It Could Happen Here Weekly 84

And the level of reality denial that is, it has been bad before, it's just extra visible right now, and it's visible to a degree that is that is pretty worrying, and we felt it was it was worth talking about just because of you know, whenever a reality fracture is big enough to be like this this noticeable, that is always always an interesting sign of where we are at as a culture.

Latino people and then four Asian people. And I don't know, I wanted to just sort of like remind people that anti Asian violence is still like a thing because everyone seems to have forgotten about it, and you know, this is like I mean, I think if you exclude the if you exclude the three in California that were like also committed by Asian people, says like the fourth mass shooting in two years that's been at least half the victims of an Asian It fucking sucks, I you know.

I mean, we've talked about antias violence a decent amount on this show. None of the things we've ever talked about have gotten any better. The only sort of actual instrument the results of any of this is that like violence against Asian people get used as a rhetorical cudgel

to justify killing black people, which is fucking abhorrent. And yeah, I just wanted to get this in because the media has collectively forgotten that that was the whole thing, and no one really talks about the shooting in that framing, and I think it's important to do so at least for a little bit.

Nazis for a while. Mangola had citizenship in both Argentina and in Paraguay. Like, this is it's not uncommon. This is not like a new thing. We're not It's not like some sudden shift in the way that fascism works.

of driven by online fascists. Like this is not the only place that this happened. Serbia just had a couple as well. But like, what what what? What this guy's doing is very much just as the christ shooting was very much something that occurred within the broader envelope of a transnational accelerationist fascist movement, you know, the Allen shooting, as far as we can tell what the information we have available, seems to fit very well into that schema.

tattoo from the shooting. He's wearing like a right wing desk squad patches. Like it's just like a whole thing that the Proud Boys also do. It's like a patch that says like rw.

with the big RWDS patch on his chest. And you can find like Tasitala Tozy, who is an inveterate rioter with a Patriot prayer up in Portland, would wear them all the time. They're a common piece of fascism merch.

sort of posting this stuff. He also finds a bunch of clips of like Timpoole videos, and so this immediately sends the entire right into like you know, full on defense mode, right. You know, it turns out it's it's not great for your brand with like the sort of general array of people if it's being associated with a

guy who just did a mass shooting. So Tim Poole responds to the other thing is there's there's like a manifesto on it, and Tim Poole responds to this by I think I think what actually, like legitimately what happened is he read the manifesto and there's a thing in the manifesto like talking about the Nashville shooter being trans or like specifically about the Nashville shooter. And I think I think specifically he read that and was like, oh shit, this is my out. I can go back and talking

about the Nashville shooter. Sure, And so he starts, he starts this. There's this whole sort of train of like right wing stuff about how all of this is fake. So he starts arguing that, like this isn't the guy's social media account. This this sort of very very rapidly morphs into i mean, just like full on like Sandy

hook shit, what if his employees like tweets? Why is the corporate press so threatened by people questioning the authenticity of a Mexican neo nazi's Russian social media account uncovered by state funded media? And this because this immediately becomes the mainline right state funded media things. They're talking about Belling Cat, which.

uh an evolution from what what's what? Folks kind of in the debating Christians about evolution and shit called the Gish gallop, where the the the original idea of the Gish gallop was when you're arguing from a creationist perspective about stuff like, you know, the age of the world, you bring up so many different kind of topics, you know, from different very niche issues you have a carbon dating to, you know, specific problems you have with like the way

scientists are interpreting specific fossils, and it's just too much detail for somebody in like an ad hoc public argument to really like counter at once. And kind of the evolution of it is when you're dealing with something like this rather than deal with the broader picture, which is there's just a tremendous amount of evidence that this guy was a Nazi, that this guy was motivated and kind of brought into the community by a lot of content

that guys like Tim Poole make. Instead you focus on, you pull up one single thing that you can kind of like try to get people to latch onto, and if you can get them arguing about that thing, you can get them to ignore the bigger picture, like at least you can distract attention from it.

they're they're being paid to create a false flag to to make this guy look like a Nazi and a timpoole fan to distract people from the Nashville shooting, which is just like.

But we've gotten to the point where you just you know, like the sort of mainstream of the right just does this about every time it's a writing mass shooting, and this this particular time, it's been just everywhere.

Musk are like actively actively working towards. One of the main accounts that Musk was kind of like riffing off of in this and who was like trying to like feed Musk this type of stuff was the redheaded libertarian who works for Timpoole. She created a bunch of memes about this shooting talking about how how this the guy can't can't be a Nazi and he because he's Latino. You know, why would someone use a Russian social media site?

Even tho it's actually very common for American notaptries to use Russian social media.

gets all of his information from. So he starts he starts like just questioning the validity of this story, but then also specifically targeting belling Cat, saying that didn't didn't didn't this story come from Bellingat, which literally specializes in psychological operations, which, first of all, is just a wild thing to say when you're talking about is specifically like an open source journalism website, Like it's the most the most honest way you could do journalism because it's given

people the tools to literally check all of the work themselves.

that hard, it's really easy. The thing is the thing is right if if so, Like, I am not a journalist, right, I learned everything I know about this from gare in like one night, and like I have tracked down like mass you too social media accounts and like before the police got them, Like it's not that hard.

cycle of like how could they possibly have found this? They must have been given it by the government.

or a shirt with a logo and that will let me id somebody, because you know, of the of the different social media shit that I've been pulling up, like it's it's it's not it doesn't take like spice satellites. It just takes motivation, being in the right place at the right time and having nothing else to do.

like a manufactured government planned operation. That's what they actually mean, right, Like in in the conspiracy space, syop is is more like a loaded term they don't actually refer to like actual syops that get doning like against like you know, you can look at like co Intel pro right, you can look at you can look at various ways that the FBI of the army has done syops. But what they mean when they say syop is this is like this is a government conspiracy theory and it's a false

narrative that's been crafted to like change public opinions. So I guess, I guess these people mea you mentioned how they're making it sound like this was this was created to distract from the Nashville shooting or just just they have various like motivations for why they want to but it the important part is that they could use this word to just easily deny reality, and that is that it is kind of beyond like whatever motivations they have.

It's just easy for them and their ideology to just block off this section of reality so that they don't have to Like people who are like actually libertarians don't need to like confront what the extent of their ideology actually means. Right, you know, there's certainly people who are like okay with mass shootings happening, or you know, are totally fine with with with with like non white people getting killed in mass shootings. But there probably are certain

libertarians who don't actually like mass shootings. They don't actually like when fascists go kill tons of people, and it's easier for them sometimes just to block off this section and ignore it than actually confront what their ideology means. So some must kept saying this is either the weirdest story ever or a very bad syop. The answer is neither. This story is not super weird. It's actually very very explainable if you understand the mechanisms at play here, and even just not a bad SI Yeah.

an AR fifteen behind every bush in this country. It's not hard for this kind of this kind of shit, It's not hard to see where this like originates from.

with the highest engagement on Twitter. So these these types of conspiracy theories are getting inflated to extremely high degrees at least online, and the separation of reality online is inflated for these mass shootings in a way that I have not seen in quite a while. I have not seen this much just denial of like information regarding mass

shootings in quite a long time. And the combination of the stuff like the stuff with Belling Cat coming from the tankies and how those conspiracies have now mashed with all of these like neo fascist shit. It's a combination of reality denial that is absolutely worrying for like future mass shootings as well.

The fact that it's being parroted by the wealthiest man on the planet using one of the biggest information fire hoses that exists is completely novel.

that and just continued and accelerating UH since then. It appears there's a few outlets like Business Insider and Blank at themselves reporting that they are they are receiving basically shadow bands on Twitter right now, with their with their with their account and their posts having a very limited reach.

this person. They in fact that they were saying, they were saying that the shooter is just somebody else, which was also proven rob but yeah, they also.

wasn't clear. So they would take a picture of like a social media picture of the tattoo on his hand, and then a picture of him dead, and like the tattoo on his hand in the picture of him dead was like blurrier, and they were like, look, the lines aren't straight. They're straight in the picture on his social media and it's like, well, yeah, because those were taken by very different cameras in very different situations. Like you know how cameras work, you know how this this is of what.

will believe that's just true. Like it doesn't need to be real or convincing in order for it to have it like an effect.

make people engage with the fake stuff. It's to make people break kind of the lines of reasoning that they are going in with, Like it's to make people distract people from the stuff that is really clear and obvious

and just kind of fracture the conversation. Because the more that you do that kind of the weaker you make the response to what's happened, and the more kind of that you can distract people from the degree of complicity that the people in kind of the media sphere on the right have for all of this shit.

of the left believe this, yep. And that means that it's you know, unbelievably difficult to form any kind of coherent response when like half of the people who would normally be doing this stuff are like, oh, well they are actually CIA, So.

Like you have to accept that. For example, like the pro Beijing Electoral Party in Hong Kong is a CIA op because they also got a shit ton of any D money, right, Like, like any just gives money to a shit ton of people.

