living will in a safe, just, an equitable way. The growth means striving for a self titude, life and dignity and abundance for all. The growth of mean liberating ourselves not just from the ways that the

growth imperative has shaped out technologies education. The growth who require that we not just liberal it ourselves from the ways that the growth imperative has shaved our technologies and institutions, but it demands if we also reconsider education, our cultural norms, and values or identities or mindsets or relationships. It will be a massive shift with anarchists called social revolution um,

but it's one that is worthwhile. As some de growth advocates would see, it's de growth by choice or de growth by force. What's the use of de growth here? Has being used slightly differently, the growth by choice being like I described, collectively organized, democratically managed restructure of the economy to bring into bounce that living will in a safe, just nequitable way um, whereas d growth by force is more soon combination of austaritsy and apocalypse. So up to you. Yeah, well,

politics all politicive people. So there's there's a Japanese Marxist named koh Saito who's been writing like a bunch of stuff recently, who basically like he's been probably the biggest voice of the growth in Japan. And his book Capital on the Antipathyne is finally getting translated into English pretty soon, and so yeah, check that out when it comes out. His stuff is really good, and he like basically has

revived both Marxism and d growth in Japan. After Marxism is kind of like implosion after a bunch of weird fairy. Wait we we don't need to get into the story of the claps of the Japanese Left. But yeah, that that that's coming. I'll check that out. Yeah yeah, I'm looking forwards to that book when it comes out. Yeah, me too. If you want to check out my videos on this topic and others, just go to YouTube dot

com slash ANDREIDSM. You can also follow me on Twitter um while Twitter still exists on discloss and Drew and you could potentially even support on patreonatre dot com slash sat true as it piece by could happen here. I don't know why I did that voice. I'm Robert Evans, host of a podcast that has many other hosts who all are on the podcast right now. We have, in order of them being on my zoom screen, Chris Garres and Sharene and James. Hey, everybody, how's it going? Good? Great?

And we brought the full crew in to talk about the worst ship. So yeah, a whole bunch of kind of kind of not great things have happened the past week.

So we took we took last week mostly off from work due to a series of court cases, um and uh, thanks to an injunction we're allowed to podcast again, so I figured it would be we had a couple of I mean, horrifying stories break in a row, UM that we as the people we are, kind of had specific bits of insight on that I think might help uh catch our listeners up to some maybe underappreciated aspects of

some of the big stories of the last week. So we wanted to start with the mass shooting in Colorado Springs UM specifically talking about the family of the still alleged but you know, definitely did it shooter, James, you

want to kick us off there. Yeah, I wanted to start out with this UM so that the alleged shooter, it is called Anderson Lee old Rich, right, but comes from an LDS Last Today saint family in San Diego, And like I think everyone has probably seen this very viral thirty second clip of his father that went around Twitter and butt be to day after the shooting, and his dad, just so we're super clear on this, says some disgusting things and there's a piece of ship for

saying them. I don't want to excuse any of the ship, he said. I also don't want to excuse the way that that was cut because I think it was pretty pretty shitty, Like there are people we should be really fucking angry at, and his father is one of them. But his father didn't excuse the shooting. And if you look at that eight minute interview, he says that, like

what happened was wrong, etcetera, etcetera. And there are people who have excused the shooting, right, Like I think Chris is going to speak to something Temple Tucker Carlson, people who created a climate where this happened and have asked for it to happen again and are asking continually for it to happen again. His dad didn't do that again, his dad, His dad doesn't seem to have been a great dad, right. His dad was was like using when he was a kid. His dad was abusive. What is

his violence? I think we all know lots of people who were raised in those climates who didn't go on to shoot up a nightclub. And it just kind of I saw something. I don't know. I was upset by the response to that in a sense because like I know so many people who come from from families and homes like that, and I like being like, oh, he was doomed to be this way because of how his dad was just like isn't I don't know. It just

upset me. It's not the response we need, you know, Like I think we should hold like hold what his dad said, like hold his dad to account of what he said, but also not like allow that to explain. Yes, I have a couple I like, I have confused feelings on it because his dad does go into a long thing where he says, you know, you shouldn't there's nothing that justifies violence. You know, these people's lives were precious,

All lives are precious. But he also was like I taught him that violence was a great way to solve problems, um and you know, expresses that he was glad to learn that his son wasn't gay, And I don't, Yeah,

I don't know. I don't Yeah, I don't know how much I want to like interpret that as he really meant what he said about nothing justifying this in those people's lives being precious, because that is kind of this thing that like you get on the and this guy is obviously not a thought leader on the Christian right,

not like he's not like a luminary. I don't think he contributed outside of you know, the things he may have raised his son to believe to the broader national climate of of hate right now, there's just a study that was released today that UM from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project Data confirms that anti LGBT mobilization is now the leading driver or a fire right

protest activity in the US. Obviously, this guy didn't make that happen, UM, but I noticed a similarity between like the I there's nothing worse than my kid being gay, but also when a bad thing gets done by a Christian to gay people, well, their lives are still precious.

We just like hate what they how they live them. Um, I don't know, I don't know how where to where to go further with that, but you're right that like that the thirty second clip is very dishonestly edited in order to like, UM cut out a lot of what this guy was saying, which I have a problem with regardless of who you're doing it too. Yeah, it's just it's bad journalism, And like I would rather we point out rage at the people who are going to make

this happen again unless we stop them. Yeah, like this guy, I'm this guy had the degree to which this guy contributed to this massacre by being this dude's dad. Um, I don't think there's anyone else he's going to push into killing if if he indeed did that, whereas people like to pool are going to continue to do that. Yeah. And also I do want to say, like, like the

Mormon Church does not get a pass for this. Yeah, like that No, absolutely believably homophobic, Like absolutely, he's a ship super racist, like yeah, and you know a lot of people really haven't been talking about this, and they should because they fucking suck And yeah, this is this is a you know, like, yeah, it turns out when you have a bunch of people like giving sermons about fucking musket balls, like this is what happens. Yeah, you know they don't they don't get off the hook for

this either. No, And they're like domination of politics in some areas, it really needs to be seriously looked at, talking of like domination of politics. I do want to talk about his grandfather a little bit, yep, because his grandfather is bonkers. So his grandfather is called Randy vocal Uh might be pronounced verpal um, but he's he was mayor of Santi. So Santi is a town east of San Diego. It's not not very far. He's I think Sharenia probably familiar with Santia, right, Yeah, Santi is a

place that's that's about ye about it. People sometimes called it clanned. He definitely like Metzka was there for a while, right. And when Vopal was mayor in two thousand and one, there was a school shooting in Santi about which he spoke. He hasn't spoken about this one yet at all. He's he's yeah, strange, that strange. He's pretty much gone, which is not like it when this guy speaks, he uh, he rarely helps himself when when he speaks to media

who don't agree with every position he's on. So I want like, I want to ground like he became mayor of Santi in two thousand. In nine, a black marine by the name of Carlos Colbert, who was a large corporate in the Marine Corps, was beaten and paralyzed by five white men at Memorial Day party in Santy. Like and that doesn't represent the whole town, but was how people thought of that town. And in the early two thousands, right, the place it was always a place to avoid it, like,

you don't really want to go there. I don't know. Yeah, I have friends who still don't want to go to Santi like um. I have friends who are like delivery drivers who are like black people who have been told like they used to not saying black folks deliver into Santi like. It definitely has whether or not that's the case now it's becoming more more diverse, I think, like ethnically, but it certainly has a reputation of being a place

where it's not safe. And this is a place that elects him as mayor in two thousand right too, thousand one, they have a high school shooting, and he just kind

of continues to spout some absolutely crazy stuff. It's probably worth noting that he's not as like, far from the like the norm of the GOP, which is still a long way from like good when it comes to like l g BTQ stuff, as he is for other things like his His probably his most famous crazy position is that climate change is good because most of our enemies live in I'm quoting now, most of our enemies live in hot climates, desert climates. It will probably have a

negative effect on their environment. Most of the Muslim nations are in hot areas of the world. Honestly, Yeah, just absolutely incredible. Did we did we find the world's first pro eco fascist? Yea fascist. I have met a few anti there's people who are pro climate change because it will. But this is this is like a whole other level. Well, there's dry us out weird. Do you want to know why he thinks this climate change happens? Good God. I believe about one percent of climate change is impacted by

human beings. The rest of that should not rest in rest, buddy. It's solar cycles, quote, the natural wobbling of the earth and volcanic activities. Ah, this is this is the classic. Yeah, yeah, there's there's a couple of good ones. I I personally partial to. We didn't have enough CEO two and climate change is the only thing that's going to save us from the CEO to shortage that. Yeah. Notable Other vocal bangers include I'm getting attacked out here by the Vietcong

stealing my copper, and I don't like it that. It would be super funny if it turned out that the Vietcong had sent like a deep cover special spec opsy in it to California just to funk with this guy's copper, to pull copper just uh good, Um, it's just it's just a yeah, just a powerful example of happened? Did you lick lead paint? Like? Just an incredible boomer. So he was voted out in by a considerable match I think got about thank god, sorry this this so he's

serving out. He just got voted out. Yeah, twenty years. How many he moved in? I think sixteen he moved into the California Assembly, so representing like this this yeah, yeah, statewide office. This is there on the left coast California. It is It means one thing to people who have never been to the West coast, but have you been to the west coast? The conservative parts of California like the Republican Party. They're massive, and the Republican Party has

absolutely locked in control. It is very difficult to remove to move them in places like there's there's more Republican voters in California the most states most Yes. Yeah, if you wanted a slice of of like eastern California, just check out a Riverside County shore with jad Bianco's Instagram, where he mostly just rides around on a horse and criticizes COVID restrictions. But yeah, this is. Yeah, it's really something incredible poster. But this is I think an insight

into like this side of California that people. It doesn't mean that everyone who lives in this county, of course is bigoted or racist, and there are lots of very nice kind people in his county. I know there are some anarchist communites out there, but um yeah, this vocal claims he hasn't spoken to his grandson for years. But this guy has been spouting this ship for twenty years, right like he became mayor of Santi in two thousand.

