The Black Cat Named Sabotage: Spooky Week #2

good to be back with Spooky Week. All right, So this episode, I believe Chris has something very special prepared for us. Yes, so this just today we we are talking about one of the the most immediately recognizable and enduring embols of Halloween and one of the things that I've had to spend the most time cropping out of

party invitations when I was sending them to kids. Oh no, we're talking talking other other iconic Yeah, well this is the one, like like specifically, I just spent a lot of time cropping this out of I fucking like party invitations people, because if like you're you're in, you're in your like fucking shitty Christian suburb. And if you send a kid home with an invitation that has a that has a black cat on it, uh, their parents will pull them out of public school because of the like

the rising threat of Satanism. Better to stick to the tried and true, you know, like put the Uni bomber on it or something. Yeah, you got you gotta lots of nice stars. Put some crosses on it instead, but like a cornucopia. Make sure it's like called like a harvest festival or some bullshit. Yeah, oh yeah, harvest festival. Yeah, come to my fucking pentagram potty or your party sack.

So yeah, we're talking about the black cat um And ironically, the black cats association with witchcraft is actually this is the Catholic Church's fault, as are many things. Only bad thing they've ever done. They even created Protestantism. It's a it's a real issue, so true. So okay, So Pope Pope Gregory the ninth May Cats eternally feast on his soul. It took took office of the Pope in twelve and six years later and in It's in in twelve thirty three,

he issues his first papal bull. This is This bull is called vox in Rama and Fox and Rama is essentially like it's a giant anti witchcraft bull that is designed to like what do you mean by bull like people? People? Bulls are these like orders basically that are like declared by the Pope and they turn into sort of like they have this sort of legal status that they're there they determined what sort of church doctor in church positions, because it's it's basically like it's like it's like it's

like an executive order for the pope. Okay, all right, and they could just do this and so they do this a lot, and yeah, this this is the sort of anti witchcraft one because he's trying to rally support for like stamping out a bunch of heretics in Germany for the crime of like not believing in Catholic doctrine and giving all their money to the pope. So this bull like directly links cats to Satanic rituals. There's this

whole thing about like half cat like half people. This is what we are back to iconic Transgirl, Halloween invertry, false circled. There are no new moral panics. This is a fucking furry panic and like twelve thirty three. It's

it's amazing, it's cat girls kill God. Yeah. Unfortunately the product of this is that you know, like that this this, this, this space, here's it's off to the races, right, black hats have become associated with witchcraft and then sort of in general with bad luck, and you get this whole sort of like you know, crossing a black cat like bringing bad luck, and this is really sort of devastating

real world effect on cats. Like m hmm yeah, like I mean like like throughout your like from this point on, like periodically they're just mass killings of cats in Europe because like these people are fucking barbarians and savages who like should never have been allowed to like leave their

stone huts. Um. When I was getting a while ago, when I was getting some childhood cats, we were talking to the cat agency and we learned that they don't allow people to adopt to black cats during October because people either buy them as props and then like to get rid of them or just like abuse them. Um, it's it sucks. It's like an actual problem. And are we going to get to the Great cat massacre? No?

What is the Great cat Massacre? It sounds like that sounds like a sequel to that, to that mouse Sherlock Holmes movie that Disney made, the extremely dark version. Yeah. The Great Cat Maskers a book by Robert Johnson. It's

like a it's a very click. If you're doing a history graduate degree and you're reading like these sort of histories of everyday life or like histories of popular laughter, you will read The Great Cat Massacre and he details how like basically in France, I can't remember when, but these printers apprentices were like the apprentices lived with the printer right, and the prince's wife also had a bunch of cats, which he cared for much better than the apprentices.

So they got mad and started doing cat murders. They put the cats on trial and convicted them of witchcraft. Wait wait, this was like judicial murder. Yes, yeah, they sent it to cats to death by I think they hung them or something. Oh my god, did the cats

have like a defense attorney? Like what you're you're supposed to have an a kid at a witch cat trial, so one would hope, but unfortunately, my guest though, is if you're probably gonna get another cat, which is like not a great defense attorney no, they don't get a single fuck. I don't know they could. They could really funk up your face or something if they just you know, when close out. I don't know if the cats had a defense turned. It's an excellent question if someone's read

it more recently than me. This is this is reminding me of that that great poster someone took about Vets Office that was like fighting cats. It's like, don't fight fair use drugs one. Yeah, yes, but you know, okay, my piece of advice to you is don't fight fair. Yeah during these drokes. Yeah, it's great, it's it's good. It's it's good general advice. And put him in your