One is that a Nazi went on a killing spree, as happens constantly, as has been happening since the Nazis became a thing. The other possibility is that the federal government, for unclear reasons, convinced a man to cover his body in swastika tattoos and shoot random people at a mall for gun control. That's not going to get passed in the state of Texas. I don't know, like which of those seems likely to you.

reasoning now that just like a lot of people across the entire poetic conpectionum have and it's not actually a good way to understand the worlds like it's it simply is not.

they're not used to. I think one of the interesting one of the last things I think we should like mention about this is just the influx of how militant like neo Nazism or like visible ne Nazism has just been People have just been saying it's Feds in an increasingly concerning way, like like I think, like a last month, there was this viral video of a whole bunch of Nazis stressed in red and black, I think, protesting something. I forget the exact circumstances at the moment.

blah blah blah blah. You know, it's it's like the one hundred person NPC meme with them all wearing the blue check mark on the forehead saying it's the FEDS just because it's it's once we get to the point where we have more Nazis doing mass shootings again, the same way like there was an influx between like twenty seventeen to twenty nineteen than twenty twenty, there was kind of a dip because all all crime kind of had

a dip. As we're gonna go into the next next election cycle, as things are gonna start looping again, when more and more Nazis start doing shit, just how there's gonna be a bigger swath of the population who just denies that's what's happening, and that is gonna make make the problem of Nazis probably a bit harder to deal with.

I mean, there's there will still be anti fascists doing their work to like docs and I D people and and and and all that stuff, but the amount of like visibility and the amount of traction that that this level of reality denial is getting around, like militant in neo Nazism and around Nazi killings, will be a kind of a new thing to navigate, or not a new thing, but like it's a the problem will be bigger than what it used to be.

except for be shittier to marginalize people. That that there's been kind of this like focus in a lot of mainstream liberal media on articles and the idea that you should spread pictures of victims of shootings, and a focus on the amount of damage that like a weapon like

an AR fifteen does to a human body. People can have their own opinion on like whether or not this is a helpful idea, but I have noticed in sort of arguments I've been having with people a troubling trend, which is when I talk about the importance of doing stuff like taking stop the bleed training, carrying things like tourniquets. I've gotten responses from a couple of people that are like AR fifteens are so powerful the wounds are not survivable,

there's no point in doing this. That is not the case. I have known dozens of people who have been shot by AR fifteens, in some cases in AR style weapons, in some cases multiple times, and larger weapons, and lived. It is always worthwhile to have stopped the bleed training

and to carry equipment. If you hear anyone saying that, please please correct them, Because whatever you think about gun control, it is very important for people to know how to deal with those kind of injuries, and it is important

in the immediate wake of an attack. One of the things that was really unsettling is in the immediate way of the Allen attack, after the shooter was down, there was a couple of people who ran in to try to provide life saving aid, and a bunch more who took photos of the people who had been wounded and killed. And it's possible that if more of the people taking photos had gotten in an attempted to provide aid. Some of the people who were injured might have survived, no

way to know, but always worth having that training. That's just something I've noticed. Not to put it in the same moral universe as trying to pretend your calls for violence aren't calls for violence, but it is something that concerned me and that people should maybe keep an eye on.

and radicalism. These contributions the anarchist movement, especially his work on black anarchism, even to this day with his ongoing podcast, continues to inspire activists around the world, myself included. So, Mia, what are your what has your experience been with the Rinzo Combo Irvin and his work.

accompanies it. There were anarchists historically who were black, who were not part of this black anarchist tradition, and well, of course black anarchists who weren't part of those earlier movements. I think one of the most notable sort of go to examples is Lucy Parsons was a very important anarchist figure in the sort of the peak of the movement, at least in the US in the twentieth century. But although she was Black, her contributions don't necessarily contribute to

that sort of black anarchist lineage. So let's get into earthIn right. Nineteen forty seven. By the time he was twelve, Lorenzo Kobertuvin had joined the NAACP youth group and participated in sit in protests that helped to end racial segregation in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He was later drafted during the Vietnam War and served in the army for two years, where

he eventually became an anti war activist. And in nineteen twenty seven, when he was twenty years old, after his involvement with the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, Lorentzo kumbo Uven joined the Black Panther Party as a rank and file member. Two years later, he hijacked a plane and

fled to Cuba. While he was on the run for attempting to kill a Ku Klux Klan member, But instead of receiving support as some black radicals had received when fleeing to Cuba, Cune authorities had jailed him, deported him, deported him to Czechoslovakia, and eventually he escaped from Czechoslovakia to each before eventually being caught, tortured, and brought back to the United States, and then after being drugged during his trial, he was handled two life sentences by an

all white jury in a redneck town. Tough prick as you can imagine, Irvin had very quickly become disillusioned with the dictatorship he had experienced in Cuba and the socialist countries he visited, and during his time in prison, he reflected on his life and found an alternative method for black revolution, distinct from the form he found the Panther Party. Now even wasn't the first person to criticize the Black

Panther Party's style of organization. One of the splits between the East Coast and West Coast Panthers was on what form of organization they would take. I discussed that a bit in the Quasi Battagoon episodes, and then of course there were other figures who came out to the Black Panther Party with their own criticisms, including if I remember correctly, Asata Shakur and also Don Cox. While in prison, Iuven,

had you gone receiving anarchist literature? And he also signed to pick up what another Black anarchist who he was briefly imprisoned with at the time, Martin Sostra, was putting down. Martin Sostra is what I believe one of the first major black anarchist figures in that sort of nineteen sixties nineteen seventies period, and so him being in prison with Sostra at the same time sort of really helped even to understand exactly what anarchism meant and how it would

applied to a specifically black experience in black context. Ivin was also inspired by Peter Kropotkin, Everyone's favorite Russian and former prince, and ultimately even adopted the ideology of anarchist. His case was soon taken up by the anarchist Black Cross and the Helper Prisoner Oppose Torture Organizing Committee, which led to an international campaign the petition for his release.

Evan's writings on Anarchism of the Black Revolution, which was written in prison, gained immense popularity, and so he was released in nineteen eighty three after serving nearly fifteen years. In his book, he emphasized that anarchism is the most democratic, effective and radical way to obtain freedom for the black community, but the black people must be free to design their

movements without the approval of North American anarchists. Do you believe that black people and other people of color would be the backbone of the American anarchist movement of the future. The first edition of Anarchism the Black Revolution was published quite a while ago. It's still the addition that is available on the Anarchist Library you can check out, but it is I would consider it to be a sort

of a rough early edition. There are certainly some typos and editorial mistakes and stuff that were addressed in the most recent edition that was published and I believe twenty twenty one and edited with some help from William C. Anderson, who also is another leading figure in the modern black anarchist movement, having written works like Nation or nomap Irvin took and still takes a principal stance against capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism,

colonial oppression, patriarchy, queerphobia, and the state, recognizing the government is one of the worst forms of modern oppression. His emphasis on intersectionality has played a crucial role in the shift away from class exclusive analysis in the American anarchist movement, and today he remains active, as I said recording a podcast called Black Autonomy with his wife and fellow forma

panther Jonina. So today we drawn from Even's book Actism of the Black Revolution to delve into his picture of revolution in North America and beyond. I think one of the strongest strategies for the development of the Black Revolution

would be a Black labor federation. As Even discusseds in his book, black labor has been a critical economic fact in America since the country's inception, and it was through the toil of black labor, beginning with slave labor in the Old South and extending to share cropping, farm labor and migration to the North for factory jobs, that the

foundations of the American nation were built. However, as is obvious, black workers have been routinely excluded from that share of the wealth of the American nation and routinely excluded from the trade unions that struggled to regain some of that wealth, like, for example, the American Federation of Labor, the Dash Colored Labor Union, the National Colored Farmers Alliance, and the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, as well as the League of

Black Revolutionary Workers, and other unions and associations of black workers were then formed to represent these interests that were being left out and not at all brought to the table. Black workers were very much instrumental in the Congress of Industrial Organizations, campaign of strikes and sit downs and other protests to organize unskilled industrial workers, but they didn't get

to enjoy the benefits of their pivotal role. Most of the Black population is working class, and black industrial and clerical workers still hold significant potential power and the struggle for black liberation. A lot of these workers have already been organized and to defend their righted work and advocate for their interests, even if union leadership is conservative, even if they weren't challenge management, even if they're not even unionized. We see as well in modern times a lot of

black figures stepping up to organize these unions. The first union to be organized in Amazon was spearheaded by a black worker, Chris Smaws, and workers black workers across history have already been creating union caucuses and creating independently of unions were necessary to push for their specific interests because, I mean, the unity of black workers and the rest of the working class is essential to combat and overthrow capitalism.

