Ep 335 Cynthia Peters on All of US and Trump

In late fall of 2024 , she started working with other conveners to put together a searchable database of grassroots organizations so that people mobilized by the current political situation will have an easy way to find an organization to connect with . It's called the All of Us Directory .

Cynthia is a serious student of Aikido , partly because it's a beautiful martial art and partly because it helps her think about effective ways to respond to the attacks of capitalism , white supremacy and the heteropatriarchy .

I should acknowledge I have known and been close friends with Cynthia for a long , long time , and I was also one of , and am still a a convener of the All of Us Directory . So first , cynthia , what is this directory idea that you and some others have been together pursuing ?

Thanks for having me on the show , and I think you were one of the first people that I talked to about the idea , because you know we have , like you said , we have a long friendship and a lot of it is grounded in political work , and you're one of the people that I talked to about what's happening in the world and what we should not going to admit that

we ice skate together . I still plan on getting you on the IKEDO mat by the way .

And I was part of the effort in Boston to turn people out into the streets , and we did . We had tens of thousands of people out . We had a people's inauguration , and it was January in Boston , and it was a uh , a really wonderful , amazing event .

Um , but it kind of left you with this sense which often happens after a mass mobilization what are people going to do now ? And we all showed up for this , you know . We all showed up on the Boston Common with the pink hats , you know , and that was a major , major protest . That was so crowded on the Boston Common you couldn't even move .

You got stuck in there and you could not get out . It was incredible . I've never seen anything like that , so incredible mobilizations . But this big question that we were all left with is you know , now , what are people going to do ?

And how can people find a way to connect with grassroots organizing so that they can put all this newly mobilized energy to work in a way that is connecting with others , where they're trying to solve problems on the ground , where they're trying to conceive of non-reformist reforms or to fight for reforms in a way that furthers long-term change .

How to be with others in different contexts , where you might make mistakes , you might fall flat on your face . You practice getting up and starting over again , reflecting on what happened and trying something new .

You know all those muscles that we all need to be exercising all the time to really come up with strategies that will confront capitalism and white supremacy and the heteropatriarchy which is . You know there are no small enemies . You know we really need all of us super engaged and super collectivizing our wisdom and our problem solving abilities .

So the idea was why don't we come up with a directory ? You know , and of course I feel like I tried to do my due diligence . You know well , does a directory already exist like this ? Maybe it's already there , why reinvent the wheel ?

But you , but I really couldn't find anything that was useful , that wasn't aged , that hadn't kind of aged out , and also I couldn't really find anything that was searchable in the way that I wanted it to be searchable , and then I also tried Googling it .

What if I was just random activist , say , in Boston or some other community , and I'm very moved by what's happening to immigrants right now . Let's say , what if I Google ? How do I get involved in this ? You know it's . You end up going down a lot of internet rabbit holes and a lot of them are very informed by AI .

Now you know , and AI kind of is the top thing in the top of your search list and it tells you here's how you get involved you can donate money to the ACLU , you can write a letter to your congressperson these kinds of activities that are good things to do , but they don't have that ingredient that I was looking for , which is the connection with others , the

experience of being in a collective of people that's trying to solve a problem , where you really get to use your mind along with other people's minds together and be in that process together . So , yeah , so we started talking about it with other people .

We pulled together a group of conveners and kind of started thinking about what this thing should look and feel like and we evolved .

Now , about six months later , where we have a really solid database We've got hundreds of organizations listed in there and we have a way for people to just go in there and search based on their location , the type of issue that they're interested in or the type of work they want to do .

So you might have people who say , well , you know , I'm interested in a lot of issues . You know , I could work on anything from climate change to immigrant justice to housing justice , but I have this one skill set that I really want to deploy . So I'm just going to search for who's looking for my skill set and you can search by that .

So it's kind of a great way for people to match up with an organization that could work for them .

We didn't want to publicize it to users until we felt sure that it was useful , because we don't want people to come to it and go . This isn't very useful . It doesn't have my community and it doesn't have very many organizations from my state or you know . So we wanted to make sure it was really fully fleshed out .

So we're still in the process of doing that , and I would say that the biggest challenges are not necessarily in order of priority , but they include a lot of organizations that are doing really good work , actually aren't equipped to take in new volunteers very readily .