That was when this shooter, old Rich was born. So like for his entire life, Vocal has been saying stuff like the conga stealing my copper. I mean it is it is true that this this person did grow up surroun ounded by a constant bubble of of homophobic rhetoric, dehumanizing rhetoric, and that that does shape the person that you are. Obviously that doesn't it doesn't mean you're going to go do the best shooting. There's lots of people who grow up in those environments who turn out to

be very wonderful people. Um but but but yeah, that is definitely like the environment that you are raised in and around obviously doesn't obviously affects who you're gonna be. And yeah this the shooters posting like burning a Pride flag on on his very limited social media presence, right, and every time his granted had the chance, he's voted

against rights. Yeah, he was raised in an environment where hatred of LGBTQ people was not just like present, but was used as the justification regularly for like legislative action. And he was also raised in an environment where all of them in around him would have praised violence in different ways, And the fact that he wound up doing

violence against the queer community is not like surprising. Yeah. Yeah, wasn't his dad also like an m M A fighter, Yes, UFC UFC whatever some yes, some sort of combat sport. He's also in a bunch of playing movies, a lot of poor movies, because I think a lot of things were normalized that we're just like, maybe not for other people. Yeah, that is a man who has no barrier between the two sides of his nose due to a lifetime of snorting every single uh chemical he can possibly get his

hands on. Um, not that there's anything wrong with that. Yeah, his dad doesn't seem to be like entirely lucid into you. Um well, And the other aspect of this is that the shooter in Colorado was like a known figure as well. He wasn't He wasn't a nobody like people had. He did like a bomb threat last year, there was off with the police where he was in armor threatening to

go out shooting. Yeah, that's I was really I'm really hoping the conversation shifts more towards him as a person, because I can only blame the family so much, you know. I He's done some terrible things, and I think that's getting glossed over by the fact that he has people in his family that are questionable. And I think the number one thing we should be pointing out, because I also don't believe we should be focusing entirely on his

specific actions. We should be focusing on the fact that it would have been incredibly easy to stop this guy. He was the most obvious candidate for a mass shooting imaginable, um and nothing was done to stop this. Like that's that. The answer is that like whiteness is very helpful when

it comes to hate. But yeah, and with crime and all of the time I've been following mass shooters, I can't think of one that more directly talked about wanting to do a mass shooting in a way that was immediately obvious to all of the law enforcement in his area and had already forced to response from them. There was absolutely And again for talking about his gun control

always comes up in this. Colorado has red flag laws, like Colorado has the restrictions people say should be but the problem is that none of them were actually used against him, um anyway, And I think comes back to like again, the problem, like one of the largest problems again with gun regulation is that you you're relying on the police to enforce and the cops believe of the same ship that this guy does. So you know, yeah, they again letting these people come to pride like this,

this is gonna great, go great for you. They just assumed he was an excitable boy and it was gonna be you know, he just needed to get it out of the system. That time he had a standoff with the police over a bomb threat where he talked to his mom about wanting to go out as a mass shooter. Like most yeah, yeah, should we should we take a break? Yeah, we should do you know what else? Nope, any, nope, it's just to break. Yeah, do some insulin. We're back.

I hope everyone took insulin um everybody. It'll I don't know what it'll do. Look very hungry to sleepy and hungry pilled look James. As a podcaster, it's my job to tell people to take medicine, not to have any responsibility for what happens when they do. Well, I'm just gonna go fly up to Canada and get some free insulin and then come back smuggle it down that actually yeah, yeah, maybe consider just have them fill up your car. What

are we talking about next? So I want to I want to talk a bit about the reaction to this on the right, because this is something okay, so like the far right's reaction to mass shootings has never been good, Like it's usually been like, oh, this is this is still unfortunate that it had mental illness. This is like the pills something like they are just pretty Here's the thing.

When I originally did this, right, I had a Timpool tweet that I had pulled, and then he made like every successive time we're about to record this episode, he had he makes another even worst so here here is here is the most recently. First, I do want to we have to. One of the things I want to try to keep in mind is we are more online than a decent chunk of our audience. Tim Pool is a guy who attained prominence uh live streaming during the Occupy Wall Street rallies. He kind of framed himself as

a broadly progressive kind of liberal uh journalists. But he's like a skateboarder and he's doing ship. You know, he's live streaming a lot. He's doing, you know, experimenting with all these like novel ways of covering the news at the time, you know, we're talking like two thousand twelve. Um. Obviously, people since then have pointed out that, like he was kind of a giant dick. It occupied and I know people who were there who fucking hated him, Like, um,

he he had a big platform. As a result of that,

he got hired by Vice for a little while. Um. Most serious journalists who have worked with him will point out that, like he's a giant asshole and like kind of not good at anything, and it's not very smart, doesn't really know what's going on, or deliberately obtuse I've heard people like anyway, Uh, he gained prominence as he kind of increasingly through the Trump years would lean in on hard right stuff while still claiming to be liberal and progressive, and just that he was increasingly lost by

the progressives who have gotten anyway, he's just gone. So that he's he has a huge audience. He does a lot of like live streaming. So the primary way that like when I say that he used to do live streaming where he would show up at a thing. He's rich.

Now he doesn't leave his his house in Maryland. He sits there and he like plays clips from the news and other people and then talks about them really usually wrong for commentary on it and has millions and millions of followers, and it's constantly and continues to platform people who are self described fascists, uh, far right people. Um, he's kind of he's like a he's like a vector point in that whole. He's very large, he's fairly influential

within the social media algorithm of particularly Twitter. Um, he's able like his his he's able to get ship trending a lot on Twitter. So he's not someone you can entirely ignore. He hasn't he has an impact on like national discourse, and he's a lot of people on the right see him as a valuable person. He's had Alex Jones on he's hanging out with Kanye and Nick Fuintes now,

which is what we're about to talk about. But the thing since, uh, since the Colorado Spring shooting, he's gone kind of completely mask off about the groomery thing, and most of his comments have been along the lines of like, well, these people were hosting a groomer event and so violence was inevitable. Yeah, and I mean like like what like that's something I mean, I'm just gonna read one those tweets to give like that that's that's not an exaggeration

or any kind of reading of subtext. Literally what he said was quote it seems around ten pm, Club Que posted that they were having an all ages drag show the next day. About two hours later, the shooter came in.

People keep calling for wood chippers, and this is what happens, like open like and this has been this a been a thing across the entire right, Like they're just there's openly either like very very openly celebrating this or you get you know, like this is one of like one of the things that because the gays are so degenerated, like Jimmy fucking Door has gone like just completely like like I literally started with like it started this thing on this with a giant rant about how like how

like disgusting it is that like drag queens around kids. It's like they they are just openly into full scale just openly into the like we need to get these

people killed. In some ways the most horrifying instant like this because this is the first time that the reaction widely on the right has been either this was a good thing, or this was this this obviously was going to happen because gay people are evil and are grooming children, so violence has to happen against them, and like that is that was That's such a popular sentiment on the right in the aftermath of the shooting, whether it's whether

it's implied and whispered or whether it's just said completely outright, like it was a very clear consensus that this is what the Republican reaction was going to be, and anyone farther right of the Republicans like it. It wasn't it wasn't even just like a Nazi talking point it was just like regular Republicans in office, we're talking about this

this style of rhetoric in response to the shooting. And for that reason, it's kind of the most horrifying instant we've had, um because you know, like in the aftermath of like the Pulse shooting, we did not have rhetoric like this mainstreamed in way that it is happening for the club Que shooting. It was a very very different

response to the to the Pulse shooting. Also probably because the shooter there wasn't white, um, so they had yeah, they'd be like, no, the problem here was immigration, right, and no for this, like he's like, he is obviously a white dude. Um, his lawyers are pulling bullshit to get his hate crime charges pulled, but like it's obviously it's it's obviously this white guy. And the rights responses, Yeah,

he was probably justified in doing what he did. And I feel like they're setting him up to be the next Kyle Rittenhouse where like he's just gonna become like this kid celebrity that I don't know if we're there yet. Yeah, partly because he got the ship kicked out of him. Um, but I finished, no, not by police by a translator,

and yeah, I think you've made a good point. Like what they did get away with some ship with Written House that like I think they would not have pulled even five years before that, Like I think you wouldn't have found in people being like, yeah, he shot people in the street and this is good fuck them And it is like the slippery slipt fallacy isn't always a fallacy, but like you know, once you start there, I don't think it's a massive leap to being like, yeah, this

kid shot queer people in the nightclub and that's what they had coming, even if they don't make him a hero, Like I do think that that like the Overton window moved with Written House and it's moving again with this little fucker. Yeah, I think he's slightly too toxic to to go through that same celebrity status that Written Houses. Um. He also I can't speak. I think he's been like

in his court appearances, he's like not capable. I think he's saying got eaten very badly to ship, which is the thing that you get the thing that scares me as like a potential Written House event, but kind of in the in the antique weird mesh shooter vibe is like you have some father or something who's separated from the kid and their other parent takes them to a drag queen event and dad shows up and start shooting, and like that's a thing that's a lot of easier

to get the right to pile on. Yeah, that's that's the instance where that person now becomes a cultural figure in this way. That's more similar to what has happened with Rittenhouse. Um, and that just is like the hell scenario. And I think the other important thing is like they're deliberately trying to incite this, Like this is this is deliberate and like and there's an interesting thing like Nick Flints had this interviewing. I mean this is partially just

this is just who fucking Nick flintys is. We had this thing after the election where he was like, uh, well, I'm like we we can we we we we like we we can't we can't take power by like like we we we can't actually get our agenda by voting.

We have to do it by like theocratic fascism, right, and and I you know, okay, so obviously this is Nick Flints, but I think this is part of what's happening right now, which is that the reason that they're doing this, right, the reason that right now, the thing that they're trying to do was inside a jettocide is because they're fucking losing everything. They know it, right. Every single day, church attendance drops. It's been dropping for twenty years.

