It Could Happen Here Weekly 82

Hey, everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode, So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions.

Other podcast fans. Today, it's me James, and I'm joined by Cave Hoda, who's a doctor in the Bay Area and also host of the House of Pod podcast, which NEXTI podcast. For you to add to what you've done listening this podcast, you can add that to your podcast rotation. But we're talking today about medication abortions, and specifically about attempts to ban medigation abortions by anti abortion activists, which

No, yeah, that was pretty much all the good stuff. Thank you for having me. This is super fun. I love all your podcasts. I like your work, so thank you for having me. And yeah, the topic is. It's super duper important, and it is in the headlines a lot, but at the same time, not enough, you know what I mean. It's like people are talking about it a ton, but I don't know if they're talking about it enough, or if the gravity of the situation is really hitting people,

Yeah, I think maybe it is bizarre, how I don't Yeah, I think we're dealing with so much bullshit and every day something terrible happens, and so I can understand how this kind of came and went in the news cycle. At the same time, it does seem like why the fuck where they're not ten million people out in the street to try to burn things down when like, like, if you're listening to this and you don't think you know anyone who's used this, it's most likely because someone

Someone posted this once and I thought it was really actually pretty brilliant. It was like, if you don't know anyone that has, that means they don't trust you enough to tell you, or they think you're a douche, So like there's a reason you know.

So, yeah, it's it's very.

Common, right, and so I think maybe to start out with, we should explain, like what is a medication abortion and how does it work? And why is it so common?

Yeah, I'll talk a little bit about that.

I think maybe we could touch a little bit on the history of it too, because I think it is kind of interesting to look at it from a bigger perspective. Medication abortions, they account for more than half of all abortions nationwide. It's usually done. There are a couple of different ways of doing it, but the most common one by far is a two drug combination mif for pristone and misoprostol, and these are the ones. They are used generally in the United States and in other countries as well.

It makes the uterus a hospitable place for it to occur. And we'll talk a little bit.

I think about the the mifa prostone the misoprostole as well, because that's a prostac land and they do a bunch of things in the body, but one of them is to cause contractions of the uterus. In that that's two these two drugs together. One makes the pregnancy less able to progress and then the other one expels it. So that's how these two medications work. What I think is really interesting about them is a little bit of the

And one of the.

Things they would do is it basically go to like a drug store or a pharmacy and they would look for medications that said beware, this could cause abortions. That's that's one of the ways this all started. One of those was mister prostal that medication I mentioned, that's a prostaglandin Again, prostal glands do a lot of things. I'm a gi doctor by trade, and you know from my perspective, they're also used for treatment of ulcers, not really something we go to that much or anymore, but there are

And again I don't think enough people are talking about it.

No, it is like I'm the same way, like I should be, a lot of my work has been border reporting, and like I should by now be Like, no, I shouldn't, because those people are fucking terrible. Like there's a group of journalists who just seem to have lost their capacity to care for other human being and can report on human suffering without taking any toll on their on their personal mental health, and they congregate on various Facebook groups and in bars and expensive hotels all around the world.

It bothers me that there were doctors involved in this case, the court case, and it does bother me that there are doctors that are fighting this. I mean, I get it if not every doctor wants to do an abortion, I totally understand that. But to not stand for a woman's autonomy over her own body is the part that

So I'm also a little bit from that end.

I'm mad at our own I'm mad at our own people. I'm mad at doctors and I and I am on my little echo chamber in Twitter, where there's lots of doctors who feel the same way I do, and I hear from them, but I know that it's kind.

Of there alone. I'm not hearing it from other doctors out in the real world, you know, and not enough at least.

Yeah, we should explain a little bit that like the original case, the complainants were doctors, right, who were claiming that they were having to treat complications that arose from medication abortion. Is that right?

Yeah, they're a part of it.

I don't know how big a part of it, or if they're just used because they're Like a lot of times people for good or bad reasons, will bring a doctor out in a white coat at like a press conference, which is like, you know, like we're just wearing white coats all the time, you know, and just the sand in the background and sort of add some sort of

Viagra came out, there was the first year it came out, there was about five hundred and fifty deaths from viagra.

We granted the cardiovascular problems patients had, whatever, but still there was It's not without risk. You don't see any judge from Texas you know, coming out to talk about viagra being an issue.

No, I think you're right to highlight that, like being pregnant is also a risk, and much greater risk in many cases, especially like you said, because of these different intersectional things which can make it a greater risk for some people. So I would love to talk about why these became more popular's the wrong way, but maybe more widely used to facilitate abortions during coviduse. That's super interesting.

Yeah, So the long and the short of it is when they first started doing these tests, I'm sorry, when they first started doing these medication abortions, there was a bit of a process that had to go into it, Like doctors were worried. I mean, we're always conservative. Doctors are always conservative. We always start with like probably more than it's absolutely necessary, and then over time we do enough research, we get enough like evidence behind us that

Okay, so which is a big game changer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that makes it much easier. And so it used to be the case at least, so you could get these things in the mail, right particably after some kind of teleconference or video chat. Is that still the Is that still the case in states where there isn't like the strictest kind of abortion ban or is it universal?

No, it's my understanding it's still, as of now possible. It's still available. You're supposed to be able to do it. I think we're going to find that it's becoming more difficult. We're already seeing cases. I mean they've been highlighted on social media. How often they're happening now, I don't know, but there we see cases now of you know, a

So, I mean it's not true it was.

The Supreme Court has you know, has okayed it for now, I mean for now it's still okay and allowed, but there's gonna be enough confusion about it. There's going to be enough worry about it that people are going to have a harder time doing it, getting it or.

Even finding you know, people that are willing to do it.

At this point, there's probably a lot of concern from patients and medical providers. So, you know, even though it is technically still allowed, I mean, I don't know how for how long you know, I am worried.

And also I.

Don't know if this is really hindered you know, people being able to access this, and I think it probably is.

Yeah, it certainly hasn't made it smoother, as you said, right that it it only takes you know, one person to have delay of a number of weeks or whatever, and it might not be an option or it might not be as safe. And how do you know how long how far along these these medical medication abortions are like generally advised, you.

Know, the medicational abortions are considered safe in the second and I think even parts of the third trimester, but generally after the first trimester is when it's it's considered a little bit more dangerous and most medical professional would want you to come in to have it done.

So, I mean that's my understanding.

I'm not obigian, I should make that clear, but I think for for the most part, within the first trimester, people generally consider that's something that's manageable at home. Outside of that, I think you're probably more likely to have the medical professional want you to come in and see them.

Yeah, that makes sense, and in some states it's going to be a lot harder, if not impossible, or countries like I know, for instance, I've come across groups in Myanmar were distributing these drugs. Abortion has been illegal, they're more or less for since British colonial rule. I think it was United as a as a sort of state, not really a nation. The it's been a it's been illegal.

Yeah, I mean it's funny that, like, you know, we're comparing ourselves. I mean, it's you would think twenty twenty three, we wouldn't be, you know, looking to other countries to guide us at this point. You would hopefully we would have figured this out by ourselves after everything. But yeah, I mean it's funny. You look at the historical you look at it from a global perspective, it is interesting.

It's really a global effort to.

Try and get these medications out to people. One of the major major companies that sends these pills and mails these pills is in Europe, and they try to to other countries. It is sort of a global effort at this point to try it, which is kind of cool. That's one good thing about this. It shows you that most of the world seems to be on board with this, whether or not governments are or not. You know, I hear eighty percent here in the United States is it's

It's impressive to see people just doing ground streets to meet too laid. One thing that was very popular around the time of the Adobe's decision. A lot of people were sharing these videos on do it yourself abortion pills or like homemade I think it was misaprosto, it may

Yeah, you know, it's it is definitely suboptimal. I mean I'm not every time I say something like that, there's always some corner of the Internet that's like, well, you're a shill for big farm or you're like part of the medical industry or whatever, and yeah, sure whatever.

But I mean it is it's a risk.

I mean, these medications, like I said, they're safe, but they're not without risk. You know, there are things that can occur when you have this are contradications to some of these medications, like there's contradications to mif aprosta and like ectopic pregnancy like I mentioned, and you can get that worked up to be evaluated, or you could at least have the very basic questionnaire filled out that would help at least give you the hint if it's there.

So there there are risks.

There are bad things that can happen with these medications, as there are with penicillin.

Like I mentioned.

I've seen people with, you know, life threatening allergies to to penicillin. I've seen people with who have liver failure from basic stuff that you know people take all the time, like tail and all. So you know, it's it's it doesn't make me very nervous, and I like, do it yourself. Is I like that that people are trying to find ways around it. But and I hope we never get

It and reading about it.

I obviously I'm not going to ever really promote do it yourself medicine to that Farvard degree.

Yeah, like someone, I use insulin every day, right, and people have been making their own insulin. I've seen on the internet for for a long time, and I find it super fascinating. Incident, also costs fuckle to produce, like like a couple of cents, and it costs hundreds of dollars to buy. Folks can accuse me of being a shell for big Farmer, but I have plenty of publications pointing in the other direction.

You and me both, brother.