They might be equipped to take in a couple , they might not be equipped to take in a major influx and so they have a hesitation about listing themselves in the directory because they wouldn't be able to absorb an influx . I think you know sometimes it's interesting . You know it goes to what's happening in our nonprofits and in our social justice organizations .

Are they really poised to do base building and to get larger and larger and larger , or are they more poised to kind of stay the same ? And you know it's kind of a criticism slash , not criticism of nonprofits .

I don't blame them because you know , I know they're working hard to raise the money to keep themselves going and to keep doing the mission that they've laid out for themselves .

But at the same time , in my experience with a lot of nonprofits is that they end up kind of getting to this point of stasis where you know they actually kind of can't keep growing and they have moved a little bit away from a base building mission .

So anyway , just to say I think organizations need help figuring out how to integrate large numbers of volunteers . And it's not nothing , you know nothing to bring in volunteers and give them something useful to do . That is not nothing . That is a large load of work .

You need to be able to engage people , you need to be able to use their skills , you need to be able to have a place for their voices . Sometimes people come into organizations pretty unskillfully . They come in kind of knowing it all or having an agenda and not being able to perceive what is the agenda of this place .

You know , how can I get to know what this is before I kind of start asserting myself . So all these challenges happen when you bring in a lot of volunteers , so it takes a lot of work and skill . So I think you know that's one of the challenges is finding organizations that truly would embrace new volunteers . Another challenge is security .

People are very , very concerned about being targeted as nonprofits by the Trump administration , losing their nonprofit status , not being able to accept tax-deductible donations anymore , and so they've stepped a little bit back or sideways from their mission to protect themselves . And they also feel nervous just having themselves listed somewhere on a database .

Even though they're already public-facing and their website is fully up and available for anybody to find , it still feels people have expressed nervousness about being listed on another database . So that's two . What am I forgetting ? Michael , you've been involved with this as well .

There's also , I guess , the extent to which it's a version of what you said People are preserving the present , their present , as compared to having it in mind to win change , to go forward , and that can be a mindset that exists even independent of Trump , et cetera , et cetera , whereas the repression thing , I think , is a function of you know what's going on ,

perhaps a bit too sensitive , of a response to that , because for one thing , it doesn't work . You know that is protecting yourself by doing what he wants or what the government wants . Doesn't ward off . Uh , you know a Trump is drift , it abets it , so it proves to be harmful , and that's that's been a little frustrating . I found it frustrating .

You have tremendous capacity for uh , what should we say , I don't know dealing with reality , so you manage it . I don't know what happens when you go home at night and start throwing things at the wall , but you manage it , at least in the visible .

Somebody's telling me they don't have the capacity to do something . I try to just hear that for what it is . I don't know everything happening in their life or in their organization . I do , you know , I'm famous for being stubborn and pushing back , and I do that a lot too , but I try to do it in a way that really expresses understanding .

I mean , I've had some groups say they can't join the directory because they're a 501c3 and they have to appear nonpartisan .

And you know , I've kind of become a student of this , you know , and actually , in fact , as in the 501c3 , the way you express nonpartisanship is you can't support a certain party and you can't support a certain candidate , but Trump is no longer a candidate , trump is an elected official , and we absolutely can and should be able to raise our voices against him

and what he's doing , but people like I said , they're just scared and they probably wouldn't be a good match for the directory . So then in that case we have to let that go .

And I think that's making it difficult . Now too , it seems to be almost everywhere , and the big demonstrations are undoing it a little bit there's a feeling that something large can happen . It's not that doing things with a small group is bad , it's just that not doing things that are large and increase our numbers is bad .

I mean , the most inspiring work I've ever done has been when I've been with other people and we've been able to experience solidarity together . And you know this has come for me in my life when I've done a lot of housing justice work .

We organize tenant associations , which is sort of like a union of tenants in a building , and they go from being completely alone with their individual problem with the landlord which they've all their lives have been instructed that the way you solve this problem is by individually trying to going to the landlord and basically your position is to beg , to beg and you

have no power and you're just appealing . You have no power and you're just appealing .