It's never coming back, like nine eleven didn't do it, like Trump didn't do it. Nothing, Nothing is ever going to bring people back to these churches, like unless maybe they solve their sexual assault problem, but that's not like they structurally can't do that, right, So, you know, every single day religiosity drops in this country, every single like every single day, very slowly, and we have been doing

this roughly for about fifteen years. Now we are winning, and this is what they're fucking terrified of, right, They have to move right now, like exactly in this moment

is the is the moment they could exterminate us. If they wait any longer, they're fucked because they're you know, the base for this kind of sort of like like this specific kind of of Christian fascism isn't going to be there, like there will be other fascisms, but you know, every every every single day that they fucking wait, like another person leaves the church, and so you know, like right now, and you know, and they can't do it all totally right. We just saw that they got fucking

destroyed trying to lean into the ship. Because and then this is the ever thing, right, like the everything that's been happening since the two thousands. And this is the thing that's very different about this moment than any other moment that has happened in US history is that the vast, vast majority of people are are are pre pro crew wides, are prology bt Q or pro game marriage game marriage

polls consistently in about right. And even with the ship that that hasn't moved in needle on it, right, they know that they have to right now, right, they have to fu kill us. All they have left is this solely have left. They they have they have no work action basically like it's like and they see no other viable way to mainstream this. And that's why we have hours after the shooting, lives of TikTok posting about queer events in Colorado, because they're they're trying to get this

thing to happen. They're trying to do more trying to

press the attack. Yeah. But but but but I think, I think, I think this is this is like the only thing, like this is a sign of their weakness, right, And and they're like, again, the the number, the physical number of people who are pushing this ship is not that large, right and and you know again like this is this is you know, I've I've I've talked a lot about how the silent majority in this country doesn't agree with this ship and like they're literally are not

that fucking many of them. We can stop them, like this is an actual thing, Like you know, like there there there there's a limit to which we can even sort of talk about this. But like, okay, we've been doing community self defense like as as sort of like the big principle of the left sense of Trump era. We have reached a point where like, you know, we can defend ourselves, but if well, if we're limited to just defending ourselves, they're going to kill a bunch of

us first. And that means that we like we actually have to start taking the fight to these media platforms where we have to start taking the fight specifically trying to get these people sucking off air and then you know, failing that, like fucking showing up and like blowing a fucking air horn in try a right checks like ear every single time she leaves her house. Right, because all of all of these people sucking, their entire lives depend

on our labor. Right, Every single fucking uber they take, every single meal they eat, is all prepared by us. And you know we can fucking find them, and we can we can make their lives fucking hell if this is what they're going to do to us. Garrison, do you want to do? You want to talk about Focus

on the Family? It talks and Colorado. Oh yeah, there was speaking of the kind of direct action Chris was talking about showing up where these people are and making it very clear that they don't get to pretend anymore to not be complicit in in murder. Um that that's a story. Yeah. Some some people did did show up at the Colorado Springs Focus on the Family headquarters. Um did a did a graffiti left some left some messages

out front and posted a community ca of sorts. I think they called them debotic, which is pretty funny remembering the message written. The thing right, that is a weird place. It talked about how Satan this can the sky is himself as an angel light. That's that's talking about the types of like self righteousness that these Christian fascist groups put on and in but in effect they're all kind

of murderous snakes. Um. That was people trying trying to use the Bible against these guys, which is funny in an ironic way. And I don't think they actually care because they don't atually care. I don't think they actually care what the Bible sets. They don't don't give a about what the Bible says, they give a shit about. Yeah, but that's showing. But showing up and and and doing doing a little thing outside outside their headquarters is definitely

a good first step. When when me and James went there, um, you know, like in terms of this is just an interesting an interesting comment, like police did not help at the club queue shooting at all, and they came back towards and they held and they you know, as as they usually do, they'll they'll they arrest the person who who who helped who help stop the match shooting. Um. When me and James went to the Focus on the Family headquarters last summer, Um, there was a Colorado police

officer inside the building the entire time, um constantly. They're mostly watching me because I was the obvious, obvious outcast inside there. But that police are stationed at Focus in the family all the time to make sure nothing bad happens there. But they're not going to do ship to help queer people getting murdered. But they're gonna stay. They're gonna have a police car outside of the Focus in the family building and have have an officer inside all

the time because that's what the police actually do. Yeah, I mean, it's it's like it is increasingly obvious if you have been paying any attention in the last decade. The only consequences that exists in this world as us, and you know it is in our hands to decide what the consequences for these people fucking attempting to inside a genocide are all that's gonna do it for us here. It could happen here until next time. Uh, I don't

know until next time. Hello everybody, and welcome back to It could happen here a podcast about things falling apart and occasionally about how to put them back together again. And today we have a special episode we're gonna be talking about a place where things did in fact fall apart and people are you could say, still in the process of putting them back together again and trying to do it in a way that is much more equitable and better than things have been before the collapse. That

is Rojaba in Northeast Syria. UM. I'm going to introduce kind of that concept in I'll do it right now basically if you if you don't anything about this, you might check out our podcast The Women's War UM. But it is a it is an autonomous region, not a state in northeast Syria that is not under the control of the Assad regime UM or of any other state

in the area. It's an independent UM community that is based on some pretty radical it's you know, it's organization is based on some pretty radical political philosophies UM, in large part ones that were sort of initially explored by a man named Murray Buchin, who is an American social theorist and anarchists anarchist political philosopher UM and some of his ideas were adopted by the leader of a militant group in the region called the p k k UM.

And the leader of that group was a guy in a Turkish prison named of Doula, a Gelan who was you might say, a Kurdish freedom fighter. Um Augelon encountered bookstions ideas and started writing his own books of political theory that we're kind of based off of them. And then when uh two thousand thirteen, you get the Syrian Civil War reaches its kind of high, Isis becomes the thing.

Suddenly the government's not in this area that has a large Kurtish population, Northeast Syria, and you know, people who are followers of Augelon takeover and start as they're fighting. Isis instituting this kind of radical feminist, egalitarian vision of society which is currently under attacked by the Turkish government, which is what we're gonna be talking about. So I want to introduce our guests for today. First off, we have James Stout and we have Chris on the call

from our normal Cool Zone team. And then our guests today are Debbie book Chin. Debbie is a journalist and author and co editor of The Next Revolution, Popular Assemblies and the Promise of the Direct Democracy UM. And then we also have Megan Bodette from the Kurdish Peace Institute, where she is the director of Research. UM, welcome to the show, Megan and Debbie. Thank you, it's great to be here. Thank you so much, really appreciate it. Yeah,

thank you both for your time. I think maybe to start us out, Megan, UM, would you be willing to talk a little bit about why the Turkish government is so aggressive towards this independent region in Northeast Aria and kind of what the situation on the ground is now. Yeah,

absolutely so. For some background, essentially, since the division of the Middle East into the modern nation states that exist there today after World War One, with the agreements by European powers, the Kurdish people have been divided between four different states Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and all of those states have had governments that have been ethno nationalists, that have been repressive, that have not provided Kurds and

other ethnic and religious minorities equal citizenship rights UM, to participate in politics and to practice their culture, to speak their language um, in addition to denying many of these rights to many of their other citizens of different ethnicity and religions as well. And so as a result of this repression and the repression in Turkey was some of the strongest and most systemic UM. The Kurdish people in these regions have continued to struggle for and demand self

determination and freedom in different political forms. What happened in Turkey in the nineteen twenties and the nineteen thirties, there were Kurdish revolts against the new um Turkish Republic, which was a very autocratic nation state that denied the existence

of all non Turkish ethnicities. And these revolts were all violently put down with attacks that not only targeted those who tried to resist these policies of assimilation, but that also resulted in um Turkish you know, mass violence against Kurdish civilians in these regions. You had forced deportations, you had ethnic cleansing, you had all kinds of brutal violence against civilians in order to specifically create this homogeneous Turkish

ethnic identity in Kurdish regions. And so after this period of time there were um there was a period wherein there was less resistance, and I think, you know, the Turkish government believed that the Kurdish problem had been solved by force, they had successfully been able to kill or

assimilate all of the Kurdish people. But in the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties, sort of concurrent with many national liberation movements around the world, you had the beginning of the PKK or the Kurdistan Workers Parties national liberation struggle.

Now they began as a socialist movement seeking an independent and socialist Kurdish state, and they saw Kurdistan as a colony that was occupied by Turkey, and with the colonialism of Turkey in Kurdistan was supported by imperialist powers in the rest of the world as well, and they sought to write that as other national liberation movements in Africa, Asia, Latin America many places at the time did with an

armed struggle for independence. And in responding to the PKK's formation and armed struggle, the Turkish state once again, rather than acceding to any Kurdish demands, they responded with brutal, violent oppression of not only Kurds who were active in the armed struggle, not only politically active Kurds, but on all forms of Kurdish identity. After the military coup in Turkey and nineteen eighty the Kurdish language was banned. Um Kurds were imprisoned on false charges or no charges at all. UM,

torture was prevalent, show trials were prevalent. UM any kind of publication or other public interaction in Kurdish was completely illegal. So there was this full scale effort to repress the Kurds and any other progressive segments of society in Turkey that would have supported them, and as the conflict went on,

Turkey did very little to change. By the nineteen nineties, the success of the Kurdish movement had forced the state to recalibrate, as had developments in Iraqi, Kurdistan with Kords, they're achieving autonomy and so you started to have the ability of Kurdish political actors to work within the system.

We saw the development of pro Kurdish legal political parties at that time, but there was still very severe repression of any and all things Kurdish as they made their demands, even of those who increasingly attempted to make demands peacefully.