Yeah, yeah, look at us, two guys just rigging in the pharma doel.

That's it.

Yeah, that's that's why I'm recording in this shed provided by FISA. No, and yeah, there is. These things are not expensive to make, they shouldn't be expensive to buy, and they can be had extremely safely. And the things that are stopping you from accessing them cheaply and safely and easily are politicians and also pharmaceutical companies. Sometimes.

You know.

That's the funny thing too, is that you think for like these right wing are always talking about like relaxing regulations and whatever. It's like, I wonder if they recognize that on some level, what this is doing is it's just going to impinge on you know, quote unquote innovation

This is going to cut back on innovation in pharmacy.

Yeah, And like anything with a contry indication for being pregnant would be vulnerable to this. Right, we should probably explain that the use of myth of pristone as an abortion drug was approved by the FDA in an expedited process, right, and that was what was being challenged. Can you explain why although it's faster that doesn't mean it's any less thorough. In my understanding, I might be wrong. The FDA went like, yeah, fuck it, let's give it a try and see what happens.

No, I mean it's a very good question. I mean we do have safety data behind it. So again, you're exactly right. This is not done in a vacuum. It's not done haphazardly. I mean there is there still always is a pretty strict process.

To go through for these medications.

It kind of it's the same thing that we had to deal with with operation warp speed one of the worst names or a very important medical advancement. So, you know, people like, how can these things be safe? It's happened so quickly, and it's not really true. I mean, there is years of research behind all these things. There's years of research behind it. There was a study from the Newly Journal of Medicine about the safety of these abortion pills. It had been studied worldwide and been looked at for

Wow.

And as a liver specialist to myself, I can attest to that. I mean, how talanell is a great medication if it's used, but I've also seen it cause a lot of liver failure. It's a very common cause of it. So there's there's a pretty strict and there always is a pretty strict method to the FDA when it comes to this sort of thing.

It's not done haphazardly, right, and I think most of the people attacking it and not attacking it from a place of deep concern for the health of people who can get pregnant. It's quite the opposite. It's an attempt to control people's bodies, right, right.

Yeah, they're not. These are the same people.

They're not concerned about the fact that the mortality rate in like African American women who are pregnant is so much higher.

They'll never hear them talk about that.

They don't give a damn, unless, of course, they want to somehow cynically tie this into like racism or something. They'll find a way to twist it in this weird way to be like, yes, you see Livprostone is racist or something, you know, so I yeah, yeah, sorry.

No, Yeah, it's cynical and asinine, empathetic, but sadly like it's also the reality. Yeah, I wonder, like, obviously none of us can see the future. And we've talked about how mister prostal can be used on its own if I'm not mistaken, right.

Yeah, it's not as good, it's not as good if it's used together.

But yeah, do you foresee a world where like that is targeted next?

Yeah?

I mean, if they're really serious about that, they're going to try. I mean, I think at the end of the day. We can keep zelots out of the Supreme Court somehow.

Get a while before we get another crack at that.

Yeah, then I think we should be okay, because I mean, it's it's a bad argument. The argument doesn't really hold up. I mean, some judge interpreting the medical data with or without the help of some you know, quasi scientific group of like pro life doctors. It's just not going to hold up to what the FDA has done and has to go through. So I don't I don't know, I

Yeah, and those are all going the medications they that like are all going to affect a certain group of people, right, Like, that's right, that's just that seems to be the sort of target group and for like you said, a very small percentage of the of the population who are just on their culture or bullshit and don't really care how

Yeah, I mean I certainly would understand if I was in a position where I thought my bodily autonomy could be going away anytime soon. I think I could see why someone would stock up on it. I mean, I don't know enough about the medication to tell you about its shelf life. I know that it is just require some special handling, So I don't know if it's the kind of thing that you can keep for long periods of time. But you know, at that part of it was worked out, I certainly don't see. I mean, I

Actually, the outcomes weren't much different. So that seems to be a very reaffirming thing. But you know, I still I would like for there to be medical involvement in this. I would like doctors to be involved in this.

You know.

Yeah, perhaps we are progressing towards a place where like technology can help with some of that and take way the liability from doctors in places where they could face a long time in jail.

Yeah, I mean, that's that's the other thing.

It's going to be interesting to see how this pans out, like from doctors in the future, if there's gonna be people still willing to learn these skills, you know, because not every abortion can be done, you know, medically, still going to be a need for for the the more older fashion forms of abortion that's still going to need

So we'll see how it goes. Like you know, when when COVID.

First started, there was a huge burst of people interested

Same sort of thing.

Will there be an uptick of people interested in women's healthcare and and providing that vital that vital need. I think there probably will be, But will it be sustained?

I don't know.

Will they just give up after seeing how much bullshit has thrown their way. It's totally feasible.

Yeah, I mean, if you're looking, it has to be like an idea, Like my sister is an obg wayn and like does my sister doesn't live in the United States, who doesn't have to deal with any of this bullshit, and so like that very much enjoys a job and it's very passionate about it. But I can see how doing get here. It would have to be almost a political idea or your commitment as well, Like you can't

Really interesting question.

I wonder if it will affect the medical training in medical school. Yeah, in places where that's really interesting and scary now that I think about it, it, Yeah, it's gonna be.

It's going to be available for people.

There's always going to be organizations fighting to do this and to get it out there. But how how hard it's going to be to find a provider to help you with this that in the future. I'm hoping U does not become a problem.

Right, Yeah, I did all these little sort of It's really important, I guess like that folks do whatever they can to preserve these rights because generally, like the state doesn't give back power that it's able to take from people.

It seems a matter to most of the people in the country, So I mean, that's a part of this I don't understand. I mean, I guess it's all ideologically driven, but because it doesn't seem like a winning proposition if you're a politician to do something this unpopular.

But I don't know much about politics, I suppose.

Yeah, I mean, what is popular and what wins elections in the United States can be vastly disparate things, as we've seen, given the system which is deliberately organized to befuddle the results of a popular vote.

Okavit.

I wonder if there's anything else you wanted to discuss around this issue of abortion and bodily autonomy. Obviously it's going to be one that plays out massively in twenty twenty four.

But I want to make it clear. I mean, this should be pretty evident my stance on it. But I do believe abortion is essential and evidence based healthcare.

It's in that evidence based part of it.

I think is important to reiterate because we do have data on it, we do have data that it is safe, we do have data that it's safer than some of the other options. And if it's removed as option, we are not only taking away, you know, a woman's right to attimey over her own body, but we're putting them at more health risks potentially for it. And you know, I'm not an er doctor, I'm not obi gine, but I can guarantee that they're going to have to deal

Yeah, there's one thing I wanted to hit that I totally forgot about. I don't want to I don't want to phrase this in terms of like people wanting to end a pregnancy have any more or less right to do so than people needing to end a pregnancy, because everyone should have the right to choose what happens to their body equally.

Yeah, but.

I am.

I believe I'm right in thinking that many of these drugs are relied upon by people who have miscarried or have a pregnancy isn't compatible with life, right And.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean the horror stories about women that are forced to carry if you know, baby it's a term that are not compatible with life, or you know, a severe critical illness it's those are horrifying. And these are medications that can be done again at home for some For some patients it can be done at home,

But you know, if someone could do something.

Safely at home, you know, and it can be done safely, I don't see why not.

Yeah, it can. The dignity and privacy of your own sting where you to use your home or you know whatever with your family. Then yeah, I suppose being forced to carry a baby which isn't compatible with life like that's got to really fuck you up. And it's I don't know, I don't think people are thinking about what they're doing to other people when they make these these I don't know, horrible decisions, but yeah, I hope they didn't get to keep making them. I guess we can

You know, I know there's been a lot of criticisms in the past towards its organization from all sides, But you know, I've known a lot of people who work for Planned Parenthood, and I still think they do good work.

You know, They're not perfect by any means, and they have.

Valid criticisms from both from really from from a couple of different angle but still, the people I know that are working there are aren't doing their best and are really want to help.

And then there are international organizations still.

That are involved in the abortion making the abortion pill accessible, and there's a lot of different ways to get to that. I don't have one in particular that I would recommend, but the one that I have worked with people that I've met in seen and talked to and have learned so much from a lot of those people are from Plant Parenthood.

Okay, yeah, yeah, And like you said, they have been criticized that they've also stepped up to meet like what is a pretty terrible situation, and they're building more clinics on the borders of states where you don't have the right to terminate your pregnancy so that people can travel. And yet it's pretty fucked up that that's what we're doing now we have the underground railroad for abortion kind

So I'm available on Twitter at the House of Pod if you do Twitter, and you can listen to our podcast, The House of Pod it's pretty much everywhere you find your podcast, and guests range from like world Expert physicians to like Garrison Davis, so like you.

Know, contrasting those two things. They're an expert of their own way.

And and I'm sure I'll get you on soon enough, whether you like it or not.

And so we get a lot of the different guests.

The range is pretty wide, and we talk about medical related health topics and try to do it in a relatively informal way, and so it's I think it's relatively fun. It's been really educational for me. I'm really enjoying doing it and I get to be cool people like you. So it's a good show, I think. But I'm biased because it's my show.