Halloween sweets. Yeah yeah, foreshadowing. Yeah. So, according to a study from the Journal Animals, black cats have the highest rate of Usian Houston, Asia and shelters and have lower rates of adoption, like have the lowest rate of adoption among all fur colors, which is like extremely fucked up. And it's also like the number of cats that we euthanize every year is just so bleak, it's very sad. Yeah. So that funk the Catholic Church. This is their fault somehow, However,

Comma for millions of people across space and time. The black cat has met something else entirely. This black cat, with its fur raised and back arched, is the bringer of the class war, the herald of the new world, and its name is sabotage. And okay, song about it. Yeah, and before before before we get into how the Sabo tabby or the Sabo kitty became associated with sabotage, we

have to talk about what sabotage actually is. And the reason we have to do this is because sabotage like does not mean the same thing now as it did

when the term was coined. So if you look at sort of the modern definition of sabotage, it's it's almost entirely focused about sort of the physical destruction of property, like here's here's maryam Webster's definition, for example, destruction of employers property such as tools or materials, or the hindering of manufacturing by discontented workers, to destruction or obstructive action carried on by a civilian or enemy agent to hinder

in nation's war efforts. And okay, so part of part of the reason why sabbog why everyone thinks about sabotage is sort of like a physical act of destruction. Has to do with the sort of folk etymology of you know where the word sabotage came from, which is supposedly dates back to these like early French workers throwing these wooden shoes called sabots it's like machines to break them. And the problem is that this sort of just isn't true.

Um Like, there there's no direct evidence that anyone sabotaged machines by throwing your shoes into them, which seems like kind of a kind of inefficient way to grab a stick, right, like you you need your shoes to walk on. And the everthing is that people who put cats on trial, they weren't always thinking in straight lines. That's true that well, at least this is the eighteen hundreds, so hopefully, hopefully

we're slightly past the cat trials. But what's interesting about this is do you ever think about this, Okay, like sabotage, it's a French word, right that the French shoot the word for the shoe is sabot Like, it doesn't start up until like the late eighteen hundreds. It literally just means someone who like it means to make a wooden shoe okay, but it turns out it's actually it's actual Orisin is more interesting. This um. The term sabotage, as you know, like the sort of like worker action, was

invented by the French anarchist of Meal Pigot. I don't it's po u g. I don't know how to pronounce. That doesn't matter, pochet I, I don't know. Sure, Okay, okay, I lightly it's fine. I feel slightly bad because he's one of the few good frenchmen him and sent him and Fuco the only philology. So Pago is like he's a this guy is extremely French. Yeah, but he also he is he is in the he's in the period of French cool, which is to say he is um.

He he he is an he's an anarchist, he is a cynicalist, he is all of the ship UM and he like he invents the term sabotage is part of this report to the c g T s I eight seventy nine conference in some cities name I can't remember. So the c GT is is a really weird unions. It means c g T means like the General Confederation

of Labor of Workers. Basically, UM actually It's really funny because because because of how similar like French, Spanish and Portuguese are, there were like sixteen thousand unions across like twelve countries that are named the CGT. It's it's, it's it's they're all either the CGT or the u g C because they're all just like confeder something. Yeah, So the French CGT is like a very very weird union.

They're they're they're like they're the only union I've ever seen that has at various points been an anarchist union, of communist union, a liberal union, and a democratic union. And it also like the thing they're famous for sort of now is the fact that they sat out like

every revolution that's ever happened in France. Like they're they're they're probably most famous for like telling people to like basically signing a pact with the government and trying to get people like to go back to work when sixty eight was happening, and you know, and the usically about like the c g T. The CTC is still around today. They have like seven hundred thousand members or something like that, the second largest union in France, and I don't know,

it's interesting. So they'll go on strike for like pension stuff, but they won't go on strike to like abolish the class system and sort of how I put it. But in the late age hundred, early in eighteen hundreds they are a very very radical cynicalast union. And Emil Pigou, who again like like anarchist par excellence, is like their vice secretary, so to go, like invents the investor. Sabotage is a way of translating basically the Scottish term that