So the conflict went on throughout the nineteen nineties and the two thousands and to this day UM despite a peace process between the Government of Turkey and the PKK and the Kurdish Movement between twelve and twenty fifteen UM, that process failed when Ridwan's government saw that it was allowing for Kurds to take advantage of expanded democratic space

in Turkey organized and achieve electoral political success. The government abandoned its commitments and sadly returned to war, and the conflict has been going on ever since and has included, you know, again, not only this military component, but this component of crushing all forms of organized Kurdish political and cultural expression. So what we've been seeing in Turkey over the past um, nearly a decade, now more than a half decade, is the repression of the pro Kurdish political

opposition in parliament, the People's Democratic Party or the HDP. UM, we've seen repression of Kurdish media, attacks on Kurdish journalists, UM, we've seen any kind of Kurdish activism, not only um that that's explicitly political, but any kind of acknowledgment of the Kurdish language, of Kurdish colors, of Kurtish clothing very readily criminalized. And this campaign of attacking and repressing all

things Kurdish has of course expanded beyond Turkey's borders. So Turkey opposes North aneas Syria because the Syrian Kurds have created a form of autonomous governance that protects and promotes Kurdish rights because they have done so in the framework of the Kurdish Freedom movement that has its roots in Turkey UM and in Ochelan's ideas, as you explained, and because they've been able to create a successful alternative to the very sort of nationalist project that the modern Turkish

state is based on. You know, I would say that the Turkish Kurdish conflict, and I don't like to call it that, but that is what most people call it today is really a conflict now over to competing visions of regional order with Turkeys based on the right ring wing neo liberal nation state and the Kurdish movement's vision of a Middle East based on self determination, liberation, equality for women, and other values not only for birds but

for all people. So because Northern East Syria represents UM both Kurdish success and in creating an autonomous region, and it represents these ideas of the Kurdish Freedom movement that challenge Turkey's nationalist project UM. Turkey has been trying to destroy the Autonomous Administration of Northern East Syria by all

possible means for a very long time now. They've invaded Syrian territory twice to attack the Autonomous Administration and the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, once in a frena in two thousand and eighteen a frina Is in northwestern Syria, and then once in two thousand nineteen after UM, you know Trump and air Tawan's phone call that we all infamously remember in Sarah Kanyer and tal Abiad in northeastern Syria.

So you've had these two invasions and occupations of UM North and East Syria territory that have included not only the terrible violence of invasion and occupation, but also all kinds of crimes against civilians who remained. We've seen uptakes in violence and abuse of women, ethnically motivated, religiously motivated hatred and persecution that's driven virtually all of the non Arab and non Muslim people living in these regions to

flee their homes. Attacks on anyone who is perceived as having collaborated with the prior administration all being carried out by Turkey and Turkish back Syrian militia groups. So we've seen the persecution of the civilians in these areas with the intent of changing demographics and installing not only a government sympathetic to Turkey and the military structure sympathetic to Turkey, but also removing the social base for the Autonomous Administration's project.

And then, in addition to these all out attacks on the Autonomous Administration in these regions, Turkey continues to threaten the territory that North Aneast Syria does have left, which is still nearly one third of Syrian territory concentrated in the northeast. There's been an escalating campaign of drone strikes targeting leaders in the Autonomous Administration and the STF, as

well as Syrian civilians. Turkey is cutting water access to northern East Syria by restricting the flow of the Euphrates River. This is an agricultural region. People depend on that water for all aspects of life um and certainly for the economy. That's caused a great deal of suffering. The entire Turkish

Syrian border is very heavily militarized. When you drive by it and you see the wall and you know, very lit up at night with the barbed wire and everything, and you just look at, you know, these civilian towns, very peaceful on both sides. It's something very disturbing to see UM. But it's a highly militarized border and it

is completely sealed border. UM. Turkey does not trade with northern East Syria and supports an international economic blockade on the reed En, including by pressuring its allies to restrict the access of goods to North and East Syria. So

there's economics they're going on there. There are really every tactic that Turkey is able to use, whether military, economic, environmental, political, or anything else in order to crush and destroy on with any serious political project and force the Kurdish people and the other peoples of that region to flee so that there is no base for such a project again in the future. Uh. They're doing everything they can to

achieve that outcome. So the situation is very difficult and it is a direct result of Turkeys, you know, century old Kurdish question that it has been unable and unwilling to honestly and in good faith a peaceful solution to UM. And we'll get to it later, but the international community has played a very big role in ensuring that that conflict goes on with all of those at its consequences

for Northeast Aria. Yeah, I mean, and that's one of the so obviously Turkey is the second largest military in NATO UM and has you know, one of the things that is such like so messy about this is that on paper and on the ground, in fact, the United States has been supporting the Autonomous Region um IN in northeast Syria and particularly the White PG in the White PJ, which is you know, the militia essentially um AS as

partners in the fight against ISIS. And still to this day, right now, there's an operation going on in the Al Whole Camp, which is where a lot of ISIS prisoners are held. UM that is like a coalition supported operation. At the same time that the United States is doing this, we're selling weapons to the people who are have essentially declared the folks that are military has been aiding a terrorist organization UM, which is a peculiar in frustrating situation

to say the least. Yeah. And and actually the other thing that's happening, Robert is that you know, Turkey, while it's threatening a full scale invasion, they've been doing all of these things that Megan described sort of on this sort of low intensity warfare scale. A kind of military strategy that uses a whole variety of tactics um that are short of you know, a full scale invasion, which

still may come. And so you know, there's these extra judicial killings of uh, some of the leaders of the SDF, which is the Syrian Democratic Forces which is the sort of umbrella group of the two militia Kurdish militias that you described, and which also includes many Arab fighters and others who have who have been central and defeating ISIS at the cost I might add of about thirteen thousand lives, you know, and um, you know, and the and the use of their pro see groups like the Syrian so

called you know s N, a Syrian National Army, which is really you know, a group of jihadi militias that Turkey has kind of assembled and now completely is responsive to Turkey and and is the sort of shock troops for when they went did go into Afron and for these other invasions, um, you know, economic pressures as Megan described.

But the point is that this kind of warfare, it produces these sort of ongoing low level attacks, but it keeps it sort of off the radar of the of the bigger political and media machine, and therefore it keeps it from getting the attention that it really deserves in Western societies. It also has the impact of displacing hundreds of thousands of people and and uh, you know, and

and many hundreds have also been killed. I'm sure probably you're familiar with some of the recent bombings by drone that have been occurring in Rojeva, which you know, including many civilians, school children. Turkey. Turkey is doesn't care at all about about who gets hit, and they have been very aggressive, um, without any respect for civilian casualties as well.

So you know, So, I mean, I think it's it's important to also just note that this democratic project is in Syria is a deep threat to Turkey because and and that every time Airdoan steps up these military sort of disaggression, um, it leads him to Brice slightly in the polls, which is something that's important to him because he has an election coming up next year. So there's that sort of political dimension to it. But the fact

is that that Rojeva is basically a women's revolution. Women are involved in every aspect of running society there, the political, the social, the economic, and Turkey is essentially a femicidal state. You know it not only reviews women within within Turkey is less than human where husbands can basically get away with murdering their wives. But you know it targets girls with drones, as it did on August eighteenth when a Turkish drone bombed to you and supported education center for

young girls and in Herseka and Roosjeva. So you know, it's it's very much, as Megan said, a war of ideologies as well. Again, one of the things that's so frustrating with this so historically, the reason why Turkey was it was so important for NATO to get Turkey as a member is because that's essentially NATO's eastern flank. If you're still thinking about that big theoretical conflict between you know,

Russia and UH and the Western democracies. That was why, you know, part of why why initially like Turkey was such a valued partner, and then as time has gone on, it's um primary early I'm one of the big things is we have a massive air base in Turkey, in

sirlick Um where a number of US nuclear warheads are kept. Um, so there's a tremendous fear cowardice might be a better way to say it, on behalf of politicians in the United States and other Western countries to actually engage with the ethnic cleansings UM and with the human rights abuses that the Turkish government, particularly under Air to one has

has continued. And one of the things that's really frustrating about this, you know, if you think about the way in which ISIS was discussed by US media, was discussed by conservatives by Donald Trump during his campaign, you know, it was this ultimate boogeyman. Well, a huge chunk of the support for for ISIS and in fact, even logistics for some of their fighters came allegedly courtesy of the

Turkish state. And there's some evidence for this. There's certainly evidence of support for wounded fighters and kind of a a lax policy that allowed a lot of people to come through Turkey and get into Northeast Syria to fight UM. And you know, as you noted earlier thirteen thousand, somewhere around there fighters men and women UM in the YPG and J died fighting ISIS in you know, UM, and we're you know, not just fighting ISIS kind of with the backing of the United States, but prior to getting

any support. One of the most important things they did. The while ISIS was on the move in Iraq as well as Syria, they were carrying out an active ethnic cleansing, a genocidal operation in Mount Sinjar against the z ds UM and that was only really stopped because while they were fighting a defensive war in northeast Syria, the YPG sent fighters into Iraq to stop the genocide UM and they were successful in this. You know you talked to IS.

I have a lot of y ZD survivors of the genocide, and I'll say the only reason we got out is because of you know, the YPG, UM and the PKK and the well and that is the it is. It is, so we should we could talk a little bit about the p k K. They are the the y PG and J and the SDF, which is kind of the umbrella organization, are not recognized as terrorist organizations by the United States or by most Western democracies. The p k

K is recognized as a terrorist organization Turkeys. Allegations would be that the y PG and J and and other

you know militias are just p KK affiliates UM. The reality is that they are in quite a fact, quite closely tied um Uh and you will, you know, but also there it's not the exact like when you're in Rajaba and you encounter people who are p KK, people will speak about them differently than they will talk about other people who are kind of you know, that they're the folks from the mountains is the term that I here use the most. But the thing is, see, here's

the problem. The problem is that that whatever the p k K is, history is and has been and where more than we can get into, the p k K made a dramatic shift in its ideology and has done everything possible to try to restart peace negotiations with Turkey. So first of all, you know, there are several as Megan mentioned before, there was a peace initiative that went on for a few years that then everyone decided wasn't um you know, beneficial to him, so he stopped it.