I enjoy it. People should listen. Thank you, Thank you very much, Thanks a lot.

Mate.

Hey everybody, this is Robert Evans. Welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about things falling apart and occasionally about how to stop things from falling apart. Today we're doing one of those latter episodes. I'm happy to say we've actually got kind of something that's overall uplifting to talk about. If you are someone who pays much attention to the right wing, and particularly to the current right wing campaign against LGBT and most particularly transgender people. You

First off, Yeah, thank you so much for having me on.

And yeah, I just kind of wanted you to start with, how did you become aware of what was happening and decide, you know, to show up and do what you did, because I became aware of you just reading your thread, which was a mix of you know, Twitter uh posts on what was happening in some videos of what had been happening on the ground.

Yeah.

So I am a towney here in Iowa City. I'm not a student, but I have you know, I'm very close both physically and you know, just personally with lots of activists on campus at Iowa City, lots of young activists, particularly organizations like the y DSA. They have a couple immigrants rights associations, some lgbt q IA associations and everything. So when this was made public that the YAF the Young Americans Foundation, that's what it stands for, right I think.

Oh yeah, I'm sure you know all about him.

Oh no, yeah, he's yeah, yeah, playing the hits with Alan Dubbs.

Yep.

So yeah, the reaction was, you know, just kind of like a general we should do something about this, that Matt Walsh has come to campus or is going to come to campus. So you know, there was lots of flying campaigns, lots of calls online. There is a petition circulating trying to get the university to not allow Matt Walsh on campus. But here in Iowa, the board of regents is all just appointed by a Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, so you know, there's no way that they would do that.

Yeah, that's how I knew.

And one of the things, I mean, the thing that because obviously there are different right wing shitheads speaking in various places and protests against them, you know every day that go a variety of ways.

One of the.

Reasons I was interested in what you had to say and I think that this is a worthwhile one to talk to people about. Is that I think the Young America's Americans Foundation kids who invited him wound up demoralized at the end of this. That was my take on this. This is not an event that seems to have gone

Yeah, I would say it's a fair assumption that the YAF people were demoralized after this. So the protests, it was last Wednesday, the nineteenth, and the protest was very you know, there was no leader. It was very decentralized, you know, just lots of people showing up and instantly when everybody showed up, like at four o'clock, when the documentary was showing before Matt Walsh was going to speak

Yeah, Yeah, that's really interesting to me because obviously, like one of the particularly with the younger right right, you know, I think there is sort of a dividing line, both in my head and in physical behavior between kind of like older and maybe even less radical Republicans who are really tied to this idea of the silent and get a degree of emotional comfort from the idea that most people do think like them, they just don't want to

Yeah, I mean it was definitely breaking through to a lot of them, I could tell, And I even heard some conversations amongst them, like very taken aback and like in shock, you know, like voice shaking when talking about it, just like why are they doing this? You know, I

To go see him.

They were told they were keeping track of how many people were going into the main lounge, and then just randomly they were just like, all right, that's it. You know, the cops there and the staff and the Matt Walsh's private security, which I will say there was more private security, or there was more security there in general than when Mike Pence spoke at the exact same place, at.

Least obvious security with Pench.

More obviously more obvious security.

Yeah, and you know they had bomb snipping dogs and everything.

Oh wow, interesting, yep. Do you know how full the actual theater was.

The YAF claims seven hundred.

People, and what's capacity for them, I.

Don't exactly know, but they said that seven hundred people were able to see Matt Walsh. And then so I would say more people came to see Matt Walsh, like maybe a thousand or something. That's another number that the YAF threw out there. Yeah, but I would say there was at least an equal amount of protesters there at

At that point.

I would say, I'm interested in sort of are you aware kind of like who was organizing the counter response and how that was. People were like informed that there was going to be something, because you know, it's it's not usually a simple matter to get that folks. Many folks to show up around one thousand for a counter protest.

Yeah, I think mainly there were multiple student orgs. I think I named them a little bit earlier that you know, there was the Graduates Union, a Coggs Union, a graduate students union. They put out a statement inviting you know, not only their members to come, but everybody to come.

They do a lot of good work around the university.

The why dssay the Young Democratic Socialists of America. They have a chapter here and they were organizing. They did heavy flyering campaigns around town, not just campus, but around Iowa City itself. And on top of that, I would say just sharing liars and word of mouth like on the internet too. People know that Matt Walsh is kind of public enemy number one when it comes to the

In Iowa City.

People call Iowa City a gayer town than San Francisco. Have referred to Iowa City as that.

I don't know, if high bar it is San Francisco is a very gay town.

Yeah, well if you Iowa City people call it little San Francisco for that reason.

That's sweet. I don't think I've actually been to Iowa City.

Yeah, I mean it is definitely the place in Iowa where it is, you know, eastern Iowa. It's considered the lib part of Iowa, but specifically Iowa City. People call it the People's Republic of Iowa City because like the right wingers think it's so left wing here, but in reality it's our city council is run by like Pete

When it comes to like, uh kind of confrontations and stuff, how would you describe sort of the uh, the general mood towards that sort of behavior outside Like, was this the kind of thing where there was there uh action sort of taken beyond like the yelling, or was it kind of like, uh, mostly focused on demoralization and providing kind of a visual show of how much resistance there is to Walsh in his ideas well.

After a lot of them were denied entry, I think a lot of them were extremely pissed off. And at that point I saw a bunch of old like, not a bunch, I would say, a handful of almost scuffles breaking out. The couple I saw were definitely the fault and instigated by Matt Walsh attendees, because you know, they probably drove really far and weren't able to get in.

And so.

But there was a lot of people and a lot of cops that were really, really really wanting to make sure that that didn't happen. So after these people weren't allowed in, they were being escorted towards the back entrance where they came in. And so they all went back towards the back entrance, and that is when somebody or some people I didn't see it, I only heard it dumped thousands and thousands of marbles by that exit.

Yeah, that was my favorite thing that I saw on your thread.

Yeah, So then the cops were like, well, shit, sorry, guys, you can't come this way, So you have to go back through the gauntlet of screaming protesters to get out.

I love that.

Yeah, area denial, taking a ya area denial and also kind of rerouting them from an area that's going to force them to confront the least pleasant aspect of it.

Yeah, that's very smart exactly.

And then even after that, lots of people were going to like the way the imus set up. There's a park by it, and there's also a parking garage right across the street from it, and there's a one way out of the parking garage, so there's one way out if you parked in the parking garage. And towards the end of his talk and when everybody was filing out of the Matt Walsh event, protesters had completely taken over that street. So there was no way any of these

I'm trying to leave, you.

Know, and the cops there was only like outside, I would say, there was only like seven police officers and there is no way. Like the cops tried to get people to move out of the street. They even put their hands on some people to try to move them, but then forty more people would just get in the street, and so they realized that that wasn't going to happen.

So what would you say, we're kind of the main takeaways from this for people. You know, this is going to continue to be a thing if folks are looking at participating in or organizing responses to events like this in the future. What were your kind of big takeaways. My takeaways is that marbles obviously great idea. Marbles, Yes, marbles are a great idea, you know, But also what I think is kind of worth taking from that is that like it's not enough. We often see this when

Yeah, certainly, And from how it seemed to me is that that was intentional, that it was meant to block that exit, so they had to go back through the screaming people to get out.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

You know, marvels are funny, but it was deployed in such a way where it was even more funny, yeah.

And effective.

A takeaway that I had was that, you know, there's always going to be risk with this type of thing, risk of you know, risk of anything really, you know, physical harm, emotional harm, people getting in trouble at school

Talking about what he said.

People are talking about how all the Matt Walsh people got stranded and how there were marbles that blocked their exit. And how the pet band came and played to a cadence of Buck Matt Walsh you know, yeah, yeah.

All right, was there anything else you want to talk about before we roll out?

I'd say that about does it for me, unless you have any more questions about specifics of the night.

No, thank you for coming on, Oliver. Is there any sort of plugs you've got for anything you want to direct listeners towards before we end?

Yeah, there's an organization around here called Iowa Trans Mutual Aid that does a lot of really really really good work for people in the state of Iowa that currently is experiencing, like so much of the country, really really really bad anti trans legislations. So if you find it in your heart or have the means to donate to such an Iowa Trans Mutual Aid, I really I really can't recommend it enough.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much, Oliver, and a big thank you to everybody who showed up that night in Iowa City. That is it for us today. Everybody, have a great rest of your day.

All right, thank you so much.

Welcome to Take It Happened here a podcast about the transgenocide, because it keeps happening and so we keep having a new episodes about it because it just gets worse. Yeah, I'm Mia Wong with me as James.

I'm yeah, I'm excited to hear more about what people are doing to trans people in different partsitive country.

Yeah, the answer is not good.

So okay, at about.

Five am this morning, I was watching a video from last year, and you know, I had this line about how like there's been one hundred anti trans bills in twenty twenty two alone, and like, oh oh boy, that is a quaint figure from a more civilized age. We are three months into twenty twenty and there's been five hundred anti trans bills across the country.