I okay, I apologize for my Scottish pronunciation. I don't I genuinely don't really have any problems with Scottish people. I think the term is go Connie basically, which means go slow. Um sures to go. From his pamphlet sabotage, that's um like his explanation of like what's going on here that the first part of it seem quoting British pamphlet. That's about what dogatti is. If you want to buy a hat worth two dollars, you must pay two dollars. If you want to spend only a dollar fifty, you

must be satisfied with an inferior quality. A hat is a commodity if you want to buy a dozen of why is it a dozen of shirts? Okay, I don't know. People wrote weird in the early night entwids. If you want to buy half a dozen shirts at fifty cents each, you must pay three dollars. If you only spend two dollars and fifty cents, you can only have five shirts. Now, the boss declares that labor and skill are nothing but commodities like hats and shirts. Very well, we answer, We'll

take you at your word. If labor and skill are commodities, their owners have the right to sell them. Like the hat seller sells hats and the habitasher sells shirts, these merchants must give a certain value in exchange for an equivalent value. For a lower price, you will have an article of either lower quality or smaller quantity. Give the worker of fair, fair wage, and he will furnish you

with his best labor at its highest skill. On the other hand, give the work an insufficient wage, and you forfeit the right to demand the best and most of his labor anymore of when you can demand a two dollar half for one dollar. The gokhani consists then and

systematically applying the formula bad wages, bad labor. So yeah, but basically what this is like, it's it's Gokani is like it's it's it's a kind of strike where it's it's kind of like it's kind of like a slowdown or there's another kind of striker's name I forgetting right now where it's like you you you you like exactly follow the rules, work to rule. Yeah, yeah, that's it's

it's kind of like a work to rule stricker. It's basically like, okay, so you're not being paid enough, so you just intentionally work really shittily and just keep working slowly and badly until boss is paying you more. And so this has been a big thing in in Britain and Togo like sees this and he writes basically like a paper like recommending that the CGT starts using this

as a tactic. But sure, he's trying to find a French word for it, and he's like, I don't know how to translate this, and so what he thinks of there's this sort of like well, okay, so here's where it gets messy because it's like there's like a couple of versions of the story. One version of it is like work as if you're being like hit with a wooden shoe. So I wake up every morning and turn on my podcasting Mike and a clog just flies in

through my windows. That's why Sophie us to move, yeah together, there's there's these there's these slinger shots to set up outside of my windows that launched these clogs right at

my face every more hilariously hilariously. We are going to come back to sling shots in So there's this thing in France, like so people people with wooden shoes basically generally are like peasants right there, people from burrel areas, And there's this whole sort of stereotype in France that like in this period and like the like there's like these people with their wooden shoes and they're like peasants and they're like ignorant and they're bad at working and

like and so basically what Pago is the other thing that the other theory of what's happening. Here's he's doing. He's like reversing this thing, right, He's like, well, okay, here's this, here's this like stereotype like workers working badly, and he's like, okay, no, what what if we did this on purpose, Like what if we were intentionally just lazy?

And it's important to note that, like and Pago does this, and it's writing that like so she invents the word sabotage, but like he sure it's hell didn't invent the content of sabotage. Here here, here's from the pamphlet Sabotage again. Sabotage the former revolt is as old as human exploitation, since the day man had the criminal ability to profit by another man's labor, Since that very same day, the exploited, the exploited toiler has instinctively tried to give his master

lesson what was demanded from him. In this way, the worker was unconsciously doing sabotage, demonstrating in an indirect way the irrepressible antagonism that raised capital and labor against one another. Okay, I'm I have to I have to do a call out post on poor poor, get poor gy whatever. Um, that was very sexist, he said, every man. That's true. That's not. Women should also be forced to work, um

non bid. The people should be forced to work, um eight hours a day, hopefully more so the fact that he's just making men work is a little sexist garrison doing a Hillary Clinton there, doing a Glen green Wall there. That's right enough to see it. Ah, weirdly, weirdly in terms of in terms of canceling a Frenchman for a French dude for sexism, like pretty mild. I gonna lie at least problematic frenchman, don't. He probably did do something horrible.

I just didn't see it when I was reading about it. But you know, such as such as the the guy he invents sabotage. Um, so okay, so we have sabotage as like you know, and this is an interesting about this, right when when when Pigot was first like defining the word right, like he literally is just talking about like labor slowdowns, right, and you know, very quickly sabotage comes to mean other things, and he's yeah, so so here

here's again from this same Pamply. He's quoting the secretary of a railway union who's like on strike for the right to unionize. And this this is what the railway union secretary guys says, with two cents worth of a certain ingredient younion utilized in a peculiar way, he declared it will be easy for the railwayman to put the locomotive and such conditions as to make it impossible to run them, which fucking absolutely absolutely based eighteen seventies French

road Union secretary. Ah, it's great stuff. It's actually funny because like she's she's just like out there, just like saying this, and like every modern union has like a giant disclaimer in their things, saying like we do not endorse the destruction of machines. Like yeah, the fucking based French guys like no, no, no, no no, Like we we are actively threatening you to destroy like every locomotive in France if you do not let us form this union.