But there needs to be a recognition within that unity of distinctly black interests and a distinctly black history, which is why black caucuses within unions are able to take up demand to the struggles that unions have turned the blind eye to, such as discriminatory hiring, firing, and promotion practices,

and you know, lack of equal treatment. I think these caucuses could even go further as even also argues to democratize their unions, to eliminate some of these discriminatory practices, and to really push for the radical fighting spirit that has been lost in some of these sort of reformist

union structures. The black aucuss and also the workers more generally should be stepping up to demand democratic control the union, to demand equal treatments, demand of firmative action, demand full employment demand, shorter work weeks, to demand, the right to strike, the demand to social security, and an employment compensation demand

for liverable minimum wages. Of course, all of these accomplishments or demands already sort of short term benefits that would still retain a COPITALSS structure, but they're necessary nonetheless, especially when unionize the is are an all time low historically.

One of the things that even also advocates for, which I'll get into more in the future, is this idea of unions advocating for companies to put aside funds specifically for programs to rebuild in a city communities and provide work for black workers and your stocks, about worker self management of industry by factory committees and workers councils, and

elections by workers themselves. But the main idea that he's pushing for, at least in terms of the black working class and black labor, is, as I mentioned, a Black labor federation, both in a national level and on an international level, a national workers association with serves both a revolutionary union movement for a place organizing and a mass social movement for community organizing, combining tactics from both the labor and the black liberation movements to multiply their numbers

and build their strength and tilling the unions into these militant class struggle instruments. An example that we can see in history during the late nineteen sixties was the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, which is organizing black auto workers out of the out of the Dodge Revolutionary Movement. Sorry to me, let me rephrase that. One example of that type of organization could be found in the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, which organized black auto workers during the

late nineteen sixties. The League had grown out of a major affiliate of it out of a major affiliate, the Dodge Revolutionary Movement, and it was a black labor federation that existed as an organized alternative to the United Auto Workers, which have been excluding black workers. League was also a very major force on the streets, as it was in addition to organizing its workplaces organized in college campuses and black inner city areas. But its potential was stifled, unfortunately

by political faction fights among leadership. There was a division between those who wanted to take a more Marxist Leninist approach to the organization compared to those who want to take more democratic approach the organization. There was a lack of a solid enough organized based in the factories, there was significant company and United Auto Workers, and state repression.

Of course, organized racism, a lack of cooperation among white workers, and other reasons that eventually led to the league splitting into mutually hostile factions that would die after less than five years of existence. Classic organized and history story. I don't think that you should look at these failures and

use them as an opportunity to give up. I think we look at these failures and we use them as learning opportunities, use them as opportunities to recognize, oh, we can do something like this, but not exactly like this.

But you're just the sort of American approach, because in case those of you who don't know, I'm not living in America, I'm not an American, which is why, and also addresses and advocates for an international Black Labor Federation to wield the collective power of black workers globally that have been universally oppressed and exploited around the world as a racial group, Black workers have been oppressed as workers and as people, and this dual form for pressure is really

what emphasizes that need to organize for old rights and our own liberation. In African and Caribbean countries, including trant Tobigo, there are labor federations and labor unions, but a lot of them are reformists, a lot of them are government control, and there's a lack of militancy. There's a lot of collaboration with the government and with companies they're supposed to

be organizing against. As it's necessary to have an organization with an internationalist scope that is pushing for solidarity, that is pushing for radical change. And so I think that's that's the real strength of an international Black Labor Federation. You know, that idea of increased solidarity across several countries, uh the idea of strengthening our collective bargaining power and

ability to organize this better work and conditions. Of course, we'd also have the benefit of shared resources and the benefit of greater visibility to these issues that we are facing in the workplace and in society. And then of course there will also be the ability to exert using

that visibility and resources and solidarity to exert greater political influence. However, you know, an international Black federation, we still struggle with political barriers, particularly in countries that are actively hostile to that sort of organizing. Of course, the power would be will do everything in their power to keep such a struggle from being able to attain and maintain any kind

of momentum or power. The construs rains of time and energy and resources and engagement also prevent such a federation from gaining crown. But I still think of all those are issues that we should keep in mind. If well developed, I think that national, regional and international caucuses can do

a lot to implement significant changes. In fact, one strategy that even advocates for is something that I believe an international Black Labor federation or any kind of International Labor Federation will be necessary to help to organize, and that would be a general strike because the vast majority of the Black community consists of working class people in the US, because many of them are engaged in manufacturing and medical service and communications and food production and retail, h a

lot of blue collar work that really makes the country go around. It really makes them an essential component to the Capital's economy and of the American economy. I think it positions them as really really key players in any sort of protest campaign that would involve first racism and class oppression, and it could go even further into beyond just stepping up and striking for demands in the workplace,

control over the workplace. It could also go step further and accomplish it and accomplish in even more revolutionary goals. And I would of course involve using tactics like industrial sabotage and factory occupations and sit ins and slowdowns and wildcat strikes and other work stoppages that would help to reassuit our collective power. Of course, as I'm always really careful to emphasize when I bring up general strikes, they're

not easy to organize. A friend of mine Alkie. He has a video on his YouTube channel about general strikes and how they work, and some of the history is some past general strikes. So that's I think that's required reading code good reading to definitely check out. But yeah, general strikes are not easy to organize. They're not something that you could just call for on Reddit or Twitter or Facebook or whatever.

And there's this great Melo testa quote from Oheen nineteen twenty four, I think where he's talking about how he's talking about the factory occupations that started in Italy in the like during the two Red Years, and he has this line that goes, general strikes a protests no longer upset anyone, neither those who take part in them, nor those against whom they are directed. If only the police had the intelligence to avoid being provocative, they would pass

off as a public as any public holiday. One must seek something else. We put forward an idea, the takeover of.

or just losing their jobs. But still it's it's a powerful tool that if we can recognize, if we could start working towards if when people were calling for strikes back in twenty sixteen and twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen and twenty twenty one and two, if all those years so we spent calling for general strikes actually more effort was being put in to actually put the foundation in place for general strike to occur, then twenty

twenty three we would be prepared to support a general strike in a long term way, in a way that would actually signify, you know, revolutionary change in our lifetimes I mean they'll be discertened. Dear listener, They're still potential for such a thing to occur. It just takes preparation and organization. Speaking of things that take preparation organization, and

one of Irven's tactics is a mass tax boycott. You know, people should refuse to pay any form of taxes to the government, be it federal, income, estate, or state taxes while they continue to be exploited. Because, as he would argue, you know, wealthy and their corporations paying next to no taxes, while the poor and workers be a brunch of taxation

and do not receive any benefits in return. You know, all these taxes on income and goods and services, but communities are still suffering, and that money ends up going to fund the Pentagon and defense contractors and consultants who get to you know, loot the government for their own game.

So part of a black radical movement or the Black revolutions, if an arguseful, is a mass tax resistance movement to boycott taxes, similar to the peace movements, war tax resistance, taking people all the taxes that would have gone into personal property, all the taxes that wo have been reaped from personal property and income tax and stocks and bonds, and funneling that towards community development, find that towards going

to projects and organizations. As with any evolution reaction, significant legal consequences would be involved in that. Of course, you know, I think such a tactic needs some serious mass support and backend behind it to succeed. And even then, I don't believe it should be the backboone of any movement. I think it's more so like an accessory and event of media rupture, a single tool in a broader arsenal, Like I don't think the entire movement should be built

off of tax avoidance. They're just going to get a bunch of people throw into prison. They ask a lot more to it than that. I look at the sort of cost benefit analysis, like, yeah, it'll get a lot of federal attention, but if it's not properly implemented, I don't really see any immediate benefits for the long term

goals of the movement. I mean, I could be wrong, but it's not a tactic that I would personally feelful unless such a struggle is already in existence and in its later stages another type of boycott that's even references is, of course the irregular, conventional, unconventional sort of boycotts used during the Civil Rights movement. A lot of black consumers with boycott, particular moochents public services refusing to treat with moochents who would allow for reach of discrimination and use

that loss of revenue to force them to make concessions. Today, black consumers in the US spend hundreds of billions a year in the campus economy. Of course, not all of those consumers are workers, and all those workers are able to boycott. But I think boycotts are still a potential to the arsenal again to wage you know, warfare, economic warfare against the corporate structures. I mean it could be expanded from anything. It can be expanded to cover everything

from specific products to entire industries. Right. Dr Martin Luther King Junior himself recognized the potential of a national black boycott. Doctor Martin Luther King Junior himself recognized the potential of a national black boycott for America's major corporations. Shortly after he was assassinated, he established such an initiative called Operation bread Basket, which aimed, among other things, to force corporations to pour money into national black community development projects for

poor communities. I think, you know, podcasts have a way to put economic pressure, but they I also believe a little bit less effective in our modern globalized world due to the fact that you know, a lot of these companies are owned by the same like three corporations. They usually have ways to mitigate economic losses in one market

by targeting other alternative markets. Or even if they experienced a dip in demand in one sector, they may still enjoy demand in another sector and another part of the world. And on top of that, company is can of also use that it as an opportunity to sort of get people off the movement. For example, boycott is taking place, they could say, oh, you're trying to boycott, well, we just put a sale out fifty sixty percent of wild stocks last and then you have people sort of, you know,

breaking off of the movement. And I mean, of course, not everybody will do that, some people are principled, but that is still a tactic that you see some companies using when they're starting to experience that sort of economic pressure, they try to fragment the movement quote unquote votes in with your wallet, even mass coordinated in my opinion, is limited in its ability to challenge the courses.