That was a Freudian slip. We have three years into twenty twenty, my friend.

Oh god, yeah, twenty three that one, which I guess it won't work out like this, But technically, speaking of this pace continues, we're on track for what. Yeah, we're on track for I think two thousand this year, which would be great.

Heyce, Yeah, it's good. We'll be rebing Mansona by November.

Now. Most of these bills, have we've talked about before, are going to fail, but a lot of them haven't. And the other sort of aspect of this. I think it's been less reported on, but is also extremely important. Is that. Okay, so if you want to do anti trans bullshit, you have like three options. Basically, you have you try to get a bill through the legislature, You have the governor doing a and date or something, and

I don't know if it's worth like addressing this shit head on because it's such so clearly bullshit. But like, we have more than a century of people seeving gender firming care and auditioning. It's it's like people, people, television is more experimental than gender affirming care. Yeah, like this stuff, like aeroplanes are more experiment This stuff predates the Nazis, Like it's like it's old. Yeah, it definitely predates passenger flight.

Yeah. Like so okay, I mean that there's like a standard turf argument though, is that it's like, oh, it's experimental. It's like, now it's not okay, so these rules are oh boy, okay, here's from so I think it was Saint Louis. Yeah, the city government of stint Lewis put out a thing about it that was basically like, this

This is.

Probably the worst law in the books anywhere in the country right now. Maybe we'll also I'll show you the other really bad one and what we'll see. But okay, so the notable thing about this law is that this is not just a band from minors. This is for everyone. And you know, there's lots of atrocious stuff in here, right, Like if you have autism, for example, and there's a

Long time, especially given like where the fuck do we think their trans panic comes from? It's because they logged onto Facebook and you're racist. Uncle Joey had posted to think about like how Twitter is transing his niece's gender.

Yeah, and you know, and like all of this stuff is very like we're getting into we're getting into the part of this where it's just sort of like they're like copying and pasting turf rants into like laws. The mental healthcare thing is like just awful.

You know.

For example, if you have depression, one of the reasons you might have depression if your trans is because you have dysphoria. So you're caught in this loop. If you try to get care for the depression, you can't get like treatment for the dysphoria. What if you get treating for the dysphoia, you can't get it for the depressions, right.

Yeah, you're totally alienated from getting care. And like I'm sure living in a fucking state which is trying with surgical precision to force you to pick which way you want to be suffering. It's not like great for your mental health to be like being a trans person in Missouri would be pretty hard, given that the state is taking or its powers to stop you getting anything of care.

And you know, I mean everything that's about this is like the therapy requirement, the fifteen therapy things over eighteen months is just effectively a ban because you know, do you know how fucking hard it is to get an appointment with a gender therapist, Like it is so like there are we are talking about something where there are optimistically dozens of these people for an entire state. It is fucked. It is so bad even in states where

So yeah, yeah, we can't fix it by the existing trans people leaving, and like obviously those people have their friends in their family and their community there. Like we didn't fix it by them getting someone completely different.

Yeah, so now we're gonna move to the next state where shit's happening that this one, I don't know. The stuff that's happening in Kansas is also like, okay, relative to the amount of media attention it's gotten, this is the worst thing that's happening in absolute terms, it's unbelievably bad. Okay. So there's a bill in Kansas that people are calling a bathroom bill, and they're calling it that because bathroom bill is the terminology that they have This is not

Yeah, we've great job. Feed run of the fucking what's the thing where they will wear the bonnets?

Yeah?

Yeah?

And here here's it just intersects people kind of exist. You're fucking it's worse, Okay, So again here here's kas NT, which is a news outlet in Kansas. In addition to restrooms, the legislation would define words like women, man, mother, and father are in areas like athletics, prisons, or other detention facilities, domestic violent centers, rape crisis centers, locker rooms, and quotes other areas where biology, safety or privacy are implicated that could result in separate accommodations.

Jesus Christ.

Yeah, so supposedly this is going to be on a case by case basis, but you know, like this is going to lead to trans women being put in Ben's prisons where they will be raped and almost certain like almost certainly will be raped, quite possibly will be killed

Likewise, sis, man, I guess yeah, it's it's yeah, like or like you have like fucking had an accident or you know, like yeah, you know, and and it's bullshit, like it pointing out the logical errors. It doesn't really work because that's not really the point, is it. Like, like that point is not to be like logically found, it's to be cruel.

Yeah. But but but I think there is something very important about this, which is that this this is a very very firm example of how the struggle for trans rights and sort of you know, like trans bodily autonomy is intimately connected with the struggle with abortion rights. Because if you look at what's happened here right, Republican lawmakers are literally defining women by their by their capacity to

Yeah, which is theoretical for her.

Yeah. And I mean, like, this is one of the things that sucks about this right is like it it should not fall on you know, like literally the trend, like the rights of the children of an entire state are falling on like one mom and the few other Democrats who decided to take a stand with her, And that's fucked. That is nonsense.

Like it's yeah, it's great that she's doing it, but like, yeah.

This is this is horrible. Yeah. Do you know what else is horrible?

A is it the product services that support podcast.

By FTC regulations. I don't think I can legally say that, but.

No, no, we do, don't know, it's not not that.

Yeah, and we're back. Okay, So now we're gonna get to I think the most famous story or most most well known story of an anti trans fight that's been happening recently, and that is Montana. So Montana has passed a bill that bands gender for macare from binners and also opposes legal sanctions anyone who does it. Governor greg Giofanti like has a non binary son who's he they and he like gave a speech it was like dad,

Yeah, and thinking that like specifically the chromosonality thing we know has been bull shit for a very long time.

There was nonsense. These people don't underst biology.

Yeah, sorry, yeah, and we can like the example is this woman called Mario Jose Martinez Patino, who is a hurdler who won a number of events and then lost her medals because she failed a chromosonality test and fucking ruined her life right, lost her fiance, lost her job, lost all her competitions, and was able to successfully sue with the help of leading experts in the field, to prove that like I think she had like mosaics, she exhibited mosaicism like xx y, and that like this is

Yeap.

Her papers are really good, by the way, she's a professor of philosophy. Now, oh cool, Yeah, yeah, she's yeah, she's great. I specator a few times, but.

Yeah, rare rare w. Yeah. But like these people are doing you know, like they are you know this this this this bill legally rights trans people out of existence, and it is again another one of these gender pariograph things where this the state is legally defining what gender you are. But also you know, but again, like they have to do all this like bullshit, because you know, there's other thing I said, like these guys, these people are like slightly I don't know smarter is the right word,

Yeah, it's a social constructagy yeah, because they can't society. Yeah, And put in mind of South Africa constantly chasing the fucking definition of what race was and like trying to define like a multi racial kids into one box or another box.

Yeah, it's you know, it doesn't work. But the problem is this bill is going to be signed by the governor like next week, probably possibly this week, like in the next couple of weeks, is going to be signed. So that's really fucking bad. So the part of the story that thinks the most well known is Montana Republican's crusade against Montana House Rep. Zoe Zephyr. Zoe Zephyr is trans. She is a Rep for a part of Missoula, which is a college town home to the University of Montana.

Yeah, I think you need to do you. There's no fucking point in bourgeois civility with this stuff.

Is that that's noo. And then and this is what has been one of things that's been happening.

Right.

It's like like the Republicans, their backlash that this been has been a sort of like, oh, you're not being civil thing right and like in uh like Senator Hunt in uh uh Nebraska was like literally didn't actually literally

That's the way to approach it, right, like like the person trying to legislate your little trans son out of existence.

Yeah, it was like fuck these people, they're gonna do this ship. Okay. So there's a couple of theories as to why what happened next happened next. There's been a lot of speculation that it's been like, oh, this is like a gambit by the the the Freedom Caucus to like turn Zoe's ephyr into like the face of the Montana Democratic parties they can win a Senate race. Like

Uh.

One of the people they arrest was I think a woman on crutches who like couldn't clear the area fast enough. Yeah, she was on crutches.

Yeah.

I was like I did go down before people didn't. Yeah, kinds of shit.

And then and then the so there's like these are these protests in the gallery right, and the the Montana Republicans start doing this whole thing about how this is this is this is the democratic January sixth, and like they were storming the capital, the capitals in the seats.

They tried to do that in Tennessee as well, Like it's so pathetic, like so asinine.

Yeah, and the other thing I want to mention about this right is like okay, like the Montana Freedom Cocus people and all, like the censors and the fucking press releases are just constantly misgendering Zoe.

It is.

It's really fucking ugly. Uh yeah. And you know, so after these protests, the house like banishes her from the floor and kicks her out of her offices, and so she shows up like to work from a bench outside the chambers where like legally they can't kick her out of But then like this is an ongoing saga, right, like like this morning she showed up and there were like three really old white women sitting on.

The bed speaker of the house's mum oh speak of the house as much.

Yeah nice.

Yeah, like this this fucking big Montana tough guy had to call his mom to fight his battles for him. Like they just insanely puerile, asinine nonsense. But it's unfortunately has very real consequences.