But the p KK, and as recently as I think a year or two ago, the leader of the p KK in the Mountains, right Najamil Bayek, wrote an op ed for the Washington Post saying, we want to have talks, we want to have reconciliation with Turkey. We're not asking for a separate Cornish state. All we want is some degree of autonomy. And and uh, you know, and and it's actually to the enduring shame of the Western media, including the New York Times, that they continue to talk

about them as a separatist organization. But that's an other story as well. The fact is that these um ideologies that they both subscribe to p k K and the YPG YPG, regardless of whether to what extent they may be related, the political ideology is an ideology about direct democracy. It's about empowering people at the local level. It's about making sure that every adult and also the youth have a say in their communities. And it's as grassroots democratic

as anything that you could ever imagine. And so really, you would think that the United States, you know, would understand that there's certainly no threat that the neither the YPG nor the YPGJ has ever shown any aggression towards Turkey, which is what makes this idea of a buff the idea that they need a buffers own kind of a joke,

you know. So really it's it's an ideological shift that's so profound and so empowering to local people that it's also something that frankly, those of us who are on the left should be much more supportive of, I think, than than people have been so far. Yeah, I mean the thing that is most remarkable because I spent a lot, I spent more time, certainly in Iraq than in Syria. And we should note here that we're talking about Syria

today and we're talking about Rojava. Turkish aggression against particularly UM, against the p k K, but against you know, Kurd's kind of in an ethnic sense, UM extends beyond Syria. Turkey has illegally attacked Iraq and in fact moved troops into Iraqi soil a number of times, escalating within the last year, and killed a substantial number of people in the in the Kurdish regional government territories. UM. So that

is also occurring here. Although it's it's worth noting again because people mix this up a lot, what's happening in Kurdish control Iraq is profoundly different from what's happening in Rojava and the extremely different political organization. Yeah, I think it's also worth mentioning that it's not just UM. Curtish groups have been attacking in a rock There's been a bunch of attacks like after these Yeah, it's killed a bunch of those people too. It is the yeah, they're

they're doing the genocide again. Yeah, I think. Yeah, it's UM, it's interesting, you know, I uh, it's also kind of worth. The thing that was perhaps most surprising to me there was the degree to which people I would meet who were just like in many cases just like kind of you know, terrorism police assays guys, or people who are like working traffic checkpoints, are working in the farms. There were people were really careful to not refer or talk

to like what the project was as a state. And it's it's not on a state a state, it's an autonomous region. That's one of the terms I heard the most is the autonomous regions, which is is really interesting to me. And it's it's hard. It's something certainly like mainstream media writing about it. UM seems to have trouble grasping, as you say, And it's it's interesting because obviously, Debbie

and case folks haven't put it together. You are the daughter of Marie book Chin, who is the UM, who is the political philosopher whose ideas formed a significant like core of of sort of what the organizational structure in Roja is UM. Well, I just want to say, first

of all, thank you for that. I also just want to say that I really want to remind everybody that, of course, you know, Abdullah Chellan read hundreds and hundreds of books, not just my dad's, so I mean, I appreciate that, but you know they have he has really especially placed emphasis on the need for any revolutionary project

to have the liberation of women at its core. My dad talked a lot about hierarchy and patriarchy, but Allan, by making women central, has really done something unique, I think, you know, in in the history of because in the history of sort of revolutionary movements, because as many women who have participated in those movements in the past can tell you, it was always sure, fight with us and we'll deal with the women's issue when the revolution is over.

And a Gelant turned that upside down, you know, and he said it's got to be a women's revolution at all. And the women in those movements over there really fought

for that themselves to UM. And one of the things that you know, it was most interesting for me to see, UM was when I would go into meetings there with women in all kinds of different you know, military and civilian institutions and different cities across the region that before I would even bring it up as a researcher, you know, women would say to me that if it weren't for A Gelan's theories, we wouldn't have the organizations that we had,

we wouldn't have the political power that we have. And they have this incredible articulation of how they use these ideas, you know, as inspiration for their own work and also as almost clitical cover to do kinds of things that wouldn't be accepted in other places because they can go to men who they work with, who might be suspicious, but who you know, have this public stated claim to this ideology, and they can say, well, Gelon's books say

that society can never be free without women's liberation, that women's can have their own separate institutions. So they've been able to really take these ideas and expand on them and you know, push them and use them with their own practice. UM and the way that the ideas came

about themselves. One book that I would recommend anyone interested in the Kurdish movement UM in Revolutionary Women's movements anywhere in the world, and really any topic related to any of this to read is UM, the autobiography of Sekina Johnson's, who was the only woman present for the founding of the PKK and was really instrumental in organizing both the armed and so billion sides of the Kurdish women's movement in Turkey. UM. There are pictures of her everywhere in Syria.

She was assassinated in France in two thousand thirteen by Turkish nationalists affiliated with the state, likely suspected, you know, hoping to disrupt the peace negotiations that were ongoing at

that time. But she's remembered everywhere in northeast Syria for her role, and you can see in her book her talking about seeing the inequalities that, as Debbie mentioned, women in socialist movements and revolutionary movements often faced where they were asked to, you know, be as committed to this struggle as their male comrades were, but we're still treated in very patriarchal ways by men that they worked with because of, you know, the patriarchy inbedded into these societies.

And you see her talking about organizing women to overcome this um and when you look at the history of the Kurdish movement moving into what you see in Northeast Syria as well. You know, women were really able to do so much in practice that the theory had to move to catch up to them, and then to take this new incredible theory of you know, women's oppression being the basis of all oppression, UM and the form of oppression that you know, must be addressed to free all

members of society in all ways. You know, they took this and they continued to expand it so in a very difficult place in context to do so. I mean we know that in more UM, there's more violence against women, there's more discrimination, there's more emphasis on traditional gender roles. That this holds true across different societies and different conflicts.

So they have, UM that they face many challenges. They're up against a lot here, certainly, you know, with all the problems UM that they're facing in Northeast Syria because of conflict and poverty, UM, everything that Turkey is doing that we've discussed. So they're up against a lot and

it's not easy. But they've really you know, they've come incredibly far UM and seeing how you know, they've taken very high level theoretical ideas and then done so much in practice, and how their practice and theory from each other. Um is really one of the most incredible things to see over there. Um. And it's another reason why Turkey wants to destroy them, because arid Land does not believe that women can be equal to men. Um. He does

not see male violence against women as a problem. And yeah, you know, as we've discussed, Turkey and the Kurdish movement couldn't be any more different on this question. No, And it's UM, I think the thing because you know, going over there, I went with THEE as a journalist, where like I had heard all these things and and Rojava has kind of become among some chunks of the left, chunks of the left to cause celeb in part because of you know, the achievements of the revolution in that space,

and I wanted to see how legitimate is it? And Um, part of why you know I kind of went in with that attitude is that I had spent so much time in the Kurdish regions of Iraq and if if you remember when the fighting against ISIS was at its height, there was a tremendous amount of coverage of the female Peshmerga and the fact that you know, the Kurds in northern Iraq, who were the first force in Iraq that collapsed the least when ISIS was on the advance. Um,

it's overstated how well they did. That's why the YPG needed to rescue the z e s At sinjar Is. The Kurdish military in northern Iraq just kind of bounced at that point. But um, you know I had heard about you know these that that this woman's right situation is great in northern Iraq. It's very egalitarian. There's women fighters, and it is it's certainly and anyone who lives there will tell you much safer and easier to be a woman.

In the KRG, the Kurdish region like control Kurdish Regional Government parts of Iraq than it is further south in the country. But that doesn't mean it's it's good. It is it is more like certain things. There's somewhat more tolerated, there's more freedom, but it's still a very traditionalist society. And for example, I didn't see any al Peshmerga. Um, they did not make much of a presence on the ground, and and there their their involvement in the fighting was

exaggerated somewhat as part of a conscious pr strategy. Um, as soon as you cross in to northeast Syria, you see women manning and running checkpoints stations you see as you go in because they're like you know, they like you get like passport and stuff like looked at and you get like stamps and whatnot. When you kind of come into the to the region, UM, you see a lot of women like running that part of the operation.

You go in to the actual country itself and there's we we visited a restaurant that was run by a collective of women who had all lost husbands in the fighting. We ran. We went to a farm that was all young women who had left their families who were very traditionalist in their religious attitude. Um, and and go on independent and of course you see um female military units and female we saw mixed male and female like military

policing units and stuff. And it's it's one of those things that if who are going there kind of with a critical eye to try and see how extensive the revolution can be, I can't imagine not being convinced of the reality of it, because it's it's just so stark well also Robert. You know, first of all, just to again, you could say a lot about what's going on in Iraqi Kurdistan, but just to very quickly sum it up.

I mean, it is a capitalist petrol state run by a plan the Barzanies, you know who who a crew basically all the wealth to themselves. And you can't even begin to compare it with with the kind of revolutionary project in Syria. So I mean, I just want to

in case so people understand. I mean, I don't want to use I hate to use the word socialist because it's such a it's so fraught, but you could the closest thing, you know, it's a it's built on a socialist economic model, except a better one, well more like what my father and what Abdullah Shelan have an mind, which my father called communalism, and this democratic confederalist model is based on cooperatives, you know, where people really do um have the means control the means of production as

much as possible. I mean, it's obviously all you know, still in formation, it's still growing, and it's like the energy sector where things that you know are less like that. But are I hope in that direction. Yeah, I mean, obviously no, this is certainly not some kind of perfect utopian in the middle of a war zone. But but as you pointed out, what you see when you go

there is women so active in every aspect. I would add to to what the great examples you gave the women's houses to talk about that right where they are literally resolving so many problems for both men and women, you know, at the community level, and and so it's

it's really quite an extraordinary you know. I guess what I want to say about it is that like if if we all got on board of you know, one of that that Cretan elon Musk spaceships and found a colony you know where they were doing this, we'd be cherishing it. We'd be going, oh my god. You know, look at these people. They're like they have a cooperative economy and they have women's councils at every level. Wow, men can't overrule women on a decision that comes to

say women's bodies. Think here the Dobbs decision right on the Supreme Court. Women only women can can decide those issues that are related to women. And there there are councils at every level and people sending delegates, you know, meeting in their little villages and towns and communities and electing delegates to the next level. It is a true grassroots democracy, and it's ecological, and it's feminist. It's like if Ursula La Gwyn we're writing about it and the disgust,

we'd all be going wow. So so really, you know, it's something that I think, especially anybody who considers themselves a feminist, you know, should be supporting. And and certainly, and I hope all of us do, you know, And and certainly anybody you know, I would think who's an anarchist. To me, it's pretty close to an every anarchist's dream, you know. And and so I think I just wanted to make that contrast with Iraq because I think it's

really important. Really goes to why the Kurdish project really needs very badly the support of people in the United States, because in so many ways, the United States kind of calls the shots about what can and cannot happen over there if you look at the problems they have, you know, to all of that, because of course, all of these places are not perfect, and have you know, these serious

issues alongside these serious achievements. Every issue that they have is an issue that any society would have if that society had been through ten years of war. Um, we're impoverished and blockaded from virtually all economic activity with the outside world, if they had had to not only you know, fight the occupation of a group like ISIS, but then immediately turn around to fight a state army much larger than them, you know, bent on taking and occupying their territory.