kind of thing. In Harlem, in New York City, rent boycotts were so successful the decreation of rent control legislation, which prevented evictions, unjustified price increases, and required reasonable upkeep by property owners and management companies. There is a track record of Rench strikes providing some benefits, you know, allowing tenants to negotiate with landlords and to bring some issues

to light. And I could also bring about, of course, certain policy changes and push for or highlight further the need for affordable and accessible houses. But again, Rench strikes legally risky. They can also be difficult to coordinate, especially for those who are really kind of risk eviction. I mean, nobody can really risk eviction, right, But that's where the

risk sort of comes in. And then if there's a lack of support, if the land world has significant resources behind them, there are also you know, ways that it could go wrong. I don't want to mislead like I want people to be aware of the reality of how difficult this sort of organized effort is. All these organizing

efforts are. It's not a walk in the park. It's not you know, like acts the end of Act three and some revolution story movie where the good guys are able to win with the power of friendship, with that kind of thing. It's tough work and we have to be aware of the risks even as we engage in such actions. Even also advocates for you know, squatting in

tandem with rent strikes. So, in addition to withholding rent payments from exploitsive landlords and banks, also movements to engage in urban squating, to seize housen to seize empty plots of land, to seize unoccupied and abandoned buildings, and to redirect payments that would have gone towards rent towards necessary repairs to improve living conditions and to claim our cities

for ourselves. But again, while squating does provided immediate housing solution for those in need, while draws attentions the issue of hosting inequality, while creates a sense of collective ownership, and while it can help to improve all these neglected areas and urban environments, it's also legal cross involved in effection and arrest. A lot of squatting conditions can be fairly unsafe, while unsanitary, particularly if a property is not

up to a particular standard. And then of course squating is also sort of temporary as a solution. It doesn't really address the root courses of housing. It is really a precurious position to keep people in. And it's another case where without mass defense and support we got a mass movement backing it up, it's going to be very easy to dislodge any games that might be made in

the short term. Family even also argues for the establishment of the commune as a staging ground for Black revolutionary struggle.

The concept of the community is basically like a dual power structure, an institution meant to compete with government power, to preserve as a comment to government power in order to assert collective community power foreman and unify and various organizations as struggle taking control of existing communities and institutions and work at a fight against economic and political and

cultural discrimination, expertiation and servitude in this capitalist society. And he goes in to talk about inner city communes as centers of black counterpower and social revolertionary culture to say, as sort of a living example of what revolution could

look like. I think this is a case where at the time he didn't have the word for it, but we do now, and that would be prefigurative politics, the idea of you know, establishing these sort of institutions and the here and now that would be able to prefigure the world that we want to see in the future. Another component of these sort of communes is to provide a count narrative to sort of black capitalism and responsibility politics. It gets pushed out as a dominant narrative within black

communities in the US. The commune and the Black communey specifically, you can say as a place for a new society and a new culture to emerge that rejects the internalization

of oppression under this system. And so when you want to get into sort of how the sort of community be established, even talks about establishing community councils the world govern and even talks about establishing community councils to allow for collective governance and be composed of workers from various industries and neighborhoods and delegates to organized communities on a

block by block basis. He also emphasizes they need to reject black politicians, bureaucrats, and mayors from sort of co opting these efforts and ensuring that the community on the ground actually retains control over the institutions that they establish and develop and take control over to ensure that the community's needs and desires are met. One example that he uses is in the case of schools right where the community would organize parents, students, teachers, and community like to

cooperatively administer the schools. I think we see a lot of efforts by right wing parents right now organize and sort of run things in a lot of public schools, But that does mean it's similar efforts can't be taken by radicals to push for the same. Of course, it wouldn't be as easy because they aim to see the status school, whereas we aim to change things.

campaigns and issues. The idea is, of course, to continuously promote self rule, to continuously develop people's powers and drives and consciousness towards liberation, and to continuously offer an alternative to this pervasive sense that all this is is all they can ever be. It's necessary to sort of incubate this sort of embryo of a revolutionary society, this micro cause of a new lifestyle, and to highlight the necessity

of struggle against you know, these systems. And when I speak of consciousness, I'm also speaking of specifically Black consciousness. Speaking of consciousness rais and sessions to ensure that black history, black culture is accessible and available and understood by the

black community. To ensure that newly liberates and like social ideas and values are distributed within the community, to ensure that counselinine therapy are available, rooted, and of course a black revolutionary perspective tell people to realize that this disunity and distrust and violence and oppression, that because due to this legacy end of this system does not have to continue to be so. But that's it for me and

for Irvin. For now you can join us for part two where we can dive into the day to day aspects. So there's viable programs that Irvin describes to build black resilience in the air. And now if you're looking for me on the internet, you can find me on YouTube dot com slash andeurism and you can support on patuon dot com slash saying Peace. And welcome back to another episode of It Could Happen here with myself Andrew of

the YouTube channel Andewism if you're joining us. From the previous episode, we touched on the life of Lorenzo Cambo Irvin who he was as a leading figure in the black anarchist movement, how he ended up in that position, sort of his life story and how he ended up writing Anarchism the Black Revolution and sort of breaking down that vision of a Black revolution, including tactics like communes, squats, French strikes, tax strikes, boycotts, general strikes, and of course

a Black labor federation. But that's not all that Uven has explored in his work, and today we're going to dive into his vision for survival programs, things to agitate for and actions the black community can take to survive

under the current system now. Historically, black communities have been subjected to economic exploitation, with businesses and financial institutions often taken profits out of the community without investing in its growth and development, and this of course has led to disinvestment, poverty, lack of resources of community members, and of course persistent

relative deprivation. So the demand for community control of businesses and financial institutions that even outlines, is something that seeks to shift power and resources back into the hands of the community. By place and control in the hands community members provides an opportunity to build economic power and to ensure that businesses and financial institutions work for communities rather than vice versa, because such institution and businesses would be

under the control of the workers themselves. So in a cooperative model, members work together to achieve common goals and share the benefits and risks of a business equally. The covenant structure for cooperative typically involves board of directors who might elected by members to make strategic decisions on behalf of the cooperative, but there of course other ways of

organizer and including horizontal consensus. All members of a cooperative have an equal say in these decisions, with each member typically having one food and the board of directors is meant to just be accountable to members and act in the best interest of the cooperative. Now cooperatives already exist, they operate in various industries, and they can operate in various industries including agriculture, retail, finance, housing, healthcare, and more.

For example, in a cooperative agriculture model, farmers can prove resources to purchas seeds, fertilizers, and equipment lower cost, and then sell their crops collectively to increase bargaining power and reduce costs. In a retail cooperative, members can buy products at a discount and how a saying the type of products offered, while in a financial cooperative, members can access banking services and share in the profits they're generated by

the cooperative. Cooperatives also often provide mutual aid and support to their members, with surplus profits from the businesses reinvested either in the businesses or distributed as dividends to members, which ensures that the benefit to the business are shared equatively and members have a stake in the success of a cooperative. Like I mentioned, corporators already exist, which means they are capable of operating within capitalism, but within a

broader program of social revolution. They're meant to build our alternative power in a dual power struggle to eventually enable us to assert our independent from this system as it will. But even here now, it is necessary to survive under this system, and I think cooperatives offer a more humane

and more empowering model. Another example of that sort of cooperative structure could be found in mutual lead banking societies, again owned and controlled by the members, and are created specifically to provide access to financial services and support to individuals and communities that have been traditionally excluded or marginalized

from a lot of traditional banking systems. So they function to provide low interest loans to members for various purposes including you know, starts and businesses, purchasing homes, covering unexpected expenses, and members are required to you know, put in a certain amount each month to fund these sorts of loans, and in addition to providing financial services sort of societies can also provide education and support, help with financial planning,

help with budgeting, help with financial literacy to enable members to better survive within their current financial situation under capitalism. And so that's one aspect of the survival program, right, and emphasis on survival it existed now in this system. So that's one aspect of pushing for community controller businesses and financial institutions and creating community cooperatives and mutual aid

banking societies. Another aspect of that survival program that open outlines is achieving community controlled housing to help address is to use of gentrification, displacement, and lack of affordable housing through legal and legal means such as then strikes and demonstrations, arn't actions, open squad in, drive landlords out and take over the property. Those are more precarious approaches, right, and then they're also be above the board methods. I spoke

about those approaches. Some of those approaches in the first part the quote unquote above the board methods would be establishing things like community land trusts or colts. A CLT is essentially a nonprofit organization that owns and manages land