Yeah, and like you know, so she was like at like a lut She was like like had her like tablet like on a lunch counter, taking meetings from like like standing at the counter. Yeah, it's it's been a whole thing. Also, I think earlier today someone someone tried to swat her girlfriend. Yeah, because the journalist Aaron Reid. Uh so that's bad.

Uh.

This whole thing has been getting like an unbelievable amount of media attention, and you know, in a very very short period of time, Zoe Zephyr goes from someone who I know about because I'm trans, and like all trans people are like four hops away from each other, something

Yeah, it's so like bullshit that like, like I know a number of trans ladies who are bike racist, right and like they like, it must be pretty clear that if you win a fucking race, you win a big race, like you know what's coming for you know, fucking bright Barton News is going to have you on there the

Say yeah, okay, we should take an ad break. Yeah, one more time and then yeah we'll come back and.

Say something funny. Bit more che che che church Chumber.

Oh, okay, we're back. Okay. So in the middle of all of this, Zoe went home to I think there was like a recess or something, because legislatures work like two days a year, rich people hours. Yeah it's bullshit, like, yeah they have.

Like a break for fucking horse racing and yeah, had to do polo or whatever.

Yeah, But so she she went home to Missoula and there was a just like a massive march. There was this rally that turned into like this basically like a twenty four hour long party. People my favorite story for this. There's some people who Okay, so they brought beer they had got from rowing a boat out to a derailed train. Yes,

You didn't want like brief notes on the seage, like you could have gone full maoist on the side.

Why we will, but we did. We did that with the other one, and I realized after the last episode we did on this that I could have just called it counterattack and that would be better. So I've saved it for this moment.

I'm glad that you get to ease it.

So, Okay. One of the things that's become incredibly apparent in the last in the last few years is that as as much as there is sort of passive transphobia society, transphobia is not a sort of nebulous idea that just like floats freely around the world. It is brought into this world by men. And you know, we know the foundational story of how these men and women gain power. Right, they cut a deal with capital to reconstitute the Republican

Right.

It's their strength because this gives them an enormous amount of resources to pull on. It gives them the institutional backing of an entire political party. But it's weakness is and it means that capital and the transphobes are bound together. And this means that when you scratch a capitalist of transphobe bleeds. Now, the other things that we know are A, there are power in there's power and logistics, and b there are companies profiting from genocide. FedEx, for example. FedEx's

It is not.

What I'm talking about here is something a lot more serious. You know, we we we've we've we've seen this sort of so let me praise this. We've sort of the sort of echoes of what this kind of campaign could look like with the subcop City protest with you know, you have protests outside the offices of banks and outside of corporations that are backing that are backing cop City. But I'm talking you know that and that at the

Right.

The advantage of this strategy, which is developed and sort of broad strokes of my dear friend Vicky Ostroweil, is that what one of the big, one of the big problems we have in this whole fight is this sort of weird is this geo the geographic mismatch, right, the you know, the majority of people in the US and also the majority of people in most of the states where this is happening, right, don't support this ship, but it doesn't matter because you know, the district are jerry

Right.

They have to actually be able to sell, They have to be able to assemble their product, and they have to be able to sell it. And you can stop them those things, right, I mean the KFC. And sometimes it's also kind of hard because there's franchise shit going on.

And so you know, open records and let you see who donates to all those people as well.

Yeah. Yeah, and there are websites that you can just like, like you can just google who gives the notions to people and yeah, it's like donations trackers, and you can like plug in their name and it will show you whe who donates to them.

Yeah.

And so we have learned through the through sort of the experience of the past few years, right, that these people cannot be swayed by logic. They cannot be swayed by they can't be swayed by logic, they cannot be swayed by science. They cannot be swayed by. You know, they cannot be swayed by the emotional appeals. They do not give a shit about trans people. They would literally rather have their kids die than be trans. But again,

It's a warm spring afternoon in Atlanta, Georgia. You and some of your friends are dancing in the sunlight at a music festival in South Atlanta. It's day two of the South River Music Festival. Last night you stayed up till three am, alternating between mashing in the pit and laying down on a blanket looking up at the night sky, trying to see stars through the light pollution. After you had your fill of edm you called it a night and hastily set up a tent in the forest near

Of your tent.

As you mosied on over back to the music festival. Immediately something new caught your eye, a large, multi colored inflatable bouncy castle sitting right in the middle of the field with a big stopcop City banner hung along the side. After you fully woke up, you grabbed a free breakfast burrito and took a nice walk through the winding forest.

Turns off the generator.

You group up with other people from the festival in hopes of working together to incentivize police to leave the area. As you get closer, the cops start getting more aggressive. Just up ahead a bit further into the woods, close to where you set up your tent, you hear some loud bangs and see a flash of bright light. First, you assume it's just fireworks being used to hold off the cops until you start coughing and see the faint

They got their land disturbance permit in late January, and the first phase of the land disturbance permit only allows for soil erosion control work. So to this point, essentially what they've done is they've they've clear cut some paths into the forest into the proposed site, and then around the exterior of the site they've clear cut a line in order to install silt fencing. So there isn't a large amount of infrastructure. They're not allowed to do a

But not all of their construction equipment was removed. As everyone would soon find out, the deadly January raid left the community in the morning and unsure of how the fight to stop copp City would evolve with the use of lethal force and the loss of a friend. The Forest Defender's semi permanent occupation of the Wallani Forest ended after that raid, but the fight was far from over.

Hoday, let's get started, all right.

I just want to make sure that everybody.

Is in the right place.

I came here to stop cop city.

What did you all come here to do? What did we come to do? What are we coming to do? What have we come here to do?

All right? I'm glad that everybody found the right address.

Thank you everybody for joining us.

It's about two years ago.

In what was formerly known as Entrenchment Creek Park now known as Wolani People's Park, where a ragtag bunch of individuals gathered under a gazebo. That gazebo was illegally destroyed by Ryan Millsap and his henchman an attempt to break this movement. In an attempt to bury this movement, Yet every single time that they have tried to bury us.

They have set every hurdle in the way of every day at lanterns to intimidate them and stop them from supporting this movement, and we still show up.

We appreciate every single person that has come here to support us in spite of the terror that.

They has tried to instill in us.

We must be very careful and understand the gravity of the situation that we are in, especially after we've lost a friend.

Okay, thank you for standing with us.

And now there are many things that we do not agree on, But what did we all come here to do? So let's remember what got us this far was a diversity of tactics, and now it's.

Time for us to double down.

The crowd gathered was a pretty diverse mix of people from a variety of backgrounds, beliefs, and preferred tactics. On this is Saturday morning, everyone felt pretty united. Whether you were a kid running around with paint all over your body, or an anarchist dressed head to toe and camp though. Next up, somebody read a statement from the Muscogee elder Miko Chabon, Colonel.

I'm here to read.

A statement from my Miko, Miko Shabbon.

Yeah, my name is Marty.

I'm Muscoge on my father's side. On my mother's side, I'm Atham both Acmel and Thana, and my dad's also Filipino. Miko asked me to read this statement. Band Strijaio mart At this time, I would like to express my gratitude to all who have converged onto these ancestral territories of Muskogean ancestors and modern spiritual inhabitants of the earth that we now stand on today. We represent a vast society of peoples whose presence in the colonized named states of Georgia, Alabama,

Have the right to exist.

Today, May our dreams for this forest and the surrounding community come true. For those who can hear, let them hear.

The next speaker was from Community Movement Builders, a local black collectives that focuses on combating and gentrification and police violence.

I may be a little bit selfish, and my reason for being here I want to be free.

I want my children to be free. I want my mother to be free. I want my father, my brothers and sisters to be free. And I don't want to have to live a life in ten years when my babies.

My nieces, and my nephews come to me and.

Ask, come, I see.

Where were you What were you doing when they destroyed our clean water, destroyed our clean What happened?

Why were you not around?

What were you doing when when my baby's twenty ten years and they say, come, I see what were you doing when this country turned into a fascist dystopia?

What were you doing?

Where were you where you're around? I can't sit here.

Best shit back and saying I just sat home and watched this whole well burn to hell.

I don't believe in the power.

I don't believe in the power of being periless. I believe in the power of the people. So I say to everyone today that during this week of action, I don't know where you will be. I don't know what you will be.

Doing, but we standing behind you and were staying with you. And we want to show the city of Atlanta.

We want to show Mary Dickens that he is not fit to rule and he does not runing city.

You want to show them, said the ninety million.

Dollars that they took to build this warfare training facility will not cross our communities, Wheo. And we also want to ShW the city of that letter that again we are ready to stop really surviving, to start living.

Finally, our last person Reverend Leo'she is a Baptist minister part of the Stop Copp City Clergy coalition, which we'll talk a bit more about in the next episode.

And I believe my faith compels me and convicts me that in this moment, the work that has been done and the work that is to come to defend this, our beloved family, this, our siblings, the earth.

Is a holy and righteous work.

It is a holy and righteous work that is grounded in a faithful rage.

A rage which has been boiling in the human family's blood for centuries, and meets us care at this moment and asks us, what will you do to defend those who have no defense?

What will you do to protect those who have no shelter?