This is why, this is why my organizing with the I Heart Union is solely based on us planning future terrorist attacks. If we don't get our way, the Hollywood sign will never never be the same again. I've already pulled sugar into the I guess time of my podcast recorded, correct, that's gonna work out for it. Unfortunately, the gas tank of the podcast is like my stomach, So we're kind of it's it's it's just as a fact of it is actually pouring sugar into things. Yeah, so I'm hiding

under your bed with a funnel right now. Some sugar. On the other hand, Garrison, do you know what else will put locomotives in such a condition that will make it impossible for them to run? Uh? The is this an ad break? This dynamite the products and services that support this podcast? There, Yeah, the fucking the rail companies are making the trains not be able to work. The trains are too long. They are too long. Okay, dynamite.

The answer is dynamite, and we're back. Okay. So from from here, the definition of sabotage starts to sort of expand um very rapidly. Here the I w w in n about what sabotage is. I'm so curious sabotages is. Sabotage is a destruction of profits to gain a definite revolutionary economic end. It has many forms. It may mean damaging the raw materials is that destined for a scab factory or a shop. It may mean spoiling. It may

mean the spoiling of a finished product. It may mean the displacement of parts of machinery or the disarrangement of a whole machine, where that machine is the one upon which other machines are dependent. From material. It may mean working slow, it may mean poor work. It may mean missending packages, giving overweight to consumers, pointing out defects and goods, using the best material where the employer desires of alteration,

and also the telling of trade secrets. In fact, it has as many variations as there are lines of work. This is this is so fascinating because sabotage definitely now is way more associated with like earth for like the left tactics, and this is like very labor focus. Like sabotage is done by the people who are working at the factory or place of production on the products that

they're working on. It's it's that that is extremely fascinating. Yeah, And I think there's another thing too, right, because like

there is the sort of physical aspect of it. But again, like this was created as like like as a term of sort of like like anarchy, like specifically like syndical political struggle, right, Yeah, and as that term like it's a lot of what they're talking about when people think about sabotage is just like strikes and like labor slowdowns, and that that part of the connotation of sabotage has just like completely faded and get into sort of like

how that happens. It's and it's so based on addressing actual material changes as opposed to like a lot of sabotage. Now is almost like performative like even like even like the left type stuff. It does. It does get a thing done, like yes, this thing did burn down, but they're gonna build another one. It's it's all. It's obviously it's four kind of like spectacles built into what the

actual goal is. And for this kind of stuff, it's actually it's about like it's more like improving labor conditions. It's based only and like there's a lot of this that is this that is specifically designed not to be like very noticeable, Like I mean there's there's a very

common thing. You get strikes like in the US even even like sort of like conservative truck restrikes will do this thing where like okay, so the truckers will go on strike and then they'll hang like basically like hang like fragments of metal and shipped from like the top of overpasses so that if you drive another truck under it or like funk up the top of the truck.

And that's like that's kind of stuff. Isn't like it's not designed specifically, not designed to be public, right, It's designed to be something that like, okay, like it's it's, it's, it's, it's it's it's about like directly materially hurting the bosses. Yeah, over like a long period of time, not just like ones like single action you do it and you run away and hope and hope never be caught. It's like, no, it's gonna work slowly for two years and it costs

my boss like thousands of dollars in process. I mean there there's some there's something like okay, so I I guess about it here. So I've been I've been doing some episodes. Next week are going to be about Lula, who's like the sort of like great uh like originally labor leader and turns sort of like am I blanking on the name of a friend of the people of Haiti. Yeah, we're gonna get to that. That's what he turned into. That's nothing else. Yeah, yeah, but he he's a former

president Brazil, maybe be the next president of Brazil. Also, you know, he has this interesting sort of like she heals a much of labor organizing under the military ottatorship, and he has this really interesting lot because during the military Kadership and Brasil, there's a bunch of these sort of like like underground leftist paramilitary groups and like like his brother gets like arrested by the military and tortured horribly, and he has this really interesting line about that talking