for the benefit of a community. The CLT can acquire land and then lease it to developers or residents who agree to use the land for affordable house which allows them to retain control of the land and ensure there's been used for their good rather than being solo off the private developers for the sake of profit. In a situation under a CLT where a homeowner wants to sell wants to move, they can only sell the building that they occupy. They can't sell the land itself because the

community land Trust retains control of the land. The Community land Trust also retains the right of first refusal to purchase the buildings, which basically means before you can try and sell the building to anyone else, you have to give the Community land Trust, the community itself an opportunity to buy the building back, and that would enable them to also make sure that people aren't coming into just profit off of such affordable holes in and they're also

doing it so that the house in stay is affordable, so they can ensure that they can resell the building to somebody who's also seeking that, you know, affordable housing. And by providing that sort of house in, community land trusts can stabilize communities and prevent displacement in the long term. They can help to revitalize distress neighborhoods, and they can also invest into things like community facilities like pools, and

laundromats and gyms and that sort of thing. In terms of how you actually create a colt, laws of course vary from place to place, but essentially you form a nonprofit organization, obtain tax exam status, acquire the land either through purchase or donation, and then begin developing affordable house or community facilities on the land. In addition to that, a community an trust would need to guidelines in place for leasing the land home owners and to maintain the

affordability of the land over time. And of course, community an trust requires a system of governance and decision making to engage in that sort of ongoing effort of involving the residents themselves and ensuring that they are educated, and how comuntland trusts work, and how this model could be expanded to other communities. For the start, abolition such a

thing requires significant resources. Another approach to community controlled housing that also takes some resources is through limited equity housing cooperatives. So in this model, residents own and manage the house development. Each have a same decision making process to run democratically. They each have a share in the cooperative, which gives

them the right to occupy a unit in development. The share price, however, is set at a fixed rate, which means the unit can only be sold back to the cooperative at the same price, which again helps to make sure that the housing remains affordable in the long term. So, unlike with the community land trust where you own the building but you don't own the land, in an LHC or limited equity housing cooperative, you don't own the building or the land, You own a share and the cooperative

owns the property itself. You're also required, of course, to contribute a down payment and to pay monthly fees, which helps to maintain and manage the property. You know, it's difficult to organize things, as anyone with some experience organizing can tell you, and something as high investment as housing is no different, right. It's a challenge. It's a challenge in fundraising, it's a challenge in organizing people. It's a challenge and insurance that such efforts are defended and able

to establish themselves in the long term. But it's still a promising model I believe for survival because of its priority on community ownership and control. It really relieves that one major stress in a lot of people's lives in terms of affordable housing. Of course, the long term ors and should be decommodified entirely, but that is the future.

The survival program is for the heir now. Another aspect of this fiber program that even talks about is food autonomy, the establishments of black community controlled food systems to establish self sufficiency, to control the production, distribution of foods, and should basic needs to met to ensure that Black communities are no longer at the mouseea of food deserts and

other systemic barriers to accessing healthy, affordable food. By creating trucking networks and warehouses and community farms, farmers cooperatives, food cooperatives, agricultural unions, and other collective associations, black communities can ensure that healthy and essential foods are readily available. Rather than just treating the symptom, such institutions would treat the root cause of food and security, which is a lack of

control over our food chains and food networks. So, for example, a trucking network would be used to transport food from communal farms to warehouses which could serve as clecterly owned distribution centers for the food in a sort of a library economy set in the waite houses can also save us storage facilities for other non perishable food items, to bank seeds to distribute those seeds and other items and tools to community gardens and food cooperatives, and such community

gardens could be established on vacant lots, on rooftops and unused spaces within the city, particularly in areas where access to fresh produce is limited, and all these efforts would involve members of the community who would be responsible for each step in the process and ensuring that such things

are accessible equatively. Food cooperatives within communities could for example, be organized through sort of a share structure where each household or each individual has a share in the cooperative that entitles them to sit down to food each week. Or you could have in a sort of a library structure that a lot of different ways that you can organize it. You could even have as well. Agricultural unions provide support and training and education unsustainable farming practices, access to tools

and equipment, financial systems for farmers in need. All these efforts would establish the foundation necessary for food or autonomy under this sort of survival program that Eve has developed, and as I mentioned in the previous episode, even also talks about under the survival programs, developing autonomous education, ensuring the community has control over every aspect of the educational system, from the curriculum, textbooks, to the hiring and training of teachers, administrators,

And as I spoke about in the previous episode, you know, the same way the reactionary is fighting advocate for control of educations, the same way that we can do the same. It won't be as easy, but we have to counter their efforts because they've already been countering hours the minimal gains we've made, and for example, ensuring that an accurate account of history is told in schools is already being

fought against, so we need to go even further. Community controlled schools would not only reflect community values, culture and history. Not only would they be designed to meet the specific needs of the children within them. Not only do they provide us safe and a nutrient environment, encourage creativity, critical thinking, and problem solving skills, but they would also provide a space, an additional space for the development of people's powers and

drives and consciousness towards liberation at any age. I mean, in addition to primary and secondary education, Woven also talks about free higher education programs, remedial training programs, reading programs, trade programs, all these things to help develop people's skills and education knowledge that would helped equip them to address social, political,

and economic issues. If it also calls for a system of community based self defense to defend ourselves against various forms of violence, including police brutality, heat crimes, and vigilanty attacks, without relying on government or law enforcement agencies to defend or set else, they had several components to this. Of course, you'll involved organizing and mobilizing community members to participate in self defense training programs. It would involve weapons training, It

would involve tactics for de escalation. It would involve a network that can coordate responses to incidents of violence, establishing community channels to quickly disseminate information, enabling restorative and transformative justice practices to be included to keep the state out

of resolving the conflicts between people in communities. And then, of course, unlike a lot of these law enforcement systems and structures, a community based self defense program or system would also be involved in the prevention of such incidents

of violence and harm and conflict from recurrent. It will be involved in continuously evaluating interchange in circumstances, to analyze in the patterns of violence and gaps that are taking place in training or in resources, and to continuously refine tactics and strategies and approaches to see to the long term healing of the communities and the interruption of cycles

of violence and generational trauma in the long term. Another component of these survival programs would involve medical training, large scale medical training programs in black communities providing individuals with the knowledge and skills needed to understand and address health issues. Black communities, especially those from low income backgrounds in the US, often face significant barriers to access in quality healthcare. It's

due to systemic racism and oppression. So it's due to inaccessibility and an affordability of healthcare just generally, and also the quality and resources af felable within certain communities specifically, and also the ways that health outcomes are worse if you are black. Black mothers are, or rather the black maternal death rate is one particularly heavy example of these

sorts of disparities. And so that's why we need community based medical clinics and training programs and workshops and seminars led by black medical professionals, public health experts, public health experts, and community organizers who are versed in the social sernants of health and impacts of systemic racism and health outcomes, and invested in seeing that changed. Such a program would involve medical including dental training, empower individuals to provide basic

health care services and support their communities. You would involve trading in first aid. You involve healthcare screenings, health education, because underrepresentation in health matters, lack of education in one's own personal health matters, and two people losing their lives as a result of that racial blind spot and as a result of that inequality, and so survival program in

the here and now needs to account for that. Even also calls for the release of black political prisoners as part of a broader abolitionist struggle rooted in the recognition that the criminal justice system in the US has been used as a tool for political repression against black people and the martialized communities. You're speaking here from experience, of course,

he wrote this when he was in prison. Mass and conceration of black people has been deliberate and systemic effort to silence and dissent, to silence dissent and maintain the

statusco of white supremacy and white supremacist capitalism. Here and now, survival programs should be involved in the release of black political prisoners, especially to investigate and review the cases of those who have been unjustly imprisoned, to address the use of cost confessions, falsified evidence, and other forms of prosecutorial misconduct there has led to wrongful convictions that has led to people rotten away in jail cells for decades with

no sort of justice. I mean, these people are often so of the most committed and dedicated revolutionaries and their

continued imprisonment has been a craving justice. Some of them unfortunately passed before they're even released if they have released a tool and by demanding their release, by fighting for their freedom, by writing to them and supporting them even now, by showing our solidarity with those who have sacrificed so much in the struggle for liberation and ensuring that their voices are heard, not only can we aid in their survival, but we can also aid in our own. Lastly, even

calls for the ever contentious big payback reparations. You have then challenges us to build a mass movement in our communities to compel the government and the rich to provide the means for our community is redevelopment at the centuries of slavery and of abuse, and of robbery and of discrimination, demanding those reparations in the form of community development funds to be placed in credit unions, cooperatives and not the mutual aid institutions in the black community, so we can

start to obtaining some measure of economic self sufficiency. But of course from the question of who pays, to how we force them to pay, to how we determine how much they pay, how that pay is distributed or implemented, if the pay is even in cash. You know, there's a lot of tensions surrounding that topic and pro reparation. It's not just for Black America, with the entire diaspora. I mean, I've seen the US made sure to get reparations for itself and its allies after World War Two.