What will you do.

When the time comes to decide on whose side you are on? Will you stand for oppression or will you stand for the liberation of all people? My friends, I come with some good news if that's okay. And the good news is that God stands on the side of the oppress.

God stands on the side.

Of the forest defenders, Law stands on the side of the most marginalized. And let us make no mistake that in our protests and in our rage, we.

Also have to cry out and lament.

We cannot be silent as do Dujita's blood cries out from the ground. We must honor a life that did not have to be lost. It did not have to be this way. Do not listen to anyone who tells you that there is.

Not a better way.

There is always a better way. Do I come with my faith and the conviction that in this work, in this moment, a prophetic imagination, a creative vision is needed in the wall that we.

Want to see. I'm not here to wait for the Kingdom of God.

I want the Kingdom of God right now.

Right now.

After the speeches were finished, it was announced that the crowd, now nearing a thousand strong, would gather up together and march to Wilani People's Park to retake the forest. As everyone was getting ready to leave, you could see the care and solidarity people had for each other. On full display. Bike scouts were checking to see if the path was clear. Volunteer street medics ready to help anyone in need. Water bottles are being handed out to keep everyone hydrated, while

The bike path.

That's a I can't even see the end of where, of where the of where the people stop. It's a long, long stretch of people marching hundreds and hundreds of feet. There's some banners in front of the march. One of them reads disarm, defund, dismantle, no cop City. There's one of the sun shining over a pink sky with a little blue turtle and their shell is the earth massive like ten person banner that reads defend the Forest. The energy of the march remained high as people chanted to

At one point, the entire crowd, seemingly the entire crowd was chanting if you build it we will burn it, which seems.

Yeah, almost like a thousand people.

Yeah, and it was being chanted, like you know, looking around the crowd, you saw everyone for the most part partaking in that. So that was a very interesting moment where it felt like there was that sort of solidarity amongst the varied groups that make up the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement.

As the march went on, the path was getting increasingly forested. About two thirds of the way to Wallani People's Park, after turning a bend, the crowd noticed three deer frolicking

Activists thought that there was going to be an issue. They were concerned about the police being in Willani People's Park. So about halfway we saw that stack of makeshift shields made out of plastic rain barrels.

About two dozen of those five Gatlandrum shields just mysteriously showed up along the bike path. We are arriving at Willannee People's Park, no cops.

But then when we got there there was no police whatsoever. From what the scanner people told us, there were police around, they were just kind of monitoring from afar, but no police ever entered the park. And it was I would say it was a really nice high point return to the.

Forest, banners and shields moving around willane People's Park as hundreds and hundreds of more people still pour in from.

The bike path.

As the back of the march finally arrived, the crowd gathered up one more time to all chant out a promise in unison, I Will.

I Will.

One of the activists I interviewed during the Week of Action was Matthew Johnson, the person who kicked off the rally at Gresham Park. We talked about the methodology of starting off this Week of Action with this big inclusive march and how that may have helped achieve the goal of retaking the forest.

That first day.

We wanted to be sure that we would be able to reoccupy the park and what that would entail is having a wide swath of the larger public involved with any efforts to enter into the park. And so we had the rally Aggresham Park and there was a march planned from that part to Wolani People's Park. There is violence that people have become accustomed to when it is people on the political fringes. That's just where we're at

After reaching Wolaanni People's Park, many of those who arrived from out of town for this week of action, myself included stopped by the shrine for Tortigita just off of the tree line. People added new wildflowers and packs of fruit snacks. I'm going to walk over to the Torti Guita vigil site. Looks about the same as last time. I was here, many candles, little turtles, still a few fruit snacks. Although the vigil shrine was the same as last time I saw it, almost everything else about being

All right, hey, y'all, welcome to the living Room. So named because it's it's a very vital and comfortable place to relax. This is where a lot of the meetings happened during the previous Week of Action. People gather and have different events here. Oftentimes it will be food available here, campfires, silverware. So it's also just a very very comfortable place to relax because it's in this pine forest and so not

Establish some calm.

We made our way from the living Room to the Grandmother Tree, a large oak that is estimated to be a few hundred years old. On our way to Ryan Millsaps proposed a site for so called Michelle Obama Park, which is currently a forty acre mount of dirt about thirty feet high. We walked past some old tents that were slashed apart during the January raid. Among the destroyed remains were little pink flowers growing out of the ground.

I got involved with a group called the South River Forest Coalition. We are trying to help further the vision of the South River Forest that Ryan Gravelle and the Nature Conservancy came up with to try to interweave about thirty five hundred acres of forest with the other businesses and homes and lands around this area that are in the watershed of the South River Forest. And Entrenchment Creek, which we will see on this tour, is the main

As masses of people converged at Wallani People's Park Saturday afternoon, almost immediately a whole bunch of pop up infrastructure was set up to facilitate an encampment in the woods once again, really for the first time in any kind of large capacity since January and even December. The December raids decimated much of the camp infrastructure, which still had not been

One of the things that we saw on the march in was like eight cinder blocks right at the entrance to the living room, and then you and I went into the living room, we saw these huge water tanks. So later they moved those water tanks to those those cinder blocks, and that has become or a watering point for everyone. So like twice a day a truck comes with a water tank on the back and then they go through the arduous process of filling that water so

As encampments were being established, simultaneously, infrastructure for the South River Music Festival was being erected in the adjacent radio control field. Within a short amount of time, a full stage was constructed, complete with lights and speakers, lining the sides of the field, where various tables and booths. One side featured a large variety of refreshments, as well as a medic tent, and the other side was home to free hot food and freshly grilled burgers and hot dogs.

Well, there was an arepa table, and I'm very food motivated. So the arapas were delicious, and we had walked a bunch that day, so yeah, I needed sustenance. And then there was the burger table as well, but we I don't think. I don't know if you got a burger, but I did not get a burger.

I got I got one burger, but they were out of buns when I got a burger, so I had a lettuce burger, and then soon after they they got the buns.

Back, and I was kind of kind of bummed.

Yeah, I did not, Well, at least you got something, but I had the arapis.

So I mean stundth To be fair, hundreds of people were they've fed for They've said five hundred people, you know, And at one point they made announcement that like they needed to do another food run just to go get more more food, and like a bunch of people volunteered.

And you know, only I think two or three went down to Walmart to get a bunch of more burgers and hot dogs. And it was just a really cool moment. And so I think by the end the end of the night when I was there, they were about five hundred people just enjoying the music and looking at the sky. It was just an immaculate vibe. There was a little fire pick off to the side. And yeah, you talked about the setting up the stage. You know, I didn't know what to expect walking in there, was not expecting

Nice like green and purple lighting.

Yeah, it was, it was.

It was great.

And then they had that green room tent back there, and then they had a separate ten for equipment. Like it was a very well thought out festival in the middle of nowhere.

The South River Music Festival began early Saturday evening at five point thirty, kicking off two days of local musical artists playing shows free of charge. Before the lineup of live music began, someone on stage read out a small flyer that was being passed around, detailing the reasoning for the festival and its place within the fight to defend the forest. And I got permission to share that reading.

In the limitless possibilities of the cosmos, in the mad flocks of events, reactions, and anomalies of the past twelve billion years since the birth of our universe, it's a statistical impossibility that we would be here now, But here we are alive.

Together.

Such incredible circumstances have brought us here, among them the incredible and innovative resistance to defend this place.

For becoming a police training compound.

Magic rooms.

This resistance, which brings us together the most cunning and resilient techniques of the radical environmentalist movement with the incredible courage and ferocity of the George Floyd Uprising, is not just about a small piece of land.

It's not about being fought.

Between police and their goons on one hand and some activists and their friends on the other. We are witnessing a collision of two competing ideas of happiness, of.

Life, of the future.

In this competition, experiments with new types of Greek culture play a decisive role.

This movement cannot be reduced.

To what is happening in city hall, on social media, or in meetings. For two years we have descended on these woods, finding refuge from the high rents and predatory bookings fees of the corporate venues and bars, and not come here to redecorate the actions of some activists as allies, lending our service to the drab and loveless militancy of

That is going to change.

Music is not like other forms of human culture. It is different from painting, drawing, poetry, literature, or film art. Politics and symbolic culture in general represent the passions conjuring strong feelings from the shadows of reality, pulling them from the depths of the soul or the back of consciousness. Music, on the other hand, is perhaps the only form of human creativity that contacts those feelings without any media. Music is physics, music is reality. The system we live in

Not with words. It's not with.

Denunciations, but with actions, real and concrete, actions as real as the sounds, as real as reality.

I'm so lucky to be here with y'all. Thank you.

Across the middle of the field, hundreds of people laid out blankets on the grass and dirt. Concertgoers alternated between a dancing in front of the stage and relaxing and eating food on picnic blankets. As the night approached, over a thousand people were spread out across the RC field. Amoshe pit had formed directly in front of the stage. Musicians led stop Kopcity chants, and between sets, people spoke on mic about the movement.

Everybody say stop cop City, Stop cop City.

That's right, that's right.