And to shift that to a position of power because you've organized yourselves into a union of other tenants and now the whole union of tenants is going to the landlord and saying we're not okay with this and to have that shift from individual to collective power is the most powerful , inspiring thing i've've ever been part of , and for me it's been on a kind of a

small scale , building by building , in this case apartment buildings in Boston . But what I see happen is , first of all the tenants discover the meaning of solidarity . It's something that we do not get to experience in our culture very often , so just giving people that experience of solidarity is life-changing .

Then what happens is all these other changes start to happen in the apartment building . Now they know each other , now they've been in struggle together , now they've done scary things together . At first people are scared to even come to a meeting . What if the landlord finds out I came to this meeting ?

Then they start getting into their power and they start becoming fighters . And then they also start doing things like oh , your kid goes to that school , so does mine . Let's share , you know , commuting to the school . Or let's do after school daycare together . Or , you know , let's just help each other out in various ways . So that starts to happen .

And then people also start to really develop their consciousness , like there was one woman leader at one of the buildings I was working at who allowed her the father of her child to come and live with her , even though he was not a good presence in the home . But he was at risk of being homeless and she didn't want her kid's dad to be on the street .

So she let him live there and he started dealing drugs out of the building and the other tenants were furious with her . I mean , she allowed a drug dealer into their home environment where their kids pass by every day and it's dangerous . And they were really furious with her and the landlord found out . And the landlord tried to evict her .

And you might say in this case , you know , he had good cause . I mean , she had broken the law and this was an endangerment to the whole community and so he wanted to evict her . But the tenants , really , you know , they got together , they had this big meeting which I was privileged to be at .

She explained her situation , she made a really authentic and genuine apology , she told her plan for how to not have him be around anymore . It was an incredibly genuine thing . People were crying , you know .

People turned , turned their attitude towards her a little bit and also she had been a leader of this tenant association , so they were also grateful to her for her leadership .

And you know , just all these pieces kind of came together and then , when the landlord came to say she has to be evicted , it's non-negotiable Every single person in that group said you'll have to come through me , you want to get rid of her , you're coming through me . And that landlord had to walk away with his tail between his legs .

I mean , he could not confront the power of organized tenants , even though he had a legal right to and even though all the things . So seeing that happen is what I want for everybody to see and experience over and over and over again , because then you start to be able to grow from that and you get to .

You get to this point where you feel like oh , you know , why should we have a society where the banks are running everything and the billionaires are controlling and why should we have a society where bosses , you know , get to tell me what to do all day and make me feel like shit all day ? You know why . Why should we have this ? And you can .

You've had the experience that a group of people can be powerful enough to , even though you don't have the law on your side . You don't have normal practice or cultural norms on your side , but all you have on your side is basically kind of a moral authority that this is wrong .

So I mean , that's what moves me about , about the directory is it gives us a chance to but before you get there , I don't need .

And yet these 50 guys go off and say , okay , we're going to bow down to Trump . The thing that shocks me is not that , it's that the 3000 don't do anything about it . They hate it , most of them . Right . Same thing at the university , when the Columbia trustees said , okay , we'll compromise with you , donald , you know why didn't the campus erupt ?

And I think it has to do with what you're describing . It's a habitual cultural pattern of functioning separately , um , and ? And you , you can't even sort of dream about it . It doesn't come up . It's not that it's rejected . The 3000 lawyers don't reject fighting together . It doesn't come up , it's just .

You know it's , it's foreign , and then it's overcome by what you described .

You know , how is it okay that all communities are getting gutted by these investment , these real estate investors , and they would be completely on board . But then sometimes you know they would go back to the old framework , which is but everybody has a right to make a profit and they can't help it . They spent 4 million on the building .

They got to make their mortgage payment and it's not their fault . They have a right to make money . This is America . So you would fall back onto the dominant narrative , which is that and our narrative has to work really hard to make itself heard , and not just heard once , but over and over and over again , so that people can grab hold of it .

I think what you're describing in nonprofits is really interesting . I think or not ? No , you're talking about law firms , but I think in nonprofits it's also true . I mean , in some of the large nonprofits right now they're rolling back a lot of their DEI work in one that I know about .

Everybody was recently told , even though they had been told a few years ago . Here's your new email signature . Make sure you put your pronouns in the email signature . And then there's a little link to what does it mean ?