about these contestine groups, which is like, Okay, like I like, if you guys had like talked to like the two thousand people who work in this factory instead of doing this completely contestantly and not even telling your own family that you're a communist, Like maybe if you talk to people like they couldn't have grabbed you off the street and just like arrest like it's like disappeared you overnight because there would have been people there and and that

and that's that's the thing, Like that all of this stuff, like this kind of sabotage relies on like you and like everyone else around you also doing the thing, and that makes it harder to crack down on because you just you, you know, you sort you have critical mass and yeah, and and and that's something I think is is very different from sort of modern sabotage, which is yeah, based on these sort of like either either like Okay, we're doing this and we're gonna get arrested or it's

like here is like a secret cell in like the woods in Oregon, and no none other people, other people in this group will ever see each other again after they like spike this tree, I wonder if it has its roots and like, um, I don't know when these like some of people in front existed. But like in Britain we have the Luddites and around a similar time, who has sometimes seen as one of the original trade unions,

right who would break break boilers in the Industrial Revolution. Yeah, yeah, Britain still incidentally makes it a capital crime to destroy

a boiler or like a break. Well, it's a way of break because what the like the ned Blood is just like fictional leader of the Luddites, right, like this giant general who's supposed to come and they were like, oh it was ned Blood, mate, I don't think about it what you're talking about, like they made it a capital trying to try but to try and break up specifically that right to what like Chris is talking about, like like it's obviously like personifying the forces of labor

as as a giant general is not something that continued throughout space some time. But that solidarity where where like someone in the factory fucked up the boiler, everyone in the factory has something to gain from sucking up the boiler. So as long as we don't tell anyone, the boiler

stays sucked up. Yeah, and interesting, like good actually like specifically writes about what he's writing about the stuff the stuff in the nineteen third like the late thirties, but like he specifically writes about like the thing that that that kind of labor struggle in Britain is like one of the thing is one of the sort of like forbearers, yeah, yeah, thing on them. Yeah. But so this stuff is sort of like yeah, a lot a lot of this stuff

is people. Is people in the age like the eight nineties and like hunters like looking back on those groups. And Okay, so I want to sort of pivot a little bit, which is because so we've mentioned the IWW um and the i ww are the people who are basically like responsible for associating sabotage with the black cat and it's sort of unclear how this happens. Um, here's how the modern IWW talks about and SHEW thousand eleven it which is like the sort of like sabotage cat picture.

It was probably conceived by IWW member Ralph Chaplin, most famous for penning the IWW labor anthem Solidarity Forever, who produced many of the IWW's early silent agitator graphics, which themselves had close association with hobo signs described elsewhere in this gallery. If I culture, we can cut that part. Although today the cat has a general association with the IWW, sometimes even as its mascot, its original purpose was as a code or symbol for direct action at the point

of production, specifically sabotage. Indeed, the cat may have been may even have been chosen due to the convenient word place sabo tabby, possibly even a direct inspiration from mel Blanc's characterization of bugs bunny. Often bugs bunnies often mispronounced sabotage sabotage so really should be as like sabotage icon so I was described in the section on sabotage. It must be emphasize that the latter did not mean destruction of machinery or equipment, although I I really think that's

partially like that. The modern IWW being like, hey, don't sue us, like this, And this is the thing with the old i WW is like you'll you'll get you'll get like statements from i w W leaders who are like, uh we I we We're not the guy. We don't like our our strikers aren't the people who break machines. There's another group of people who are like here also, but who are not us? Who are not us? Who are door do who are destroying things? I never do

crimes great stuff, Only my identical twin Harrison does. Cry. Yeah, it's amazing how many symbols of industrial labor come from the wobblies, Like the raised fist also comes from the IWW, right,

Like it's incredible this global impact. Yeah, well, I mean like and I think there's a there's a reason for this, which is that like, okay, if if you're if you're a capitalist in the early nine Dred like this cat is the spookiest ship you've ever seen, like like it is terrifying, Like they are like groups of wobblies will like, right, you step off a boat and people and like the like sheriffs would just immediately start shooting them, like it

is to this day. I think I think that WW is the only leftist group in the history of the u S outside of Puerto Rico that has ever taken in American city, which they did in the UH It was a very small town on the border, but they actually actually took American cities like during the Mexican Revolution

um and that mountain maybe United mind. Well they didn't actually like that's the thing though, they didn't actually like fully like dri drive out like okay, yeah, yeah, like like they like the ww like actually fully like took over towns and was like whoere the fucking running this dout?