The victims of various atrustees have received reparations for the injustices. But as soon as Black people demand their do demand their do everybody, you know, they want us to forget about it. But yeah, everybody knows, and I think part of that is because everybody knows that they can't actually afford it. You know, if we were paid exactly what we would do, they would not have the wealth that they have. And so my stance has always been I don't think reparations will come by ballot. I don't want

it to come by ballot. I don't want to receive some check in the mail it says, okay, now be happy, get over it, but let me not get myself in any more trouble. Even at that, I don't think it will come by a ballot.

applied beyond the black community. But there's a reason that the black community specifically was Urban's focus, because of his life experience, because of the need to address black communities specifically in uh in an anarchist text, something that was really lacking prior to the resurgence of you know, the black radical tradition, the black anarchist specific tradition in the seventies.

So it's necessary. But I just hope, you know, people who are listening who on that black didn't just you know, click off, that I still hear that these ideas and stuff, these programs are applicable more broadly. I hope that I can see and contribute to these changes in my lifetime, and as I consistently borrow from Ashanti Alston, another black anarchist figure who I actually hope at some point we could bring on or power to all the people.

to be nice and sort of polished for youse. But I did want to update everyone because I think that what's happening it has a sense of urgency to it, and certainly like some of the mutual aid requests have a real sense of urgency to them, and folks who follow me on Twitter dot com and ll have noticed that, like in between the ship posts, I've been down at the US Mexico border for most of the tail end of last week and the start of this week, sort

of depicting what's going on there, along with my friend Joe Joe Ariyama's who's a freelancer who we're going to be working with on the scripted series. And people can find Joe at Joe or Ori e photo on Twitter. Joe's got some really good photos if you want to

see kind of what's going on. But the longer than the short of it is that title forty two ended on well to begin with, exactly the moment that it ended was a subject of some contention, right, we knew it was going to end on the eleventh of May. Title thirty two, if folks don't remember, is a emergency public health measure. It's part of the United States Public Health Law, the United States Code Public Health something something then allows border patrol to expel people from the United

States without giving them their due process, their asylum here. Basically, they bounce them straight back to Mexico, right, And this has been in place since March of twenty twenty. We now know that the Trump administration pressured the CDC, So in theory it was it came through the CDC, right the Center for Disease Control under pressure from Drug administration, direct pressure from Pence, and Stephen Miller was yeah.

that plays into this Fox use narrative. There is a very concerted plan to make people suffer more than is necessary at our border, and it would have been very easy to avoid this. So title forty two basically, there are no consequences for crossing, but it's also very hard to get asylum. The CBP officer can like spontaneously decide

to give you your rights. Basically, if you're like, come on, bro, I'm going to get killed if I go home, then that person can decide to allow you to be processed for asylum, which is what a lot of the Ukrainian folks got surprise, surprise.

is actually happened in Libya too. It's the Italian government paying the Libyan and sort of Sudanese parabilitaries a ship ton of money to like keep refugees like basically like trap to something, to enslave them in camps, to cute them from like getting to Italy to try to request asylum. So yeah, so this is a yeah, like Fredecks does this like this, This is sort of like a global.

and are trained by our CBP people. CBP agents were deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan. Yeah, this is a global thing. Yeah, And like where I guess where I am now, where I've been for a while, is the place where that all began, right, and where we continue to see CBP innovating new and exciting ways to fucking take some of the most desperate people in the world and make them suffer and spend a shit ton of money and preventing them from accessing their legal right to asylum or detaining

them while they do it. And so what has happened is so Title forty two was supposed to end on the eleventh of May, right, that was when the federal COVID emergency ended, So there was no reason for it to exist anymore. There wasn't a reason for it to exist to begin with.

be out there. We'll see what goes down. They announced the day before that it is dropping on midnight on the eleventh, So they're going to ring every minute knit out of it. And so in the days before, a number of migrants have told me that they understood that they basically had to get across before the end of Title forty two, because it was their understanding that if they crossed under Title eight they would be ejected, and they wouldn't be allowed to return for five years and

they would face felony charges. So they did this. I don't quite know often these this information spreads about like WhatsApp in camps, right, or sort of like like a game of Telephone in camps. So I don't quite know where this information came from, but it closely parallels something that majorcus Is, a Secretary of Home lanun Security, said in press conference where he mischaracterized international immigration law. And

he's done this multiple times. Right, He himself, someone who is a migrant to this country who apparently family left Cuba when he was one year old, has just some of the most dogshit statements on the record, and I've depicted some of those in the scripted episode. Folks up my piece I wrote for NBC a couple of years ago about the Biden administration's policy towards Haiti if they they want to see more of the dogshit stuff that

he and Biden have said. And so in the days before the end of Title forty two, a lot of folks started to try to cross right because of this information that they had. They ended up at least where I am, which is in southern California, right, the sort of extreme southwestern border in the United States, literally the end of the wall. Folks were crossing like around the end of the wall right at low tide and turning themselves into border patrol asking to make their case for

their right to asylum. And I think sometimes when we think about migrants, you know, we made me think about people from South America or Central America, every single continent, maybe not any like Australasians, but like just in it. In a day at one camp, I spoke to someone from Angola. I spoke to someone from Congo. I spoke to someone from Sudan. I spoke to a Kurdish guy. I spoke to people certainly from all over South America, Russians,

Tagik people, Jamaican people, and like. For instance, just to give you a sense of like how global it is, I spoke to a Jamaican lady who was caring for a sixteen or seventeen year old pair of Tagiq siblings who didn't speak any of the relevant languages for communication with border patroller with other people in the camp, so she would use her phone to call their mother, who spoke some English, give information to the mother who would

translate it. Back to these two young children, and all of these people had presented like there were a lot of Afghan people too. Probably should have mentioned that up top, But these are the people who we fucking abandoned once and now we're trapping, trapping them in between little fences.

And it's hot in the day, right like I slept out in the desert last night and it was above one Hundred's not that hot in San Diego, but in her Cumber where they're also holding people, it's absolutely getting into triple digits every day, and it's cold at night, and it's a really inhospitable environment for people. So folks were held there, you know, up to a week in some cases, and are now I think being processed by a border patrol. There was a ruling by a Florida judge.

I'm not exactly clear on when because I was down at the border and my phone didn't work very well, but at some point right before Title forty two drop that they could have been released on humanitarian parole, which means in theory they have to be released with a court date, right with a court date to appear for their asylum hearing, which will slow down the process of releasing them, right, And so I've heard of court dates.

I've heard of folks being released already kind of with court dates in twenty twenty seven, which this whole thing has just been like a disaster in terms of the federal response, right like, and in just the cruelest possible way.

Cedro port of entry, really, but we don't know. There's no clear I don't know how many people they're processing every day, right, But these people who do come in now have to have a hearing date before they can

be released. When if they get through, So I spoke to a young man and his son who I'd spoken to at the border, and he had been released into the United States where a charity in San Diego will provide him with two nights, what like two nights of accommodation, right, and then it can't quite work out what then, like he's out on his own, you know, Like I guess we'll find out tonight. But he has to find a sponsor.

I don't quite understand how he was released without a sponsor, but it seems like the system is kind of bungling things up, and these folks have to fund their own flights to wherever it is. A sponsor is right, so they have family or community, they're having to work out how to get to that family and community, so be there the greyhound or a plane or a train. So it all in all a giant classifuck with very human consequences.

Like I can't stress enough how like every possible demographic is represented, old people, little tiny children, right, Like I was talking to a little Afga and girl, not really talking to we don't share any languages, but I was more just like making funny faces for a while and sort of pointing at things.

from where I live. And I can't even give this kid like hot meal because I can't fit it through the bars of the fence. Like everything that goes across to these people has to go through the bars of the fence. Right, someone worked out that pizza, pizza could fit through because flat right, people have been getting pizza. But other than that, they're getting you know, bottles of water, granola bars, you know things that fit through a fence,

beef jerky. And they've been there for days in some cases. And that's a camp that's relatively accessible, right, I can pull off the interstate, drive down a dirt road and be there in like I say, twenty minutes. The camps are less accessible. We've heard the conditions are much worse. A couple of Jamaican guys told me that there was another camp that we we tried to get access to it, weren't able to get access to that was further west from where we were, where people were hungry. They're getting

this is all just from that source. I have reached out a border patrol, but as of today, they haven't got back to me, saying that they were getting a bottle of water and a granola bar every day, and that like some of these other folks had taken it upon themselves to like walk over there to try and get them food, right, people who already not in the great situation themselves, and they kept asking why couldn't we

go there, Why couldn't we help them? Like it was very admirable right to see folks who are in a pretty bad way be like, hey, these people need help more than we do. So, yeah, that's a situation. I think we should take a break for advertising then sorry, I ye, yeah, hopefully not for a drone or some shit. All right, we're back, and this is another happy and exciting episode in which I tell you things that will

brighten your day. So something I wanted to talk about because I think it's important is the mutual aid response to this, and it's been really really impressive, you know, I live in a place where the Democrats are absolute dog shit. Well we'll do It's America, right, but like just the particularly cringe like cast real liberalism of San Diego Democrats is like as always on display.