That I'm sharing my pronouns and it's kind of this thing that some people may have mixed feelings about , but the idea of it is well , the idea is that , you know , people who are gender queer get to have visibility , and the whole gender binary is something that is being contested and that's a good thing , and an awareness about the breaking down of that binary

is a good thing . And so putting your pronouns in your email signature , I don't know it contributes to visibility . But now comes the directive oh , take those pronouns out of your email signature because we don't want to look like some kind of way to our funders and to the federal government . And everybody goes , oh , this is terrible , this is bad .

You know , we're , we're , we're bowing to authority , we're , we're obeying in advance , but we , you know , we just have to do it anyway . So then they just do it . But what , what's missing from so many contexts in our lives is an organizing model . Let's just call it that .

And the organizing model is what I was describing , you know , where people think of themselves as a collective , not as individuals , and I think that that's one of our biggest challenges as leftists is being aware of how much the narrative is controlled by the other side and how much work we have to do to get our language in there and our concepts in there .

You know , I've taught English as a second language in a number of different workplace environments and in the non-union hotel where I taught , you know , all the workers are called teammates and if they have a problem they're invited to come to HR and talk it through . Where's that going to get anybody , you know ?

And I mean , and even if you do get something that you go to HR to kind of ask for or beg for and say you actually get it . There's a cost , you know , and usually the cost is you get bought in to the , to the institution , more .

Maybe you get promoted to like a low level manager where now you enforce all these micro rules on workers , but maybe you make a little bit more money , but now you're an enforcer and you're that much farther away from any kind of class consciousness .

So that's how it works in a non-union hotel and in the union environments that I worked in , you would never go talk to HR by yourself . You would . You know you have a union steward at your side and you have the backing of the whole union with you .

And you have been , maybe , at the negotiating table with the employer , where you see yourself as people bargaining and fighting and using your power against each other to try to get the best possible deal for your side . And that's just a whole different mindset that I think we need to be finding more and more ways . I mean , obviously , the workplace .

We need to be doing that . You know , building unions , but also in our communities , having more tenant associations like the kind I was describing . There could be more kinds of associations for immigrants . There already are worker centers , but we need to keep looking for these ways that will help people have a solidarity model for how to fix a problem .

Trump won . Fascism is our future . I'm hunkering down , not because I'm not collective , but because that's the only thing left to do . And have you encountered that ? And when you do encounter it , do you have a way to get any place with it ? It's not easy .

And what I often think about is this something that happened to me and my partner , paul , a number of years ago , when we witnessed a shooting in our city , and what happened was is , when we got to the area where the shooting had happened , it turned out it was a police shooting . They had shot into a bus .

We didn't understand the whole situation at that time , but what we did see was that there was a bus , it was full of bullet holes and there was a young African American man in the back of an ambulance , which you could see through the window , and that the EMTs were doing CPR on this young man .

And also , the strange thing was that the ambulance wasn't moving . Now , obviously , if you're doing CPR on somebody , this is a life and death situation . The ambulance should be getting to the hospital as soon as possible . Why wasn't the ambulance moving ? It was surrounded by police cars .

And I can't even believe these words are coming out of my mouth , but I'm just having to say them . He said oh , I don't know whose car . That is okay . How hard would it be to find out whose car ? Why am I ?

I I'm , you know , coming up with more and more ideas like , okay , well , you know , we just simply could break the window and put it in neutral and roll the fucking thing away . You know , I mean , I don't know , but you know , there's a million solutions that we could do here . And pretty soon I have a circle of cops around me .

I'm basically yelling at them and they're treating me like a crazy lady . And Paul comes up to me and grabs me by the collar and just pulls me out of the circle and he says you're , you know , you're just going to get yourself arrested . Like , stop , you're going to get yourself arrested . I was like , well , we have to do something .

And he said , well , we can move this car . There was a civilian car that was parked , that was also part of the blockage , and he said what we can do is , if we get enough people , we can pick this car up and put it on the sidewalk and then the ambulance will be able to go . I didn't know you could pick up cars .

All you have to do is go one , two , three , lift and then , and then everybody scooch , scooch it over , and then we just put it down on the sidewalk .

The minute we got that car out of the way , the ambulance yeah so when I think about this story , I think about , first of all , just completely heartbroken that that that happened and then young man ended up dying . And I also just have to look at myself in that situation . I don't blame myself for going berserk and for being really angry , but what was I ?