A society where people fear going outside because they don't know if they'll be in the wrong place at the wrong time when they'll be a drone strike on a local military leader going around doing their job keeping their communities safe from ISIS, or a local political leader going around doing their job trying to you know, build this

new system. So I think when we look at the flaws, their flaws that are the result of in large part poverty and conflict and all of the compounding crisis crises that the people of North Anyst Syria have to face because of what they have gone through, you know, as Debbie mentioned, much at the hands of larger powers. So much of what happens in Syria is up to what the United States wants up to what Russia wants, up

to what Turkey wants. Um, all of these countries and regions, you know, with different priorities, different outlooks, but it somehow happens that at the end of the day, you know, the one thing they can all agree on is that, UM, it's okay to sell out the autonomous administration, It's okay

to have consequences for them. You know, if the Courtish people suffer, the zd people suffer, the people of northern East Syria, all of these different demographics, if they're the people who are victimized, you know, because they don't have a state, because they're fighting for something different, because they're challenging the status quo, it's okay if they're the ones who faced the consequences. We saw this, you know, with

what happened with Isis. We saw this with the complete international silence when a fren was invaded, with the you know, piecemeal response that stopped the Turkish invasion in twenty nineteen, but allow them to convert what they were doing to this kind of low intensity war, um, you know, with a terrible ceasefire, you know, with undefined lines, and with these drone strikes being allowed in areas where Russia and the United States, both of which have agreements with Turkey

are active, um, you know, and both of whom tolerate this. So essentially every powerful interest in Syria can agree on, you know, ensuring that the autonomous administration comes in last. And as people in the US, you know, anyone who considers themselves on the left, who considers themselves a feminist, who cares about persecuted ethnic and religious minorities, who opposes endless war and militarist foreign policy that props up autocrats

and you know, props up far right regimes. Anyone with any of those values should be very concerned about the situation in Northeast Syria right now and should be looking at what we can do to UH, to get our government to stop supporting some of these very harmful policies against the region, you know, even while it claims to be supporting their fight against isis. What can people listening here, presumably most of you are in the United States or

Canada or Western Europe. What can people listening here, particularly in the US, do they have an impact to help? Well, we could talk about that, Um, we could have an entire other podcast episode on that because there's a lot

to be done. But you know, to summarize in a few words, the way that the United States supports Turkey's war on the Kurdish people, all the peoples of the region and the Kurdish National Liberation movement is through military cooperation and support, through diplomatic cooperation and support, intelligence sharing, and these pro war legal pretexts. So go tell Congress that you don't want them to send weapons to Turkey.

There's an EP six team sale right now that um, it was really great to see the majority of Congress, including all of the squad members, people like AOHC. Rashida Talai, Bilhan Omar all opposed that sale. So opposing armed sales very important something that there's momentum there for um and that there's momentum among progressives therefore, which is very heartening. Opposing military aid and security assistance to Turkey. You know,

I've done research on this. U S security assistance has trained senior Turkish officials, including the country's current defense minister and several perpetrators of the violent, repressive nineteen eighty military coup. Obviously, we should not be training coup plotters and war criminals that is not something I think most people learning this

want their tax dollars to go to. So calling for an end to US security assistance to Turkey very important, in addition to ending those arms sales and challenging the pro war legal pretexts and designations that allow Turkey to get this kind of Western and support. You know, a wonderful thing that we saw a couple of weeks back was the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist organization in the US, saying that they oppose the terror designation of the p k K and believe it it should

be delisted. That's something that progressive support very strongly. In Europe. We've seen, you know, calls from places like Ireland and South Africa where people know a lot about you know what terror designations, and you know, the criminalization of struggles, you know, can can have impacts on conflict resolution. You know, people who participated in these kinds of post conflict processes in some of these places saying get rid of the designation.

It's harmful for peace. You know, it will be difficult to end this less violently without it. So that's something where you know, it seems the international case for it is something that's rather obvious, and where pressure in the US on the US designation to remove it would be an important step for facilitating dialogue and a negotiated end

to this conflict. So understanding how the US supports Turkey's wars on the Kurdish people and opposing all of those different policies and programs as one of the most important things that we can do to say this war is not in our name. We stand with the people of northeast Syria, with the people in Turkey suffering from Turkish authoritarianism, with the people in Iraqi, Kurdistan, uzd S and Shngal

being bombed by Turkish drones. When we say that we don't want to support this war, we stand with all of those people. Um And I think that that kind of action against arms, sales, security assistance, and pro war legal pretexts could be a really great base for solidarity opposing endless war in the Middle East and standing up for you know, peacefully ending this conflict. Um. And it would align us with progressives all around the world, and you know, people who really believe in in peace and

in ending these kinds of things. And and if I could just add, you know, one one element to that would also be really pressing for a diplomatic solution to the whole so called Kurdish question, because Rojeva will remain in danger as long as air dewan And and his and his party think that they can basically that they have to be fighting Kurds because you know, to them, as Megan said before, Rojeva is an extension of their

own Kurds and of the PKK. So what But but what really needs to happen, just as as it happened in South Africa, is there has to be a negotiated settlement.

One of the things that would help with this, and there are movements that people can get involved with if they want, would be freeing a Chilan who has been in a sitting in a Turkish jail for the last twenty two years because he is sort of the Nelson Mandela really of of the Kurdish freedom movement and he should be involved in these negotiations and was even while he was in jail. But really, you know, a jail

person can't really do that properly. So pressing for a diplomatic solution because basically rat one uses the p K k UM and the listing of the PKK as a terrorist organization to basically kill all Kurds everywhere. And in order to stop that, somehow there has to be a

break in this. And so I think that, you know, people, there are certainly plenty of peace organizations and people who want to work on peace, and I think this is a really important demand that they begin that the United States and the United States has nothing to lose by pressuring Turkey to engage in negotiations with the p k K. This is an hour war. The p KK has never

done anything to the United States. It would make, as Megan said, for a lasting peace in the entire or Middle East, and would you know, And and so what I would say is, first of all, folks, would be great if people who want more information about any of this could contact the organization that I helped co found, the Emergency Committee for Rojeva, which is at Defend Rojeva dot org. And we have scripts to call congress Person's resources and we even have fun monthly meetings that people

can come to. Um you know, and there's of course a lot of information at Megan's website also Kurdish Peace dot org. But you know, one of the things that people could do is go out and talk to their communities, whether it's a religious community or a labor union or a food coop or your kids nursery school or reading group, women's group, and sort of talk and and help. Because there's a lot of people so surprisingly really don't know

much about Roojeva. I think maybe because there because the Zabatistas are a little closer geographically, that that project is a bit better known, you know, So talking to people and getting people engaged, and for example, if there's anybody

listening from New Jersey. Bob Menendez is the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and he's been pretty hostile towards air to one and and keeping on him with phone calls emails is a great way, you know, for for our m As somebody who worked in Washington for a while when I worked for Bernie Sanders, I know that these guys listen to their constituents, you know, and if they get enough calls, they start to pay attention

to those things that they come around. We could even get, you know, somebody to send a letter around to their colleagues in Congress saying, you know, it's time to start peace negotiations. Those kinds of things do have impact because, as I said before, unfortunately the United States is really at the helm and so many ways of what happens internationally in these geopolitical battles. UM. Well, thank you so much, Debbie, Thank you so much. Megan. UM. I think that's that's

going to do it for us today. UM. Please, you know, continue paying attention to this. UM. Did you want to you know, Megan, did you have anything else you wanted to kind of kind of add um or let people know actually both of you would let people know where they can follow you on the internet. Yeah. Well, I mean I think that that about covers it. Look, the only solution for peace, democracy and self determination in Turkey and in the wider Middle East is a just and democratic,

negotiated settlement to the Kurdish question. And I think that just as Debbie said, learn about what's going on, reach out to your communities, talk to your local Kurdish community if there is one, find the opportunities that there are to engage with people in Turkey, in Syria and all of these places, you know, working for peace and standing

up for these ideas. And then no efforts too small, because ending this conflict would benefit everyone in Northeast Syria, everyone in Turkey and all of us here, you know, knowing that our government was no longer supporting this terrible,

unjust war. UM, So just get out there and do something. UM. To see the work that the think tank where I work UM is doing on this issue, you can go to Kurdish Peace dot org where we have research and analysis on everything related to do related to the Kurdish issue from all different perspectives, and you can check out our work there UM. And you can follow me on Twitter UM Megan Bodette and the Twitter handle is at five underscores m j b excellent. My Twitter is simpler.

It's just Debbi book at the the books and and again I just want to say that you know people we do at defend Rojeva dot org and we're also on Twitter at defend Rojeva. We have so many ideas and so much information about how people can get involved. Is making said, if nothing else, no more weapons to Turkey until they begin peace negotiations, give Rojeva political recognition. That would be another thing people can be demanding also that Curds have a place at the bargaining table and

any discussions about the future of Syria. So we have all those kinds of ideas, scripts, as I said, model emails and more at defend rojeva dot org. Awesome, UM, thank you all for for being on and um yeah, that's going to do it for us here. It could happen here for the day. Thank you for having us. Thanks. Ye hi everyone, it's James here, Welcome to It could happen here today. It's just me and we're talking again about the UC strike. But the audio is not great.