But you know, but what this thing that starts happening here is you get like like people are really desperate, like that there's still there's a bunch of houses, Like there's a bunch of like old mansions from this period in like late aighte hundreds, early nine hundreds, like in Chicago that are are all built in online in one street.

And the reason they were all built that way was because they wanted to be on on the roads, on the road to the nearest military base so that when the revolution come they came, they could run and hide.

Like this is how scared peace people are, and the like bosses start offering workers things as a compromise that like most people today like think our socialism like they have, Like you start getting companies that have like into that have their own workers councils in them, like like here here is here is the workers council will give the workers council budgetrol over how the shot flaw works, like

please don't overthrow us. Like Rockefeller like develops the idea of putting workers on corporate boards, like specifically as a way of trying to buy off workers and stopping them from like sabotaging their way to revolution and just like

stealing all Rockefeller's property for the working class. And you know, we've been talking about about a lot about this and sort of like the American context and like sort of the French and English context, but you know, partially because the ademology, partially because of like who's involved with like the specific black cat think, but like syndicalism, which is the sort of like this ideology of using democratic unions doing a general strike to like seize control the means

of production any in the class system. This is fucking everywhere.

This is these these people spread like wildfire, like I think, I think probably the most famous cynicals other than the IWW are the CNT in Spain, but like you know, the the Italian in in in nineteen nineteen seventeen nineteen nineteen, like cyn Nicolas and Italy like very nearly pull off a revolution during the period that becomes known as the Benni a Rosso or like the two Red Years, they wind up being betrayed by the Italian Socialists and that's

how we get Bussolini but shocked. Yeah, who who who could have guessed? But you know, there there are enormous cynicalist unions like everywhere that there's there's this huge cynicals unions in both Brazil and Argentina and sort of bizarrely, both Brazil and Argentina both have these sort of like general strike anarchist revolutions in both nineteen seventeen and nineteen nineteen. Yeah, it's wild, Like the cynicals are everywhere. There's there's like

their cynicalist like tin workers in Brazil. There in Venezuela, there's an AWW section. In South Africa there's like cynicalas and Egypt. They're in Japan like it from from this period from like the late eighteen hundreds through really even the earlier so the early nineteen twenties, Like these people are a pretty significant section of the entire international labor and socialist movements, and every word syndicalism goes this black

cat goes with them. Now, unfortunately, as as the vateing Hunters were on that, this the influence of syndicalism begins to wane as a combination of both intense post World War One repression and you know, as as reaction sort of like red scary reactions to uh, the Russian Revolution, and also the sort of rise of like Lenin as communist parties who have their own doctrines that don't like rely on sabotage in the sort of theoretical sense that

cyn nicolism does. And this this has like this, this, this, this has a bunch of sort of malign effects on what people think sabotage is. Unfortunately, but do you know what else degraded the use of sabotages of political and ideological weapon. It's it's it's the advertising industrial. Yeah it was not the boys and we are back. But wait, there's still more sabotage because unfortunately, you know, as as the sort of like the cyneclest movement is declining, and

like every single one of these people is getting shot. Uh, there was waiting in the wings. Another type of sabotage that we've talked about a lot on this show. And yeah, this is ecological sabotage, which I'm okay. I also see people calling it eco taj and like, I'm sorry, I I love you, I love you all forest defenders. That is a dogshit word like eco tag, Like come on, like this is this is not this is not actually

a good word. We could do better. Um. It's also called monkey wrenching after the the work of ecological activists in veterate racist Edward Abbey, that's right and sexist. Don't don't let him off the hook. Oh yeah yeah yeah, old white dude Edward Abbey. Yeah he's he's a very like this is a very like Pacific Northwest kind of guy who that's true. Yeah yeah, it's like a guy who's white really likes forest, does not like brown people. He loves the fucking desert like yeah, yeah, desert boomers

loves some med with Abbey. They pay it. I was in Moab recently and like the amount of people selling like first editions of Edward Abbey books without like entire like first edition to like Earth first gathering posters and stuff like thousands someone who's on an off road safari. Oh nice, Yeah, that's copy the most maybe a first edition. Actually, do you do you want to tell the crowd what this book is about? That gang? Yeah? Oh, it's a group of people who have some fun times as people