The groups like American Friends Service Committee, which is a great organization which has really good stuff on the boarder, have been down there every single day, right, Like there have been days when I've left at one am there's still someone there. They've been giving people water, giving people food. A huge need that people have is to charge their phones. And the way that migrants interact with CBP, at least in theory, the way you get an asylum appointment is

booking it through an app called CBP one. We've talked about this on the podcast before, but CBP one is terrible. It is a terrible app that doesn't work. And that's for people who have phones and Wi Fi. Right, if you are stuck in between two fences and a dusty piece of ground, how the hell are you supposed to charge your phone? You don't have Wi Fi, right, you may not have a data plan that works in that area.

So a huge unmet need was charging charging phone. So we were able to get some donations from the team and buy a big charger. Other folks turned up with charges. Even all the news orgs I see to include, like like Fox National weren't there, which is a good thing, but like we could talk about that actually as well. My goods will specifically ask which news network you're with,

which I think is that. I think that's good. I think it's good they tell Fox News to fuck off, because, yeah, someone who participates in your dehumanization doesn't also deserve to

make money from your trauma. And so every news network that was there, right or the called folks from San Diego were just constantly shuttling back and forth to their bands, charging phones constantly, constantly, constantly, and it became a bit of a cluster because obviously there's literally just hundreds of people in this small area, dozens of hands reaching to a defense, Charge my phone? Can I have my phone back?

Charge my phone? And in the English and Spanish and French and command Gye and Vietnamese and all these other languages, right, So it was very hard to organize that. So folks came down, Folks from San Diego, from different sort of mutual aid groups came down and they organized the system. Right. They got Painter's tape, the names of the people on the back of the phone. We had this huge ash battery that we were able to get and that they were able to charge people's phones, get them their phones

back to them. And that is a crucial thing, right in that scenario. Not only is it your only way to communicate with border patrol, it's your only way to communicate with your family.

further south. And so the phones are super important. Other mutual ad groups have been getting blankets, right, And I saw an Afghan family turn up and had they had crayons for the Afghan kids who were there, right, and like coloring books and things for children to do, because it's probably boring being a kid, and it's probably scary being a kid, where like every day men with guns and camouflage gear turn up and they speak a language you don't understand, and then you don't know what they say,

and then you stay there.

places up and down the border. Right they're starting to clear them out now, So sort of Tuesday Monday, So some people got there a week ago, I think, and so they've been staying there for a long time. And yeah, like it's no point does there seem to have been any consideration for even giving people shade or shelter or like, Yeah,

the very basics, and like I should reinforce it. In twenty eighteen, when Trump blocked a large group of migrants from entering the United States, the government of Mexico did considerably better than this. It was by no means a good situation for those children at all, but they did better than this. Which it's aventally extremely low bar to clear, but we have failed to clear it completely as a country. And that's kind of to our eternal shame, I think.

a fucking issue about numbers. Like every single one of those numbers is a person who has people they love and things that they've done and choices that they've made that got them there, and every single one of them is someone who deserves compassion and empathy. And it's not just another you know, like a number in an Excel chart,

which is how it's treated. And yeah, it has always been this way This is a very recent innovation, and it's I mean we've talked about this before as well, but right, this is the proving ground for state surveillance, state violence, fascism, all these things. Right, the reason that you got surveilled by a drone if you went to a George Floyd protest in Minneapolis is because the Border Patrol already had one. The reason that cops listened into your phone if you went to some protest in twenty

twenty is because of border patrol technology. Right, they have these sting ray towers all up and down the border. Robert and I have seen him in Mexico, sorry, in Texas even.

rooted in like American family planning bullshit. But like, yeah, like that that's also another one of the places where like that stuff was tested.

marginized people are very often at the border. But yeah, if you if you're worried about the government intercepting your communications with an abortion care provider, that has happened because at some point they've been allowed to do stuff to migrants that was equally bad, if not worse, And and like this will hurt you even if you are like Kathy the liberal in Minnesota, like when we let the state have these powers, they don't just use them benevolently,

and that they weren't using them benevolently in the first place. Read like they say innocent people who've done nothing wrong.

make a very meaningful difference to someone's whole experience. Right, Like myself and Joe were down there when this this guy had lost his phone, and like, you know, it wasn't that expensive to buy this guy a phone. Other like people will remember Mandy and people will remember Alex, who are two guests I've had on different San Diego episodes that they've both been down there. I know Alex gave his EpiPen to someone who needed an epipenn, like

we acutely needed an EpiPen. Like things like that, you can maybe save someone's life, maybe just make someone's day a little bit less shit. You know, maybe you can let a kid kick a football and you'd have to deflate the football to get it through the defense early, but like, you know, you can give a doll to a little kid so they can play with it or something. Do somethink that will for a moment take them out of the utterly miserable place that we force them into.

And if folks want to support that, I know I'd posted Mandy's cash app and Venmo and I think some people very generously did contribute, which is great. If you're not at the border, look at Border Kindness, which is a group out of San Diego who I know are doing aid runs to Cucumber. I think the Houcumber Hotel Hukumba for those not familiar, Jacu Mba the Hookumber Hotel was housing folks and providing it there a huge amount

of water and shelter to people this morning. People can look at the American French Service Committee that I wrote about, and I know that Joe and myself have shared some Amazon wish lists that people have and that kind of thing. But it's it's a massive task, but it's not one

that's like insurmountable. The amount of people I've seen show up to include like and you know, I'm not a religious person and I'm not a person who particularly cares for organized religion either, but it does make me happy when I see like old church ladies in high heels with perms coming out and like giving water to children, charging phones and seeing I think it's like, certainly I've lived on the border for fifteen years. It's been a

fundamentally radicalizing experience for me. Like I think you're supposed to grow old and grow out of your anarchist politics

or whatever. But I don't know how anyone could live here and think that like police state good it's and I think anybody who can get down here should it's good for you too, Like and I always think about how oscoor why child has this thing about like how seeing people living on the streets like not only undermind stare humanity, but also his humanity, because like seeing someone else suffering should make us feel bad, and so like he benefits when he helps someone, and like you know,

we're all lifted up, right, Like I I guess one of the things I struggle with most of the journalist is that like that like feeling of living in comfort while other people can't, especially when it's such like it's one thing if I if I go somewhere, right, if I'm in Myanmar and I'm aware that things are difficult and scary, and then I get on a plane and

it takes two days when I come back. But just from like a personal like mental health perspective, seeing a little child sleep in the dirt, right, or someone asking me for fucking bin back so they can keep their baby out of the rain like a trash back, or a kid without shoes, you know, and then going home to my relatively comfortable existence is really hard. And I think we should all have to face up to that because it's what it's what our government is responsible for.

And supposed we've got the best sucking option in twenty twenty, right, this is the this is this is the good choice of the two. But it doesn't make any meaningful difference whether you choose Trump or Biden to these people, right, because the best treat them like ship.

see that this is right. And they did see that this ship was wrong in the Trump administration, and they do see this is wrong when they come right, Like I've some of the best mutual aid groups I've worked with are like middle aged folks from churches who have time and the means to help and just didn't realize that it was like no one was coming and we had to do it ourselves. And when they did that, they were very effective. And so I would encourage folks

who are in border communities near the border. Near the border means a different thing of your border patrol because their jurisdiction applies one hundred miles.

are around there. So yeah, it's it's pretty bleak. We're working on some scripted stuff, but I want to get into a bit of the history of border patrol and rereading Border Patrol Nation, which is a great book if people haven't read it, and I want The other thing I should say about border reporting is if people don't center migrants and they're reporting about migration, then you shouldn't be reading that reporting. Like sometimes it can be hard.

One other thing I guess I do want to say is you're seeing my photos and you're seeing Joe's photos, You're not going to see many faces. And that's because people have legitimate fears for their wellbeing. That's why they are fucking here. Yeah, and not obtaining consent before taking photographs is making a terrible situation worse, And like that's something that we can work on as a media, right, like something I will continue to call out when I see it. But if you don't speak the language, find

someone who does it. Don't take the goddamn photo. You'll see some face in the mind. Like I like to pass my camera through the fence and give it to like teenage kids so they can run around and take photos and have fun. And like so when they take like goofy selfies, I'll post those. They get concerned from them or their parents, and the parents are around it,

and that's fine. But yeah, when you're looking at border coverage, always understand that these are people and if we don't center those people and their stories, then we're doing it wrong.

there and help organize, that's better. If you have skills, right, if you have language skills yours, like there are people I met a guy who spoke Commanji, like the Kurdish dialect of North and East Syria, right, people who speak Vietnamese almost every language you can conceive of.

have been worse for them. And you know, sometimes the ambulance can come in and take people out. But there are valuable, meaningful things that you could do if you have the time, if not, if you have the money, there are really important places to donate, and there's just a couple of them. Will highlight a couple more as we go forward. And one more thing I did want to plug is miles for migrants where if you have if you don't have money, but you do have airline miles.