Saturday Night was headlined by local Atlanta rapper Zach Fox. Zach told stories about how he and his friends used to hang out in this very forest as teenagers.

All Right, y'all, man, hey, I'm gonna say this. Fuck the mayor. I'm gonna say this, Fuck the mayor, and fuck all this shit. And I love everybody for coming out to support this ship.

Do you're really fucking.

When I tell you me, Archie.

Everybody used to walk back in these woods and drink red stripes and and walk our dogs and shoot guns and shit. So I really don't want to see this shit happen. And I really appreciate alli y'all for coming out to do this shit.

Fuck a cop City Chance erupted pretty regularly throughout the night.

And this is all I'm gonna tell the police. This is all I'm gonna tell the police. Okay, hold on, let me make sure I push the right button.

Say that ship. Let's go fucking right it fucking right it fucking running, fucking running, fucking running, fucking run it, fucking run it.

Atlanta.

I love y'all so much, man, Hell yeah, hey, man, let me say something real quick.

Let me say something real quick before I get the fuck out, savee. Let my hummies right this shit.

I love y'all so much for supporting this shit.

I have.

Let me tell you.

Let me tell you something.

I'm thirty two.

A lot of niggas start getting old and they lose.

Faith in the youth. I got so much faith in everybody in this motherfucking bitch.

Wherever y'all going, I'm going, I truly believe that y'all gonna save this motherfucking world.

So I'm with y'all.

Fuck Cop City, fuck cops in general, fuck twelve, fuck authoritarianism, fuck capitalism, fuck all that bullshit.

I'm with y'all to the end. So I motherfucking die. So let me hear y'all say this one more time.

Start bud Wow, Start Bob Wow.

Start bob whow stiite Bob Wow.

Besides the domestic terrorism banner I mentioned in the opening of this episode, another banner was hung up beside the stage featuring turtles and butterflies, along with the Asada Shakur quote. Love is our sword, truth is our compass.

This kind of music is about the naty of nature, filling the trees, feeling the crowd filling each other.

Look right up there, look at the fucking moon.

To quote a communicate from the Sonic Defense Committee quote, at this point, it was impossible to imagine a meaningful police intervention. The crowd was made up of elderly people, university students, rappers, indigenous activists, toddlers and newborns, skaters, people of all imaginable Atlanta demographics. The night ended around three thirty am to sounds of house techno and drum and bass without any notable incident.

Unquote.

Tents were set up all over the eastern side of the forest, with many people choosing to sleep under the tree canopy between the living room and the music festival for that first night. As the night went on, people carefully tended small campfires both in the festival field and in the middle of the living room. To quote the press collective, the movement was once again living in joyous

Like Sunday, You know, Sunday started off really great, like walking in the first thing you see when you walked back onto the festival grounds was this amazing bouncy house that they had written some guidelines up there that it did seem like everyone fall foh you could fit six adults, which like for a bouncy house, that's pretty large.

It was a big bouncy house.

It was like six of dollars through twelve kids or something like that. So, yeah, you see this bouncy house, and like when you see that the first thing, but I think that visually sets the entire expectation, Like that is a statement in and of itself of like what they were going for that first.

Day Day two of the music festival started around noon. Right in the middle of the rc field was this large rainbow colored bouncy castle adorned with a stop Copcity banner. People slowly trickled in all over the course of the afternoon, culminating in about one thousand people scattered across the field by four pm. Just like the night before, people enjoyed free food, Defend the Forest related literature, and a bustling

So I think the bousing castle set the tone and everything was really lighthearted for the first few hours. I spent most of that day walking around watching this like autonomous infrastructure in the forest kind of pop up on its own. It's like everywhere I went, you know, to the parking lot, you saw trains of people carrying like water and supplies deep into the forest. Everyone seemed to just be trying to find a place to fit in and to work and to really participate in the Week of Action.

As the day went on, rumors started to circulate about inaction happening Later that afternoon, word quickly spread that people would meet up in the RC field at five pm. Eventually a flyer was posted to social media, and sure enough, come five o'clock, a group of a few hundred people made up of individuals and affinity groups, gathered behind the bouncy castle, most of whom were masked up and a

That was that was quite the visual like this, this this crowd of camo and black block, and like some people wearing normal clothes who I don't think quite knew what they were about to do next to this massive bouncy castle. And I think that that the visual of it kind of represents like two aspects of the movement, right like the militant aspect and the joyful aspect, and I think they're both very central to to what you know, the movement is.

Yeah, it's a pretty good encapsulation of the diversity present around the defend the forest and stop cup City move. There's a few hundred people in camera block walking down I believe is a constitution A lot of people just in black block, mix of legal observers here, police shoppers overhead are Currently people are marching west in the direction of the old Atlanta Prison Farm, the slate of the forest that cop City is.

Planned to be built on.

There has not really been a mass convergence of people like this in the forest in a long long time. I cannot remember the last time there was anything quite like this. This is definitely the biggest group of people who's ever like converged on marching on the old Atlanta Prison Farm area. Last year, people were occupying and living

Popter's still overhead.

I'm sure you can hear it.

To get a clear picture of what actually happened that day. It's useful to understand the geography of the Wilaanni Forest, especially since the police have tried to make it sound like the individuals who were arrested later that night were apprehended at the scene of the crime, which is not actually the case.

The entire area that the defenders are trying to defend, the entire Weilani Forest, the contiguous part of it, is surrounded in sort of a triangle by three different roads, Constitution Key and Bouldercrest. All the way to the east is Wilani People's Park, and like just to the west of that is the RC Field where the music festival was happening, where the bouncy castle is and where our group that we're following here starts to gather. And then all the way to the west is the proposed site

And if you're crossing through those you also have to like jump over Entrenchment Creek, which is not the easiest creek to cross over.

It's not the easiest and it's not the cleanest. It's something you want to step in.

I'm at the back of the march now. Everyone's kind of tightened up into one larger, larger group. They've paused briefly and are retrieving some tires that have been found near the ditch on the road here, dozens and dozens of tires are blocking are blocking the road. They're getting moved out pretty quick, and the march is moving on. Oh, and looks like people arrived at the power line cut, this massive clearing for power lines to run north south.

From Key Road.

Despite the police helicopter circling overhead the gathering spot for a good thirty minutes, it seems APD was not fully prepared in their response or just did not know what going on, because they made it a decent way without any visible resistance so far. A communicate posted online reads quote when we approached the gate. Finally it was not chaos, but it was something like it. Our crowd unleashed a wild burst of energy. It was incredible and I will

Oh, a lot of smoke.

WHOA a lot of smoke.

Very fast is filling up, filling up the area around the little It looks like it's by the little control tower in the middle of the power line.

Cut.

Wow, that smoke is thick. That's a fire. That is a decent fire. You can I can see the orange flame now. As the few police officers stationed at the North Gate were forced to fall back under pressure, force defenders leveled months of their work within a few minutes. To quote the scenes dot no blogs communicate quote. This act of mass collective sabotage was done methodically and without anxiety. The crowd destroyed all of their equipment with ease and confidence.

So the excavator there was a utility train vehicle, which is what the police have been using to sort of move in and around the woods, and sort of motorized move in and around the woods.

And then the.

Office space and the storage space. We're all torched. I think that that comprised like everything that.

Was over there, and then the police surveillance tower, which has been taken down a few times.

Surveillance towers in that area, they have this tendency to fall over.

The fire has gotten a lot lot bigger. Police scanner audio is saying officer needs help, calling for all available units to converge on the spot.

Wow.

Ok, the fire is getting so much brighter.

Smoke is incredibly It looks like some people are starting to move out of the area back into the woods.

But wow, that is a.

Huge fire. There was at least two separate things lit on fire. There were, in fact more than two things on fire. Looks like crowd is going to be starting to move because a lot of police is about to show up. I'm sure what the response will be for people at the music festival or at a Wolani People's park who are camping out for the Week of Action. But this is a pretty pretty big action for Week of Action Day two. Wow, this smoke plume is massive.

The chopper has moved.

From being the power line cut to the music festival and Wailani people's spark vibe seems to be pretty chill on the ground here. I'm not sure how many people that are present know what's going on, but the chopper is still stationed above the entrance to the festival, so I think they're they're looking to see if the group that march is going to march back the same direction, which I don't think they will, but that is what's currently going on. People still still seem to be coming

So when the police came running up onto the tarmac at RC Field where the bouncy castle was, of course they had to point a rifle at the bouncy castle. And if that doesn't show that police are not here to have fun and have joy, I don't know what what is. I don't know if anyone was in it at the time, I don't think so. I think they were literally just pointing a gun at an empty bouncy castle which they have they destroyed, and I think we have to take a moment to mourn that.

Lots of police running into the music festival. They're rowing someone down, chasing down a few people, Cops approaching for multiple sides. Instead of immediately trying to confront the hundreds of music festival attendees head on, the still extremely outnumbered cops ran to the opposite side of the music festival and started to indiscriminately go after isolated stragglers. People running into the woods, chase by police. Someone's tackled, no one

Looks like an NLG person's on the ground.