We had some technical issues on my end, not not on Matt's end, but we wanted to put it out in one the list because we felt that was very important episode and things of developing very rapidly at the u S and we thought that a listeners would like it. So apologies for the poor quality of the audio. We hope you can get through it anyway. All right, So I'm talking today with Matthew, a literally the seven seventh

to PhD candidate in the history department. Matthew, would you like to explain a little bit of who you are and what you've been doing with reference to the strike in the last three weeks and maybe before as well. Yes, so I studied Spanish history, like you said, a free empire. I've been at u c SC for seven years. UM. I do research in Spain for two years during the

COVID pandemic. So there was sort of great in my university of participation between my mind qual of buying exams for the three years I was there, UM, and then I left. When I came back and i'd go on. The campus was was quite different from both from COVID and from the increasing economic hardships UM. So in the last few year, UH, we involved in UM targeting UM trying to buy a new contract UM as I'm sure

all your listeners are aware by this point. Uh not for more than a year, in eighteen months in some cases without a successful resolution, and with I know on bare labor practices on behalf of the UC administration. I saw in November fifteen, I believe it was to day we walked out on strength. I had signed up several months earlier to be a strike captain for the history department.

I just assisted by a sort of the informable committee of five of the younger equals, sort of due to the pandemic of a lot of my colleagues, in my codeboord UM and we're not able to go do their research, so they're generally out of the country right now doing their field research. So we have a really great department of primarily first through third years that are participating UM and and leading younger. I also had signed up to be a ticket uh a ticket leader UM kind boiled

down today. What I have been really occupying myself and saying has been uh being a food captain. So we have been cooking for about a hundred fifty people at our location on campus. UM. We've been getting lots of great donations UM food and nash and even real dusting

that to feed hundred picketers. That's really cool. Yeah, I think that's really nice to to bring up actually, because that we were speaking about before the core right, So many people are familiar with and supportive of the concept of unions and unionization and workers right, but I think relatively few people have actually been on strike and seeing what it takes to organize and all the little things you have to take care of. And so did you just step into that food captain role like kind of

ad hoc Yeah, more or less night. I showed up on the first day and I realized we had been marching around and shouting ourselves for the grocery storey night, and I bought a bunch of water and that's sort of snowballed into cooking. Now we have about dat or night. Um, we rotate shifts and fild planning. We actually used the

History of Parking graduate lounge. But yeah, you know that's st our experience of ticketting is for all the organization and signing up for different tasks that need to be more in hand, hitting around and seeing what what has needed to sustain that a level as has been a journey, Yeah, I bet, but it seems to have been a lot

to be a successful one. Like everyone is out energetic. Um, there have been some really impressive actions actually, like I don't know if you're part of the village drive shut down, I know what you want to call that yesterday, But did you take part in that? No? I was, I was, I was okay, yeah yeah, the people who were amazing. Yeah yeah. We actually found a faculty spy in the eight before who went in and asked what time that

was one game? I'm sort of uh, our window. There's been a lot of direct action and it's been very successful for the moral perspective and the conversation. I'm sure you're a where we uh approached Chancellor Goldslaw yesterday the day before and even though obviously we didn't get a promise from him that he would raise our wages until

President Drake to raise our wages. Uh, it was you know, very energizing for people who have you been been not able to show up because things give me great or involved between their people with direct nations is one of our strong suits at this point. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is.

It is wonderful to see actually, like so many of us spent so much of our lives like studying workers movements and unionization and strikes, and it's cool to see people walking the talk out a little bit also very import What are the really great things about going on strike with a bunch of you have the smartest minds and in practically every feble to get you know, com in patients that are are working on emails and erst philosophy, you know, being phlosophers, are you know, quoting working class

movements of the past of shape our strategy. Yeah, it's it's a cool thing to see. And I remember a long time ago in like and when the last time we were on strike, and yeah, it was very cool. One of the professors I was working with with a lit professor, and she came and read some stuff and then you know, I made people listen to me talking about the Ruti for a while and I enjoyed myself,

even if maybe they didn't. So yeah, I want to talk a little bit as well about like you're in week three now and you said, like you've been maintaining the energy and you're feeding people, which is great. How has obviously, like strikes come with an element of economic hardship and that that's somewhat offset by union strike funds, but it's given the economic procarity of people who are graduate students anyway, it could be really tough. So how has that been with not quite a December first yet?

Which would that be the first miss paycheck? If people are going to not get paid, yes, uh we are. Most of us could vince that the you see, will not have gotten their their house in order by this point. We were working until November fifteen, so at least you

kind to have a month to day. But because there's no real way or you see, to determine exactly which workers are withholding labor and exactly which workers runs right, It seems like the majority of workers will be receiving their first that there there no venay check UM tomorrow. We have also been receiving the striker system the SPROM

communion w UM. We're all aware that if we do receive our p check from the university, you will have to return that money, so that you will you sure uh strength assistance um and we're cutting large okay with that uh you know thats iound out between that we'll actually do meet for it makes me a they they noble the strength existance sort of holiday okay, So for this month long way or another, UM, we are all very hopeful that will be able to make ends meet.

UH next month is is you know if the strike does continue, um sort of which that will have to cross.

I was spoken to a lot of words and the intitute parte who are very concerned about about this achex uh, particularly also from the program that I teach for the Making of the Modern World, which recruits heavily from the history of parts has a non student t A s and are not covered by the union and are not uh I whish hortor strike fully their labored solidarity, but they're very concerned that uh, you know, they're primarily working

as their full time job. That's tough. Actually, I've taught that program to both as a student and a non student, and it's a good program, but it doesn't pay a ton and you don't save a lot of money living in southern California, so it could be tough. Is there a way to contribute people want to contribute to those people who are sort of withholding labor and solidarity. Yes, so we are. There is a U A W strike hardship funds have yeah, yeah, I'll including the note people.

And there's also avent mode that we're in checting donations for which the natural that's on the US embassy momently that just overwhelmed with good willing si you know, depending on how on the strike, those would definitely be something like large protect support anything I think that the public of large and be doing is concerning the pressure on the to uh age. Yeah, and yeah, I hope they

continue to do so. And let's talk a little bit about everyone we've talked to so far has been a science or engineering person, and obviously the experience is a little different when you're a historian or upt so humanities person. Because you you don't go to a lab, right you don't, your research is a bit different and your work is

a bit different. So can you explain a little bit about the work the work that one does as a history grad student, that the labor that one does for the university, and and that what the differences in what it's like withholding that labor. The differences is that we we are the vast majority of us that are in the industry department are A S S. We are t A and of the majority of us teach for either

the writing programs for for the history department. UM. So when we look at what we can contribute to the strike, we are looking at the withholding only a grade, the type of grading that cannot be replaced the course I tacheen or now there's five or six E A S. There's six hundred and fifty students. I'm responsible for sixty of those tents. Each of those students has a weekly

discussion uh animalism five six hundred words. They have a content analysis papers which there's now two of them arenessing. Those are things that can that cannot be reverted to hold choice and to writing. It's not a formula. It's not something that be easily UH place. We are aware that there has been some tension in terms of strategic planning between the A S S and and S are

using in the STEM fields. UH that on the one hand, in their in their teaching duties, UM, they are very great that their professors will be able to co opt the teaching process. UM, I make the exams will choice or or something else. And I'm not how that would work. I know that that's just not really possible. Yeah. The uh in humanities UM. And the other the issue which can I you don't really speak to, but I'm sure your other contributors have explained this is we don't work

in labs. Are researching is a much more long term We primarily that research either in uh the an absent SIA during this warrior with external fellowships or during the summer, whereas SR used and to be working in their labs

more or less constantly. I've heard it said that one of the reasons that SR use are RUDD to be less uh committed to a long term strike is because missing two weeks in a lab since that back by six months in their career or for the mass majority of humanities uh A S C. S and I talked to two weeks is is very to be picked up if you're reading a book in hers fair time, and it's not something that we need to be in with

buns and burners and to animals. So there seems to be uh material conditions divide us an scus on one an the standing humanities Faunda, Right, yeah, yeah, there were definitely like two week periods I spent on my research and stuff that I never used in any of my final projects. We could trying to get an archive to open in Spain you can often take that long. So I think one thing I'd like to talk about is like the as it stands now, what you're hearing from

the bargaining team and how that's being received. Like I know, there are a lot of different demands, a lot of different things that brought people to strike, right, the access needs to COLA, the NFL labor practices, etcetera, etcetera. Who what are you hearing on the picket line and how

is it being received? So the news for the first week was on date bo the s r U bargaining team to accept a seven percent yearly increase cerviuss he adjustment that would be paid and I believe for the median uh rent an increase in I think in the most expensive cities to help working commune San Diego and

answer system UM. And to be honest, the strike was sold to the vast majority of of the uh N radicalized on fund educated rank and file as being about the fifty four thousand base paying as well as the access needs as well as uh you know, uh here in the timer employment for some units, UM and various

different things. But there was a lot of consternation in on day four, and I think a lot of us became very radicalized, UM when we realized that, not only at the SRU bargaining team, apparently the concession on day four of what was what was supposed to be a very powerful strike, UM, but that concession didn't really resolve the issue of skyrocketing inflation and rent process and um, you know, different campuses weighing in the saying beyond Santa

Cruz event went up something like sixty percent in the last year. I'm seven black increase doesn't help us at all. Like the University of California, the largest employer and the largest landlord the state of California is raising you know, their wages by a black rate, and then all the landlords in that area will continue to raise wag of a rent even higher. UM. So a lot of us who were really I wasn't around for the two thousand

and twenty Cola wildcat strike. UM. But in the process of this consternation of the s r u BT giving up this uh whole out and space to the media evnt UM, a lot of us we think very uh I also disillusioned, but very radicalized and UM start looking into it more uh HU identities. I could say that our thinketline where we have a philosophy, literature, UH history

UM A number of other regulated departments. Who's very militant. UH. That was the first kind of moment of uh consciousness of awareness I think for a lot of us UM.

And over the last week is the last two weeks, Yes, I'm kind of internal UM struggle over over tactics and strategy, whether it's reasonable to expect that we can hold out for our aimed the bargaining teams on our campus at least and there are exceptions UM have had generally have generally advanced a sort of moderate line that yeah, before a thousand is high in the sky is great to me. But you know, the way the bargaining works is is you walk or something high and you can get something low.