I was privately yelling and shaking my fist at a wall , a wall of authority , with guns and uniforms , who didn't , who could , who did not have to listen to me at all , but the only thing I was doing was I was continuing , and then I was yelling louder and shaking my fist hard . I mean , it was not going anywhere and Paul had a complete you know .

So this is why I'm telling this story , because I feel like , you know , there's value in a lot of our minds .

There's value in all of us being able to think together about about things , and there's value in all of us being able to think together about things , and there's value in the sort of moral outrage that I was expressing , because maybe that's what kicked Paul into even thinking about we can pick up a car , you know .

I mean , there's a value in all of it , but we really we needed the 20 people to pick up the car and move it . And so what I want to say to people who are feeling really defeatist is okay , you're going to be witnessing this kind of thing .

And so what I want to say to people who are feeling really defeatist is okay , you're going to be witnessing this kind of thing . I mean , and let's face it , we already are . I mean , you know , trump is not introducing gangster capitalism and barbarism to our daily lives . These things already existed .

Immigrants have already been treated as if they have no rights . Mass incarcerations already . I mean , none of you know we've had decades and decades of horrible , illegal , unethical and horrible wars . I mean , you know , none of this is new . Trump has just taken it to a new level .

But do you really want to be in a position where you're seeing this happen , whether it's right in front of you , like what , like the story I just told , or whether it's a little couple notches more distant , and not do anything ?

Wouldn't it feel better to be connected with others where you're trying to think about , oh , maybe we can pick up the car and move it over , you know ? I think that . I think that that makes a big difference for our you know , in a selfish way , even our own mental health . Know this isn't about being selfless and altruistic .

You know this is about my community . I mean , I live in this community . Is this what police are doing to people in my community ? You know , including whether it's the housing or the police or the immigrant rights ?

You know I don't want to live in a world like this where I see these things happening and not being able to do anything about it , about I wish that approach would work all the time .

You do need a degree of what you obviously felt which is caring about the other person , not just yourself , and that really is a mindset that is it's not easy to generate . It's because it's been wiped out of us . It's not because it's not natural to us to care about others .

It's because you know we live in a world in which caring about others is a good way to not get ahead , and not caring about others is a good way to get ahead .

I think I told you about the time that my friend Andy and I were on the UAW picket line in I can't remember what the name of the community south of Boston here when there was big coordinated strikes of UAW picket line in . I can't remember what the name of the community south of Boston here when there was big coordinated strikes of UAW .

So we went down to this UAW picket line and we ended up having a great conversation with this guy who was an electrical worker , had been in the union and he was retired now but he was just out supporting the UAW and he was so great to talk to .

He was so political , he was still had such a sharp analysis of the billionaire class and what they were doing and how they were trying to undermine unions . And we had this great conversation and I said , well , let me inside .

I said to myself , let me take this a little further and see where he would go with this If I ask him you know what do you think this country needs ? You know what do you think we should do ? And you know what do you think this country needs . You know what do you think we should do ?

And you know , I was kind of waiting for him to say you know we need democratic socialism . Guess what he said ? Incredibly disappointing response . He said well , we ought to do something about the welfare queens . And we got to . You know , get these immigrants out of here . I'm sick and tired .

When I call , when I make a call and I go through the voice tree , you know it says press one if you want English and press two if you want Spanish . I'm tired of pressing one for English .

You know that's called punching down yeah and he goes oh , I know , I know , I know going to say you know they love to divide us and that's true , that's how they make us weaker . He even knew that much and still the narrative . You know , we can't underestimate the power of propaganda , honestly .

And then there were other tables that were all white and I said to people you know , we just finished in class talking about how this is a very effective means of maintaining order and keeping people down . And the guy said , yeah , I know , because he did know right . And I said well , then why aren't you over there ? And he said why are you over here ?

Which was pretty astute . He said would you want to sit over there ? And I shut up after that . But so the surrounding situation makes the behavior that is self-harmful , rational and it makes it in the short run , in some sense more rewarding , more fulfilling , as in don't get arrested , don't spend time in jail , don't you know ? Et cetera , et cetera .

Short run , it has a payoff . I guess we'll see how things develop . I have a tendency to think that your example of the tenants are going to be the people , that set of people , working people , people who have endured circumstances , who are going to , at some point in this whole scenario , be what matters almost exclusively in the resistance .