Eventually the concertgoers realized what was happening, and a little over one hundred people mobilized to pressure the cops out of the field. People from the music festival are now running behind the police that have rushed into the rc field, cops being flanked by hundreds of people.

So the first thing that happened was a few officers entered the RC field, which is where the music festival was happening, and made a few quick arrests. Yeah, like five or six, I would say, And I would assume, seeing like the crowd and realizing that a small force of officers is easily overwhelmed, kind of pulled back with their arrests. And then just after that, over in Wheelani People's Park, that's when the cab came in with their

Good old dj L rad brings it brings back all the memories.

And so from there they sort of launched into the forest, launching tear.

Gas again also brings back all of the memories. Police are starting to come back into the music festival. Fireworks are happening in the woods.

Near the living room.

It looks like.

The police that entered via the RCA field advanced up to join another group of cops who came in from Wollani People's Park and were already in the woods. What I first assumed were just fireworks were actually in exchange of munitions, with cops firing explosive tear gas canisters into the forest and people trying to hold the cops off with fireworks. Tear gas is in the woods.

Fuck, it's hard.

I can't get any I didn't I didn't bring my gas masks because this was a music festival. It's just the woods are completely caked and gas. Everyone who's inside I don't know how they're going to get out. Cops have the place surrounded. It's so gassed up in there.

Police raided.

They tear gased a section of the woods close to the RCA field, kind of blocking off the RCA field from from the Wallani People's Park parking lot and the Campsit's nearby, so you couldn't like really get away or run through that area because your breathing would stop. As mine temporarily did as I tried, as I tried to run through there, and then policer just took over this entire section of southeast Atlanta, just this entire section of the woods, all the intersections in.

This area, except for the very small space that the music festival was still going on during this entire time.

The section like right in front of the stage where people continued to have the music festival for the next few hours. As police were as like, I kid you not, Like over five hundred police officers were in this surrounding area. There was the most amount of police I've ever seen respond to anything ever.

It was wild.

I am currently heading out.

I will try to loop back around to Blanna People's Park because there's just no way through it right now with all the tear gas.

But a cop van has.

Pulled into the rc Field music customal people. Some of them are study by the stage, others are kind of dispersing. Night's getting pretty hectic. Cops fully surrounding a lot of People's Park and the music festival on all sides. There was at least one individual of note who was witnessed to be at the music festival the entire time. During the direct action, and they were one of the very first arrests. Police chased this person down, tased and violently

I was around the festival at that time. I even saw the police tackle someone at the festival and tackle and tase an Indigenous person at the festival. And initially the police officer Georgia State Patrol, and these are the folks that were responsible for killing Tortigita and making up a lie about it. They started running and there were

Like why are you doing?

And then the persons that I didn't do anything, and then the uh Georgia State Patrol officer responded, well, you ran right, as if running when somebody with a gun chasing you is an admission of guilt of something. Uh So the response was nonsensical and stupid.

So they they're tear gassing the forest and again, you know, uh, grabbing from reports anyone who who's who's running? Anyone who who you know rightfully runs from a police officer running at them with an AR fifteen, which you know, we've been around police all week, and like the instinct to run, you know, even even now is still pretty high.

No.

Absolutely, And if you've never been chased by police before, your first instinct isn't to like let them get you, like I've had police just charge at me for filming police brutality before. And yeah, you generally want to move away. It is your immediate reaction.

Yeah, anyone running at you with a gun is caused for fear, and a police officer even more so. Okay, I am out of the area.

Police have surrounded on basically every side of the Lone People's Park, the section of the four people are camping out of the music festival, all entrances and exits are stage, a whole bunch of intersections, this police stage. They're letting some people go, obviously they're arresting a whole bunch of other people. No clear indication on who their arresting or why. It's pretty chaotic right now.

They put out this officer needs help.

Call.

That expanded beyond just APD, But the first thing they did was was calling every available APD officer. Fulton County Sheriff's Office joint to Cab County started to mount up, and then of course the Georgia State Patrol definitely had to get onto this action. So jurisdictionally wide or this multi jurisdiction wide force of police amassed on Key Road with the cab kind of coming in on the other side.

I passed through at least five hundred individual police officers. Yeah, that like that would check out, because I walked a decent a decent, a decent ways. I passed by many an intersection with at least fifty to one hundred cops was stationed at like each intersection.

Oh and we can't forget the Sandy Springs Police Department also, and its way down from outside the premier.

Multiple swat teams there was like thinks read from Bearcats. After I evacuated the area, I was still in shock about how many police officers mobilized to raid the festival. This is the biggest police response I've seen to anything in Atlanta in the time that I've been here. This is bigger than the police responses to most of like Portland actions compared to Like twenty twenty. Massive, massive amount of cops from multiple agencies taking over a huge area

So the music festival continues unhindered until dusk, and about then is when DJ l Rad comes up and officers get out and call over like five people from the crowd. And so at this point I think there's like somewhere between one hundred seventy five to one hundred people still at the music pest watching the music, and people are calling out from the stage like we have a legal right to be here, this is public property.

We had We had dueling, dueling loud speakers trying to two people having a regular conversation across a field via opposing loud speakers.

Ry Scott Pilgrim versus the world right like.

You know, as the police are trying to shut down a concert, and there's like pulks screaming into the bike and police officers using they all read to scream back.

It's just amazing I mean, the visuals of this whole day I think are kind of really easy to imagine, even if you're not there.

Yeah.

Roughly after two hours of hunting down and detaining stragglers from the festival, dozens of swat in riot gear with high end rifles and armored vehicles slowly moved in towards the stage. Police told festivalgoers that they had three minutes to leave the festival under threat of arrest for domestic terrorism, to which festivalgoers responded by shouting no. In front of the stage. The crowd linked arms enchanted, let us go home and we have children.

Go WHOA.

Apparently unable to mass arrest one hundred and fifty people for whatever reason, police called for five individuals from the festival to engage in a brief discussion. After this odd negotiation with a handful of random concert goers, festival attendees were told they had ten minutes to walk to their cars and go home or else be charged with domestic terrorism.

About half the crowd has cars parked in the rc field, and the police allow them to go to their cars and leave, leaving like somewhere between you know, three dozen somewhere around three dozen people without cars still remaining at the FESTI and this whole time they're also chanting, we have kids, let us go, and like, it's this very big moment of solidarity that I've been told from like people who were there that you could tell that everybody

Yeah, it was, It was.

It was weird because police were definitely they were letting some people walk away and leave a place, some people drive away, arresting others not really with no clear indication for why they're letting some go and not not letting others go. But then this this crowd of people around the stage were eventually allowed to leave the music festival in big rent of vans. The police then id'd the people who rented the vans and were driving the vans, but but everyone was able to exit who stayed by

Got breaking news out of Atlanta. Over nine dozens arrested after what's being described as a coordinated criminal attack. It happened at the future site of a police training center. And this is Blaine Alexander's on the story for US Blaine Good Morning.

Officials say protesters burned construction vehicles and a trailer and set off fireworks toward officers stationed nearby.

This wasn't about a public safety training center.

This was about anarchy and this was about the attempt to destabilize.

Police point to a group of what they call outside agitators, saying they left an event nearby, changed into black clothing, and mounted a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers.

To quote a statement from the Sonic Defense Committee. Quote, the indiscriminate brutalization and arrest of festivalgoers suggests that law enforcement agencies will go to great lengths to paint the movement to stop Coop City and Defend the Atlanta Forest as a criminal organization. It is in fact a broad, decentralized movement with no ideological or organizational unity of shared goal.

I think to talk about what happened, we we kind of do have to go back to put it in context, and going back to January, that was the end of the occupation or the you know, continuous encampments in Wilani and then flash, uh fast forward to to late January. They get the LDP and so all of these people who have been protecting the forest for so long are now watching construction equipment roll in and they're watching clear

There had not been an action like this in the woods for a long time. Bulldozers and equipment had not been damaged in quite a while. But on Sunday people were able to use the safety in numbers that comes with a week of action to feel more empowered to take direct action against the actual machinery that is destroying the forest and building cop City. Sunday's action can be seen as a demonstration of the pent up righteous anger

The day before, there was this chant that was taken up by the entire crowd, and I think we talked about this and.

Earlier.

If you build it, we will burn it. And that was something that if you looked all throughout the crowd, like they were chanting everybody, everybody, like not just people wearing camera or black block, like a thousand people, everybody. Yeah, a thousand people marching from Gresham Park. And I think that this is that promise come true.

Sunday's action was itself a pretty unique moment in the recent history of environmental and anti police struggles. Watching hundreds of people go on the offensive to participate in a mass, coordinated sabotage in defense of both the forest and targets of police of isolence felt like an unprecedented moment in

We always in.

With the asslogan.

We're with the words of the love or.

Assata Spoor because we have a tuning. There's been so much bliss built here. Repeat that to me, our duty to fight for our freedom to each other each other. I'm not gonna lose, but on change.

I'm not gonna loose, Bonchin, I'm nothnna those but on Chinee.

Say Music Festival audio courtesy of Unicorn Riot.

Hey.

We'll be back Monday, with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the Universe.

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