who travel around. They play with some trains, um and some diggers. They play with diggers. Yes, yes, they were they were diggers. Yeah, I don't know. He was just having fun times. Also, this is something that I did not know for a while. But Edward Abbey also wrote one of the adaptations of Lolita to play on stage. Oh shout, I forgot about that. Yeah, I just un problematic guy doing fascinating stuff. He disubs trees. Yeah, well, okay,

so he's the one genuinely unproblematic thing. He wrote this. You are another book called Eco Well, okay, so he's

involved in the writing of this. There's a lot of there's a lot of people have tributed to this, but he's involved in the writing of a book called Eco Defensive Field Guide to Monkey Wrenching, which is this like unbelievably intricate and detailed guy to doing everything from like tree spike power lines to breaking ranching equipment to sabotaging vehicles and aircraft, of freeing animals from traps, to defeating surveillance, the sinking ships to a section that is called only

quote fun with sling shots. Even in Lucky Wrench Gang he goes into great detail about how to start a caterpillar like bulldozer, like like a lot of it was like how to do terrorism, but like in a novel, I like it's fantastic. Yeah, well, it's like that. There's a whole genre of like of post World War two French films that are this with prison breaks where it's like as a bunch of people hold people who have been in concentration camps and like had broken out of them,

are making these movies that are like just really intricate. Okay, okay, this is how you make a lock pick, like this is this is how you figure out guards like shift changes, like this is how you like take out these boards. It's great stuff and it's it's one of one of the better kinds of things and eco defense, Like it's not the most banned book I've ever seen in a

world that goes to yeah, it's it's not okay. So, on the one hand, like the FBI is in a weird position because they can't like technically ban it, be because the US has this thing called the First Amendment that like hand sometimes winning court. Here's here's the the Ego Defense Handbook was not written by Edward Abbey. It was written by David Foreman. Okay, Uh, there was a foreword in the book written by Edward Abbey. Okay, that that's the pros he wasn't. I think I think he

was involved with the publication with it. Like he's somewhat like David Foreman and Edward Abbey were friends. They were they were Abby Abby Abby. Abbey is less involved with this insofar as he like Foremen. Like the FBI tries to like entrap him for writing this book, like like all most of the people who like actually sections to this. Yeah,

like all these people like people start. The FBI tries to arrest him on other stuff because unfortunately this book doesn't violate traffic law, so they can't arrescue for it. And okay, I do buy it on ab Yeah, yeah, it's from the Anarchists Library for free. Yeah, don't buy it, Jeffrey Bezos your money. Yeah, so it turned on a VPN used tour and go to the Anarchists Library. It's it's in this category of books that are like like okay, when when would you have your norble band books list?

They don't include. There just two kinds of books they include. One is they don't include book where it's like, well, they didn't technically ban the book, but they tried to arrest everyone who wrote it. And then two they don't include our Fredo Bonano's arm Joy, a book for which she was arrested, thrown in prison, and kept through well the Italian government, on orders from the Supreme Court, like took every copy they could find, lit it on fire

and giant bonfires. The other thing with that you could have hand sam book even if they did not arrest

the owners. I've talked with a lot of green anarchists from who who were active during the Green Scare, and they definitely arrested people just for having having like like if like if you had it, that was evidence that you were a terrorist, Like it was something that like you don't talk about, you don't put your fingerprints on it um because having this book could get you in trouble, like you don't like it's it's, it's it's there's there's multiple ways to ban a book, one of them being

if you have it, they're gonna try to charge you

with like terrorism enhancement, stuffy case pretext. So yeah, fun book, yeah, and so, and like I think yeah calling it like I think with so, I think a lot of the stuff that people were doing that I called monkey wrenching or sort of like ecological savage was just just called eco terrorism today because people have just well there's like a whole loop of this, right, because there's there's there's there's the fbig, the green, scary growing like, all of

this is terrorism. We're going to use the fucking entire like giant like military appric actually built up to like go after a bunch of people setting free animals. But then but then like like at some point and this

is this is I think thing. It's very interesting in the last sort of like five ten years, like people who weren't really involved with the original stuff decided that eco terrorism was cool, and now every one on Twitter just talks about eco terrorism all the time, which is like they talk about an interesting term, Well they don't this the thing those people don't do it, and it's like come on, like but on the other hand, there are a lot of people like we should maybe caveat

for our British listeners that you absolutely can be prosecuted for having that book, and multiple people have been prosecuted in the last two years. And the Anarchist Cookbook. I mean you could still be oh yeah, it's like they can they can't possess. Yeah, even if you're an American you can still get They've still gotten people for having

the book. Like it's it's it's that's that's that's the interesting thing about how the cenership works, right, is it like like you are allowed to be a capitalist and sell it, but you're not You're not allowed to buy it because a terrorist. Yeah, wonderful stuff. Yeah, in Britain, you can't even things like the Anarchist Cookbook, Like people have been prosecuted people and anyone should be prosecuted for the Anchist clickbook because because it's dogshit, anyone's pretty bad. Yeah.