Not exclusively , but almost exclusively . Our role is going to sink and their role is going to climb , and it's because they will be more flexible about what to do and less anal about being perfectly correct and various other things you know well , there's some .

You know , sometimes we even find that the nonprofit is replicating norms of capitalism and the workers in the nonprofit don't think of themselves as workers and so they also don't bring the organizing model into their workplace . They're using the organizing model maybe outside their workplace , but they should maybe bring it inside their workplace too .

But we need to be flexible with allowing for new movement moments to emerge and accepting that they might be problematic in different , different ways , but that we need to kind of have a really big tent set of options that are allowing , that are being allowed to grow and get their feet under them and try to learn .

And then we also need to connect with the wisdom of the organizers that have been around for a long time , because they do , we do know some things . Like we've done this for a long time , we've learned some lessons . There's ways that we should be connected to to keep moving things forward . I just went to a training recently for how to .

It's called , I think it was called ice watch and it was about verifying and documenting ice in the neighborhood , and so it's not a direct action at this point , but I'm really impressed by the organizers in Massachusetts who have set up a hotline it's called the Luce Hotline , l-u-c-e Hotline , and they're training people in all these communities and when people at my

training there was almost 100 people there and they're learning how to .

For if there's a rumor that ice is in the neighborhood , then you should go and verify if it truly is ice and put it out on a signal thread so word can get out that , yes , it really is ice or no , it's not ice , it's just you know the transportation police or you know the transportation police or something . You know which they .

They in Massachusetts they don't do immigration detention . I just found out from my brother in Florida that the police in Florida are deputized to to do immigration enforcement . So you have to be really careful in a place like Florida .

But in Massachusetts , if it's just the regular police , that's not a danger to immigrants as much as it would be if it was immigration . So anyway , this training was very good , but it was also had a kind of a modest level to it . We're not trying to intervene on the detention , we are just trying to document it and verify .

And I think the door is open for as we get more training , as people get more skilled , as the stakes get higher , it could evolve into a direct action . If we had a hundred people there and ICE was detaining somebody , maybe we could put our bodies in the way you know . But that that's a step that we could grow into as this organizing gets legs under it .

But if we went straight to that step , that would not be good , you know . That would just probably yield people getting injured , people getting arrested and it would probably cut the movement off at its knees . But if we grow carefully and with training , then we could be poised to do that and I love that . That is a direction that we could be going .

The problem was that a large number of people in those groups ran and left everybody else to get hit by the cops because they knew what they were doing and they knew what was coming and , I kid you not , this was a common phenomenon .

Well , we can't get arrested because we're too important , so we'll get out of here and you guys can deal with what's coming , and obviously that doesn't create a movement that has people who care about each other and who so you just you just gave a great example of how our organizing has evolved .

You know that things kind of go well for a certain amount of time and then they backtrack . I mean , one example of this , I think , is you know , there's really good attention to racism and sexism in our movements , almost to the point of it backfiring , and by that I mean people getting canceled because they made a mistake .

And we have to have movements and organizations and organizing context where white people , men , cis men , people can make mistakes and they can get called in , called out , whatever you want to call it , and that there's space for them to continue .

And I have one example that I would like to share of this happening , where I did a really stupid I want to say rookie , rookie move , really rookie , stupid racist move .

Or , you know , worst case scenario , maybe egregious , really ignorant racist move , but a bunch of us had been arrested and we were in a jail in South Boston and we were getting released in small numbers , like little by little .

They , you know , they get , two would get released , and then three would get released , and and there was a really small jail and you know , and there was a lot of us who got arrested .

And the guy , the police officer , said to me go ahead and , like you know , start ferrying your people to wherever they were going , you know , as each set comes out , then you'll come back and take the next batch .

And so this white cop tells me this and I go , okay , good idea , and agree that and of course it was white people who got released first and black people who were still in jail and agreed to this setup , which was a very ignorant thing to agree to .

We should have all waited for everybody to get released , to make sure the people of color were safe , you know , and released in a timely fashion , and then we should have all left together . And anyway , this was in the context of my housing justice work , and so I'd been on the front lines with people a lot .

The people see me work , and so I'd been on the front lines with people a lot . The people see , see me . They saw my blood , sweat and tears , you know they , they knew that I was somebody who kept showing up , so I had that . But I broke a lot of trust by by doing this .