I think we're all, you know, willing to accept that that is how bargaining works. But we have, at least in my figure mine, at least in the humanity has been very uncerted by the tactical decisions to make certain possessions at certain stages without letting the full power of our strike take hold, especially the reholding of brains, which

is ing out this week an text week. UM. Another thing which you know, most of us have not been on the bargaining team, and a lot of us are just kind of checking me in, uh to this this very long term process. Pretty late the game, we watched these bargaining and processions and see what you see he's offering definitely just not seem like the bargaining strategy of operating session or to get something else there it is

working at home. UM. I think made some compromises on accessibility needs in the hopes that would provoke the u SEE to offer a contragensive economic package. Last TEA included the one white five percent increase for the s R U S proposal and nothing for the A s C S. Wow, yeah, that's it's a that's you're still a long way apart then, so in both, in both the reprouple of Pola on date four, bargaining, I think there's real concern that the bargaining team is getting the short end of stay. Yeah,

that's tough if people don't remember from last time. By the way, color is the cost of living adjustment that was the initial cause of the weldcats right, YESLA is possibility adjustment and there is a lot of um uh really in justesting discorse from out what that people are changing.

No hola, no contracts data mind. COLA has as meetings specifically a yearly percentage increase that is tied to exmedient rent exmedian man, whereas party team has had argued that a seven percent yearly increased qualify as form right, but maybe less than inflation given certainly less in rent, given what rent has done in the last couple of years. And these universities are in very desirable places to live

with very high rents. They don't offer subsidut or they didn't offer significantly subsidized housing, especially to grad students often assescially not to all grad students, and so yeah, it becomes very difficult to live even on what would seem like a decent wage and unless you want to commute a long way something like and I have the story and I political Sciences that the vast majority of graduate streets through report said that they were event burned to

them by signed for there anyone to meant most people not to its more like sementins. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you can find yourself in that situation working for the university and with the university also as your landlord, and you're paying the Sciences, which you know it has control over both ends, and it's not doing much to help anyone.

Let's talk about withholding grade because that's coming up, right, and that's kind of the next level of escalation, I suppose, or like that the next hurdle um that's coming up. So what do is withholding grades look like? Can and can you explain why there's sort of a pedagogical reason that people would be obviously like worried about doing that or so it's this sort of barrier and what it would do to the university and what it would do

to your students as well. Yes, so fundamentally, the with holding grades is the withholding of the alternate finishing product of our labor. Uh. We can talk about pedagogy and ideology and and you know, high the Ivory Tower rush as we want, but at the end of the day, when when UH undergraduate at the University of California pays their fruition, they expect to get grades and transcripts in return.

And the reputation of that, you see that makes it one of the premier public institutions in the world is that that grading uh is is accredited to be reflective a very high quality and of education. We are saying

that we are not providing that old tomate. The record UM, which any end is is you know, uh, what a student would uh demonstrate if they were applying to graduate school, UH, if they were um b d internship, really anything that uh reflax their college experience, UH would be hide that great.

We are also saying that, you know, in addition to that very brutal kind of explicit uh, the result uh the pedagogy itself is also it's not that you know, students are here to learn and and they might complain in an individual class, but by largely do get a lot from their education. And if they're not being actively taught by their teaching assistance, UM, they're suffering. In the MMW program that you and I vote up for. The lectures are but they're very you know, it's a it's

a very large lecture hall. It's kind of a general just the vast majority of instruction, both in the historical cultural UH content of the course as well as in the UH the writing UH aspect, which is the point of the program to deploy skilled analytical academic writers UM, and they are not getting that at all. That's something that's a burden that is carried on under present by the t A s and by holding that and UH,

it prevents the students from receiving equality education essentially. So you're hoping that, particularly in the humanities, where our LABORI is comply irreplaceable, UM, that will pressure the university. Now we have been hearing that UM some universities have been given the laterally extending the deadline for final bids. And I believe that UH either Riverside or Irvine, and just

a message about this kind of extended January. There's a lot of sort of confusion about what that would entail it. You know, the strike is over and we all go back. We then not to facto. Um. It seems like some faculty have either in solidarity or are in uh desperation, decided to final exam change the format of those exams. Um we are I think that group the most afraid that the university will uh ran some sort of doesn't how everybody gets pass. If it would, it would theory

weaken the union's power, but it would also weaken the universities. Yea, to require those rates to uh progress de college education in their life, it would be a huge low for them to receive not a letter date, Um yeah, just ape. Yeah yeah, there would be a massive step for the university to take in undermining their own status and the

well being of their students. Right Like if you have a required class or required great in a certain class to progress to graduate school or to breas to a vocational degree, then um yeah, that that would make it. They could have long term implications for those students, right yeah, yeah, that would be a big step for them. So will I suppose Yeah, that's interesting if they extend it what are you required to go back and redo. That's a huge amount of labor that you would then be doing

in a very compact amount of time. Two grade three MW assignments is an endurance challenge. Great normally due in like mid December. Is that still the case, UCSD right now? This is this is weekend? Yeah, the clock is taking So how does the how does this strike look if you go past week ten? Right? If you go not just in terms of withholding grades, but obviously campus is very different when the undergrads aren't there. I don't think really we have discussions about whether or not we're in

it for the long haul. We are, I think at the moment, hedging our bets on the next two weeks being in some ways decisive. There are a fashion uh you know, the once finals are are over, are power dramatically weakens. I'm certainly give the UC decided to uh by us the rating for this seemed like that would be a happen hosist. I'm not convinced that they would

do that. Um In I do the longer that we withhold those rates, um the look you have the leverage, I don't think the US will just throw up their hands. You know, well be done to find and say, oh, well it's right off, see you next quarter. Yeah. Yeah, I think they have been back trying to hold you out.

I'd love to know, like to close out what you've learned through the the three in a bit weeks you've been on strike, and what you think like people should take from this, Like it's an unprecedented era for workers organization in the last thirty years. We've seen more strikes in the last few years and we have in decades. So what can people learn from the UC experience? Yes? Absolutely, UM. One of the things that I have learned which is

very salient in my mind. UM, as somebody who started organizing about three or four months before the strike, I was approached to uh be a strikethapton and thinking later I went to various trainings, I h sat in on campus organizing compete meetings, UH and the the ship we were given kind of before the strike began was that we had an incredible amount of power the strike gratification vote, where UH we uh more than three quarters of the

graduate students voted overwhelmingly in the many percentile to strike. We all went in with a very powerful sense of the historic nature of the strike and our our our bargains power in our solidarity UM that seemed to be treated by any of the un we d ship as a finite resource, as something that we want of us full to trigger on sent the workers out hope growers part resolution and if we didn't get it, then UM worked to wrap it up as quickly as we can.

I'm sure that I'm giving them a short shrift and that this is probably ultimately an unfair analysis, very much the percentagely that you know this isn't sustainable that we are reaching our pet power. UM. Now is the time to start UH kind of pivoting to making these concessions. And we're all I'm saying that no, this the organizing doesn't stop when you walk out. The organizing begins when you walk out. And for for people like me who you know, had some knowledge I I've experienced in organizing.

I've been occupy whom I consider myself very well educated radical, but just at the fact of getting on the picket line, experiencing and talking to my bellow workers across campuses, across picket mines has been energizing and maticalizing all on its own and don't think that the union leadership really knew

what to do with that account of language. It the bushes where efficient or horses or whatever that a lot of speel with the our campus MUNI leadership ought to have done a better job with the uh the day to day energizing UM. One issue that uh you know a camblames specifically on a specific barbeting unit or uh even that you U a w T suspive Um, but it's a hunter wal comes from above is at um.

If you do not pick it, you do not actively sign up or picket ships that you do in know this long round, you do not get strike and um And for a lot of us who have accessibility needs or are are not closed to campus, or are withholding their labor and active in the strength in other ways, they feel like there's not really a place for them um and and they're doing equally crucial work. Yes, it's

good to have people picketing and on that visibility. Ultimately, if there were two people hitting and everybody else was withholding their labor, we would still win the strength. UM. So there seems to be an overwhelming emphasis on the visible single of our power and our solidarity and the concession that was made in day four was explained by the dwindling uh amount of people who were showing up for pickets, you know from day one to two excreation be four um, and a lot of us tried to

push that on that. So yes, you know, it's it's hard to sustain that physical progressing. Yeah, but we should be also working to bolster and encourage and harness the power of those workers many every day, but nevertheless doing apprecial labor stop. Yeah, is this did a remote picking option to that account? Yes, yes, there is, uh you know, in any in any organization by uh you know, uh

massive workers. There's these growing pains and nariations in the first in the first week of I am dueling remote coordinators with separate lists. They resolved, and they seem to have been resolved by now the same thing with some delays in process things strike, pay count disbursements. Again, there's there's no shading as happening. It's just doing this for the first time. Um. But for but for people who for uh you know, sort of on the fence or not I really important this h that was a real

big stressor for them. Their their willingness to kind of be out there. Really. Yeah, that totally makes sense, and yeah, it's it's already a stressful time, but like you said, these things will have people will learning the process, right, like it's new for so many people. It's unprecedented to have like ten percent of the graduate students in the country with holding their labor and so like, they will

of course be growing paint. And I think often when we look at strikes, like both you and me as historians and as consumers of the news, we like we see one photo of a bunch of people like in hives, standing around a brazier, and then three weeks later we read another story about a resolution contract, right, and in fact, what makes a strike powerful is feeding people and being showing up and looking out for one another. So like

that's what we're trying to document. Thanks so much, Matt, And I wonder where people can find if you'd like to give your own social media or where people can find strike updates from the u S and from UC San Diego, anything like that you want to plug. Yes, I'm partisan in this, but I would highly recommend not getting strike updates from the u C San Diego. So yeah, from the campus, now from the university here, so fair you see now dot org. Yeah, I think it's I

think it's an old on the ground. Yeah, dealing with documents too much. A great place on Twitter has also been very all of its current yeah to date information. Can you tell us e venmo where people can like hell in the true Spanish historian fashion feed? Everyone? Have you got a giant pie out there? You like with the spade? So I will clarify this is a This is an uneficial Yeah, this is not the u a WU worldwide, but the particulars on the USC campus organizing

meeting the problem lines is at UCSD dash strike nice. Yeah, easy to remember and hopefully you get some donations. Thanks, I'm your time, Matt, I appreciate it. 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.