I've always wanted to do like a deep dive into the history of all the ship that's been blamed on that book, and yeah, all the people have. And it's funny too because it's not like the Army literally doesn't publish fucking Field manually, but you could just buy it a store that like has all the same ship Like yeah, but you know, terrorism is when we do it and not when they do it. That's right. So I want to talk about so like this whole thing is is a product of like this, like you know, this is

what sabotag turns into. Right, And there's you know, and so some of the people stuff that like is being done here isn't really that destructive. Like a lot of people like you know, like people people like sitting in trees. Right, there's a lot of stuff that sort of like civil

disobedience that is like you know, including this stuff. But then there's also like but you know, but but like stuff like spiking trees is where you I think you and it's basically destroying construction equipment is where stuff you start you start to get this sort of like modern understanding of sabotaloge is like a thing that like an activist does to like a piece of machinery. But you know, like that there's a lot of things people do, like

people sabotage like whaling ships. But then also I want to sort of close the episode with this is that like there's a lot of people in a lot of other places in the world who do, like who do a lot of stuff for ecological defense that doesn't get put under this framework, where for example, there are groups like the Nitrow Delta Avengers who are like, Okay, fuck it, if the if the Nigerian government is just going to execute ecological activists, We're gonna pick up guns, we're gonna

blow up pipelight pipelines, and we're gonna start shooting. And you know there there's ground in between, like the sort of like we're gonna do sabotage and we're going to like do arms struggle like an Ecuador for example, one of the responses you see to sort of like a tax in indigenous land by capitalist developers in indigenous groups being just like funcket, we're doing an uprising and then tens of thousands of people like spend three weeks fighting

and fighting cops in the street until they stop. And you also see stuff that's like it's kind of like because so what one of the other specifically in France they do this all the fucking time. I like one one of the older sort of like workers like sabotage tactics is just like you kidnapped your manager and love like people do this like now in France, Like it's

just like, okay, you're the manager. You can't leave until you greet it or demand like, but like when people will do this in ecological settings, will like a government sending a government minister to like negotiate something that would be there'll be like a my manager around and people will just be like, okay, like we're kidnapping you, like we'll let you go when you stop doing this, and

that's good good stuff. Yeah, And I think and I think like and these tactics also sort of spread, like for example, in Chile, if you look at like if you look at their sort of like milit and ecological struggles, especially like indigenous the Puchaer resistance, like that is a place that like more than anywhere else have ever seen love setting construction equipment on fire, like they really they

really like lighting bacos on fire. It's it's it's good stuff. Um. But you have having sort of said all of this, like the fact that sabotage is synonymous was sort of like property destruction is I, like, I genuinely think like a triumph of of corporate propaganda because the original meeting of it, right, and the original politics behind it, which which is this like very explicit class politics of like fuck it, Like if we are not going to get the actual like products of our own labor, we are

either not going to work we are going to take it from you, or were you going to make sure that you also don't get the products of our labor? Like that's so's just sort of gone and that's that's that's very sad to be because it's it's it's a good politics and we need more of it. And yeah, all of this sort of is to say that workers have no reason to fear the black cat, but boss's owners and capitalists live in fear. Your time will come,

happy Halloween Happy? How is the cut fences? Somehow I didn't somehow I never mentioned bolt cutters in here, which is sort of wild. Oh yeah, actually so some some something I learned on a job once is that like, okay, so, so like bart razor wire is really scary stuff like it has like it has like anti clouding agents in it that like I've like on the wire, but I've

gotten pasted a lot of raising wi. Yeah, well but I mean the thing the thing about this, right is it like you could just cut, Like it's actually really easy to just cut, like the chains on the chain link. So many people, many people have very strong like you can just sort of do this and like this and this is this is useful for a lot of things, like for example, you have to break down sections, offences and fences in your lawn. Like, yeah you can. You

can do lots of fun things with boat cutters. Keep the kids, oh tin snaps, keep the kids off your lawn. Yeah, it could happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. Or more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It could Happen here, updated monthly at cool zone Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.