And one of the women I'll never forget she came up to me at our next meeting and she just dressed me down and she and I deserved it . You know , she really got it out of her system . She yelled at me . I told her that I was so sorry , that it was a really bad mistake and that I learned from it . It wouldn't happen again .

And we hugged it out and and we were done and we were back to doing the work . And I think part of the reason we could do that is because we had real work that we were doing together yeah and she even felt like , okay , I gotta work with these racists , or maybe , best case scenario , just ignorant white people .

but okay , I , you know , I I have to be in coalition with these people because this is how we're going to maybe win .

And she had enough evidence of that from lived experience that , despite our flaws , we , we also throw down and okay , and you can yell at them and they don't slink away and start crying and never come back , you know , cause they're so embarrassed . Oh my God , I made a mistake , you know .

So , having the discipline um to well , first of all , the most important ingredient , I think , is having real work , a context of real work , that you're interacting in the context of real work and so that when you make your mistakes in that context , it's easier to just have a process of repairing the harm and an authentic apology sometimes people are doing real

things but they only care about the doing of the things , not the outcome .

You get to notice how you might be able to do it better . You get to try new things . You get to fail . You get to think with other people . You get to reflect . I mean , you know , but you know , I just also want to not make it sound like it's easy .

You know , I don't know if you remember that a long time ago I wrote an article called Talking Back to Chomsky . Do you remember that I wrote ?

He has a brilliant analysis of how the system is working and how punishing it is . And you read through the brilliant analysis and you get to the end and you just there's nothing to do but maybe jump off a cliff . Right , that's what it feels like . And remember , you know , for for our listeners who might not know this , you know Michael and I go way back .

We worked at South and press together and I wrote a lot for Z magazine and of course , no wrote books for South and press and for Z . Anyway , we would always tell no , look , you can't just write this 500 page tome and leave people with nothing .

And so you'll notice , at the end of a lot of Southend Press books there'll be one paragraph that says oh , this isn't the end of the world . You know you can organize , so just simply go join an organization and do something .

And so I felt I read another one of those pieces where he had the random paragraph at the end and you know this is no shade unknown .

He's one of my favorite people in the organizing home , long-term , to suffer through all the permutations of what happens in those meetings that go on for hours , and then all the decisions that get made and the fact that you know let's say you even maybe block an eviction or something what's on the menu to do tomorrow ? Oh , block another eviction .

And then the day after that , block another eviction . And it seems like I'd just be blocking evictions for my whole life . What am I doing this for ? It's not leading to an actual change in how we do housing in this country . That's not totally true , but that's kind of what it feels like .

So I I wrote this thing and I sent it to you and I was like what do you think about this as a commentary ? And then , a couple of hours later , I was like , oh , my god , what done I ? I don't want to go up against no , like that's the biggest mistake of my life . And I emailed you and I said , oh , I withdraw that thing .

I don't want to do that , I can't do that . That was a mistake . And you said too late , it's already gone out to several hundred thousand people . Well , I think it might've been at that time At least I used to to have .

People want to take the attention of the whole group to , you know , air their personal issues . People don't have a lot of discipline , you know , and so we all have to kind of keep learning to have more discipline .

I mentioned , you know , that Aikido helps me think about how to overthrow the white supremacist , heteropatriarchal capitalist country that we're in , and honestly , I think probably the biggest thing that it gives me is just that reminder about discipline .

It takes a lot of discipline to keep showing up , to keep trying to use your full mind to solve problems , to see reality , and sometimes I think reality looks like something that would just be . A despair-based response is the only thing appropriate . But I don't actually think that's the whole reality .

You know there's lots of things going on to draw hope from , you know , including , you know , some of the things I've talked about here today , and so part of seeing reality is not just seeing the despair part , but the other hopeful parts , which really are real , you know they are there and we have to keep putting them forward and learning from them and reminding

ourselves that humans are capable of that .

That's another problem that exists , the inclination to say , okay , someone else solve it and I'll , I'll do what I'm told . There's a shitload of that around also , which is a problem . I wonder , since we were talking about all of us . I don't know whether the people got an image of what goes on .

Organizations are in the directory , they have information in there . So if you go in the directory and you search and you find an organization , you find out about it , you find information about it and you find out how to contact it and possibly join or volunteer and use your search in the various ways you described .