Like I was speaking to this guy today who got across. He has two days and he has to get himself in New York where he has family. I don't have the means to buy four airline tickets or it would, but if you have air miles and you want to donate them, you can.

be there physically would be appalled by it. And I think if you can convey to those folks that now at the time when something that costs them nothing materially, Yeah, right, Like I know tons of people have more miles that they can use because they fly at the time for work. You don't want to fly. When you're done flying, you want to stay at home. So that's another way that people can help. And yeah, just I guess it's a crisis that will continue unabated because the cruelty is the

point and it's for once. Like you know, we can't stop all the climate change and all this bad shit, but this is something that it is within our power to a bet, can't We can't make it go away yet. But like we spoke to the people who are doing border drops on the border, there are meaningful things that every single one of us can do to help.

actually being said in the conversation. So when my voice pops in and I read a line, it's me reading something that he said that got kind of distorted. I do apologize. Ah, welcome to it could happen here. A podcast about things falling apart and occasionally about the quest to build a better world. Today, we've got an episode that is in the latter category about the struggle to make the United Kingdom less I don't know, in the thrall of a monarchy and an aristocratic class, and to

build a more equitable society. And our guest today is somebody who is attempting to through that cause and did so last year by attempting to huck several eggs at the current King of England, Charles the I forget the number, Patrick, Well, how are you doing today? Hi?

You can see right after it hit there's goop on the ground directly in front of his foot, and his shoulders slump a little and he looks down, and I wonder if it made him feel bad. I hope it did, you know. I can't get inside the man's head. Maybe he's not capable of that, but I wonder.

on protests. Some people will argue, and I think this seems, based on what I've read, pretty credible that it basically makes it possible for the police to arrest anyone for

almost any kind of activism. And that kind of was was exhibited during the coronation when a group of kind of of anti monarchist protesters who are more on the liberal side of things, and you're kind of approaching this as an anarchist, but a fairly large group of protesters with signs that were saying stuff like not my king,

attempted to rally doing so. I believe their their goal, from what I can tell, was to comply with the law as they understood it, and that did not protect them from the police.

That obviously came to nothing, and they passed the bill anyway, and then and then so the Public Order Bill just goes that step further by allowing them to preemptively arrest anyone who might be about to do something that's loud or annoying, and including this new thing called a serious Disruption Prevention Order, which is something that they can apply to someone who's considered an aggravated activist.

but for literally, you know, no pretext. It was they had they had like twelve thousand pounds worth of signs in a van and they were they were all wrapped up in yeah, just like rope rope, and the pretext for the arrest was that the rope was a lock on device that could be used to you know, I don't know, like jump in front of the procession and tie yourself with rope to the road.

specifically condemning that behavior, but I'm just stating this. This was not the state cracking down on people because they were afraid of a riot. This was the state cracking down on people because they didn't want the display of any kind of descent to exist.

that there is no acceptable form of descent. Now, the very concept is so distasteful to Yeah, our aristocracy that it's banned.

all over my social media. I got sent it by multiple friends, by a family member because the state decided to go after these people, And I do think I think it's also from just a standpoint when you're talking about a struggle with as long odds as kind of struggling against the monarchy in the United Kingdom, which is you are talking about like the most entrenched power structure outside of the Vatican, right, Basically, Yeah, when you're talking about that, it is so important to be able to

look at moments like this and see the upside on them rather than just rather than just kind of feel the boot all the time. Otherwise you're not going to have the endurance to keep fighting.

to carry eggs in public. Yeah, I know. And so that is in itself like so absurd that it's like, right.

from the shops and you've got the receipt. And I think that was a more viral than me actually doing it, you know what I mean, Like people were like, you know, that's that's that's Britain for you.

there was partly, yes, getting lucky with the judge. Partly I think they were in a really difficult position and this is what I wanted to put them in essentially, which is that following all of that the money, you know, in the lead up to the coronation, there was a lot of negative press around around the king and the monarchy, and they had a choice between either sending me to prison and looking extremely authoritarian and blowing out proportion, or letting me get away with it. And you know, I

think they chose to minimize the negative press. You know, I mean, obviously, supposedly there's an independent judiciary and there would have been no conversations with the palace and the police about the charging procedures.

I'm just going to be there. Deal with it, you know, And basically he told me that the counter Terrorism Department had was seeking an injunction from the courts to stop me attending, but then the court had ruled that no, I was allowed to attend. I'd already been given my punishment and he wasn't going to put any further conditions on me, not be allowing allowed to go.

from you know, like two hundred meters away. And I was like, oh, okay, they're gonna arrest me now. So yeah, I gave my phone and well it's to my brother and then smile. And then within seconds, within seconds, they were just dragging me out, like you know, in handcuffs from the center of a of a crowd of about, you know, twenty thousand people, and I honestly couldn't have looked like more like overtly fascist if they tried, and and that was kind of the point, really is.

opposing the overreach by the police. This is a problem in more places than the United Kingdom, but y'all are kind of on one of the cutting edges of sort of global attempts by law enforcement and its supporters in the state to effectively make dissent impossible ahead of what everyone knows is going to be kind of a heightening period of climate based activism.

of protests that we were doing. And also it was essentially quite naive to believe that, yeah, oh, you know, if we cause enough disruption, they're just going to put aside all of the you know, lobbying interests and their literal role in upholding capitalism to just go, oh, no, okay, fair enough that they're blocked and roads, we are going to like radically transform society to deal with climate breakdown.

But the way to you know, work around that is to build a democratic mandate through holding people's assemblies, creating forums where people can create their own vision, and then direct action can then be used in service of those aims rather than putting the cart before the horse, if that makes sense.

You know, we're we're we're always talking about an uphill battle here, and I think kind of the inherent difficulty of fixing any of these bigger problems, particularly fixing the and what we mean is dismantling the systems that are causing climate destruction, like that is such a lopsided battle that I think whenever, whenever you have you present an option to people, because it sounds hard, there's this there's this tendency to just be like, well, you know, we

have to go by the thing that we know, which is just kind of like trying to vote in better people. If we can take a lesson out of the last thirty years, it's that the standard electoral methods cannot provide the solution to climate change, like they simply aren't going to do it. And I think the police in a lot of kind I mean in the United States right here in one of my old hometown's, Austin, Texas, they just voted on a police accountability bill that the police

have basically said we're not going to abide by. Like this is and you can find stories like that all over the United States and other parts of the world, Like the kind of the hope that you can just sort of like put in your however long it takes you to do voting in your country or city or whatever, and that that's the method forward. It's it seems more realistic because it's more familiar. But I think the vision you're putting forward, not to say that it's as simple

that simple, but like it's effortful. And I think that whenever someone's positing something like that that requires that kind of like effort from a large enough segment of the population, I see that as inherently more realistic than hoping that we can just all kind of keep putting our twenty minutes of voting a year towards solving the problem and expect it to get better.

whatever once a week. Then people say, well that's not going to be accessible, you know, because so it's like, well, you're right, we'll probably have to set up a system of mutual aid that supports you know, working class people to be able to attend those kind of events.

And you're like, I say, building dual power rather than attacking the system head on, because in a battle, in a pitch street battle in this country, at least between us and the police, we're going to lose. And I think that, you know, we need to think smarter because at this point they haven't yet made organizing public meetings illegal, but you know they probably will at some point.

organizations and so much. Sometimes at heart just depresses me to think about how many people are working for environmental charities or whatever, where all of their work and their research is going towards creating policy proposals for politicians to ignore.

It's like if you were putting that amount of energy and your enthusiasm in service of the vision that's been created democratically by the people, then we don't need to petition anyone to make the changes we need because we'll have organized effectively enough to do the things that will really challenge state power, for example, like a mass rent strike and a general strike.

system of the state. Well, then suddenly you're not looking at a recommendation a white paper that's going to wind up on some bloodless bureaucrats desk, or that that's going to wind up getting cut to pieces in Parliament. You have something that has teeth behind it, right, the kind of force that might be able to make change. I don't know. Again, when you talk about this kind of stuff, you have to contrast it with what we've been trying so far, which is nothing.

cannot see a better way. Yeah, and you know there was a there's someone from just Stop Oil who just got three years in prison for blocking a motorway and and that's that's insane, you know, and you know on some level that person is it is a martyr, and you've got to hold your take your hat off, and say what that has done is shine a spotlight again on state authority in a way that you know, if they have these laws on the books, but they never have to use them, then it's easy to forget that

they exist and have that power.

the conditions that they that they operate in.