And for myself , I feel like there's an additional possibility maybe it's a long shot that this project succeeding which , as you say , hasn't done yet , but with this project succeeding , could contribute to and that's the on the organization side of the coin the organization's realizing that collectivity is the only way to go forward .

So it isn't just the collectivity of the organization but among them , overcoming the sort of atomistic approach to issues , etc . Not by eliminating each one , but by their working together and coordinating . And I've felt like maybe that could be spurred by the project . And then I also wondered well , why should this be only in the United States ? Isn't it likely ?

I don't know , but isn't it likely that in other countries the same things that are hard here are hard there , and the same absence of a mechanism to facilitate getting together , and so maybe you know a spreading of the thing . Do either of these well , I know they do do these resonate with you at all ?

We'll have the URL for our directory publicized all over the country and that was the timeline I was on and then by summer we'll have a mass meeting of all the organizations that are part of the directory . And I remember telling you that idea and you said , oh , but by summer it might be too late .

It's true , I would love to have some kind of opportunity for organizations to get together , especially base building organizations that are out there on the front lines trying to , you know , use an organizing model to galvanize people to make change in some way in their lives , you know , right close to home , but in a way that addresses the social ills right ,

because that's what we're all after . We're , after , you know , fighting for reforms that help us further a longer-term systemic agenda .

It's that it resonates widely , and that's where the organizations working together , like yourself , it's another thing if that is echoing across the country and if imagine that your fight in Boston is backed by the organization in New York and Chicago , et cetera , et cetera , who threaten local solidarity strikes . Imagine the same thing for what's going on .

It's really hard to watch . What's his name ? Musk ? Eradicate jobs and fire people , and the response is for many not all , but a significant part of the response is to figure out where to apply for a job . Next , as compared to everybody saying , no , you can't fire us . Who the fuck are you ? Right , we're not going any place ?

Um , we're not leaving , we're going to continue working . You just keep making your noises . And he says I'll call the police . Call the police , go right ahead . Right , let's see what happens when they come in . And there are 10,000 of us , but it doesn't come in . This goes back to what you were saying earlier . It just it's foreign .

You know they have some of those networks , but but then the next step is , of course , the housing networks to align with the or have their priority be at the top of the agenda and to still have the discipline to know that collectively having an agenda is more powerful than having my particular priority at the top of the agenda right now .

This is hard because racism and sexism , these things are real and they are . They permutate , permutate our meetings and our organizations , and we need to . So we have to be able to be cognizant of that as well as keep moving forward .

One time when I came to visit you and Lydia in Woods Hole , we went out in the kayaks and you know , you had that protected little mill pond , or whatever it was called right off your house and we paddle around in there with no risk . But we exited that little protected area and went out into the ocean , or we were hugging the shore .

We weren't being daredevils , but we somehow got caught in a current that was going to sweep us out to the big ocean . And I didn't even notice . But you noticed , I mean you were familiar and you paddled out of the current and you said to me paddle as if your life depends on it .

Maybe not , you know , would we ? How many hours would have gotten dark before we got back ? I don't know , it was a little bit of an unknown , but I , that little moment has kind of , as I've been cognizant , it's a life and death moment for many people , maybe not for my personal demographic at all times , but but for for so many people .

And I want to paddle as if my life and other people's lives depend on it . But I , I want to , I want to do it in conjunction with you know , my comrades and my people , and be able to be kind of fed by the movements at the same time that I give you know to them .

So , and that's what I want for all of us , you know , so I well , that's the name of our directory .

What I'm thinking about now and let me ask you this to stop so you don't get to ask the last question , I don't know was more aggressive and militant in some ways than almost anything I've seen from the left . So you've got him and you've got Sanders and AOC going around and you know , putting forward positive program .

And the question arises okay , insofar as all of us is helping new people find organizations great , other than either criticizing the governor of Illinois and Sanders and AOC , which is not just a waste of time but counterproductive or repeating what they're saying , what do we do ?

That adds something to what is quickly outpacing our initial organizing and prodding of resistance , because at the start it was a lot of people who were organizing and prodding it , but now it's not . It's people on campuses who have no prior political experience are going more and more aggressively , et cetera .

So I don't know what the answer to that is I'm not sure .