Episode Summary Janet and Margaret talk about sustainable foraging, herbalism, wild tending, constructive ethics on why you might choose not to wildcraft, ways to impact your food intake in small but meaningful ways, unlearning extractive tendencies when harvesting food and medicine, and upholding indigenous wisdom around wild tending. Guest Info Janet (she/her) is an herbalist and teacher at the Terra Sylva School of Botanical Medicine. Janet can be found on wordpress at Radical Vitalism The school can be found on Instagram @terrasylvaschool. Janet does a podcast called The Book on Fire. Janet recommends reading The Honorable Harvest by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Janet on Sustainable Foraging Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host today, Margaret Killjoy. And this week we're going to be talking about herbalism and foraging and sustainable foraging of herbalism, and forage....[Trails off] That's what we're gonna be talking about with with Janet Kent, who you all have heard from before on another episode from a long time ago, about herbalism. And I think you'll all get a lot out of this episode. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Margaret 01:12 And we're back. Okay, so Janet, if you could introduce yourself with your name, which I guess I already said, and your pronouns and kind of what you do for a living as, which would help people understand why they should listen to you about this topic. Janet 01:44 I am Janet Kent, my pronouns are she/her. I run a school of botanical medicine that's located about an hour outside of Asheville, in southern Appalachia, and in so called Western North Carolina. And I'm also a clinical herbalist. And I also live in hardwood co [conifer] forest. And so I'm surrounded by wild plants. And specifically, like this region of southern Appalachia has a long history of settler wild crafting as a kind of hustle. And there were a lot of...when most pharmaceuticals came out of plants back in the day, this was a huge nexus of harvesting and distributing, and people extracted a lot of plants from the wild as a means of survival and sold them to the pharmaceutical companies. So, that is partially because this is a really ecologically rich place. But, I say all that just to say that I'm surrounded by plants that have medicinal value, even in like the larger market outside of the home forager or home apothecary. So, it's something that like, we have to really think about here and are forced to. Even though we're surrounded by the medicine, the ethics of that are something that I think about pretty regularly. So, I might be better situated than some to consider that. Yeah, Margaret 03:13 Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And that's why I wanted to have you on to talk today, right? Because I feel like this is this question that is coming up more and more as foraging becomes a little bit more mainstream. Or? Well, I guess, actually, to start with, we were talking earlier, and you talked about how there's sort of a foraging craze that's coming from the pandemic, I was wondering if you could kind of talk about that, like what's happening right now in foraging? 03:38 Yeah, I mean, while I do think there was a much more of a burst during the pandemic, when people were getting outside more. Public spaces, and parks became more visited once they were open again. And you saw just a lot more people out. I don't know, like how much time you spend in public spaces. But, there was a huge increase in people national parks, and national forests, State Forest, all of those kinds of places. And even just in city parks and such. And I think that there has been a lot of social media content that's being created around foraging. And it is like a way that people can get excited about gathering their own food. It can be a really nice, like gateway to like relationships with plants, because people start to learn to identify plants and learn what is food. And I definitely think that there's no small part of this that is also connected to people wanting to spend less money on food. I mean, we have applicants for school sometimes even say, you know, like, I want to learn more about plants that are useful for food and for medicine, because I need to spend less money. So there's like an economic incentive here, as well. And I should probably spend some time on that in a bit. But, also I would just say that over the last...I don't know, it's probably been more than a decade, there has just been a surge in interest in wild plants, including for food and for medicine. Margaret 05:10 Yeah. And that's either really good or really bad depending on who you ask, Is that what's Is that what's happening right now? Janet 05:19 Yeah, I would say that there can be pretty binary of viewpoints on this. And it's interesting, I mean, something that you probably see with a lot of people that you interview or with different communities that you might be in as there is a rise in awareness of just the colonial project that we're all part of still. And so that this is still occupied territory. There are indigenous people here whose land settlers are occupying. There is a certain level of guilt that can come with that awareness...[interrupted] Margaret 05:56 Right? Janet 05:56 [Continues] If you are someone who is not indigenous to turtle islands, and the way that I see that play out sometimes, not always, is with people sometimes seeing kind of stark black and white ideas around what is good and what is not good, and relationship. And we see people who hear like, "We shouldn't wildcraft," or they memorize like this all wildcrafting, which is the word that herbalist and people who are into plant medicine will use to describe harvesting herbs for medicine specifically. I don't actually hear 'wildcrafting' used to refer to food. Yeah, but so wildcrafting can be seen as strictly extractive and people just taking from the wild, because as I mentioned in the introduction, there is a long history of plants being taken en mass from the forests, to serve the pharmaceutical industry. And even now, there are certain plants that are threatened and endangered because they are used, even in European markets. Margaret 07:03 Like what? Janet 07:05 Black cohosh, specifically, is an herb that is seen as being helpful for some menopausal states. And it's used in...So in Europe, it's more license legal to be a doctor who uses plant medicine. And so you can prescribe herbs there. It's more regulated as well, but definitely tons of black cohosh are sent abroad every year. And from what...I met someone who works, is sort of like from a root digging family, like a traditional Appalachian root digging family, but she said she'd been in warehouses where there was just like piles of rotting roots of black cohosh, you know, cause people... Margaret 07:48 Oh, God. Janet 07:48 Yeah, the work of, as in is usually the case, like the piece workers, the people who are gathering are paid shit. And then the stuff is piled up. It's not stored very well. Some fraction of it will make it into medicine. And so there is very much a problem with extraction en masse of plants, especially when the root is what's being harvested, because that kills the plant. Right? Margaret 08:12 Yeah. Ginseng is like one that I feel like I hear about too. Janet 08:16 Absolutely. Ginseng would be a great example. And interestingly, I mean, you may even live in ginseng country. I do, for sure. But, that's something that's, you know, has been historically, as settlers came into these mountains, have shipped abroad, because by the time the Revolutionary War happened here, already, there was a dearth of ginseng in China because so much had been wild harvested, and they hadn't really put in cultivation yet. And so, as soon as the global market, people within the global market figured out that there was a similar ginseng here, they started shipping it abroad, and actually ginseng sales helped pay for the Revolutionary War. Margaret 09:02 Oh, god. Uh huh. Janet 09:03 Which is just so wild. Yes. So, there is very much history of extraction of plants. Margaret 09:10 Yeah. For the extractive project that is the Revolutionary War Janet 09:14 Yes, absolutely, a huge scale. So, when we are thinking about our own personal use or serving our communities or, you know, a lot of people will try to make herbal products as a side hustle, then we do need to confront our personal relationship with that legacy. That's obviously really important. However, the amount of time and energy people spent in policing other people's foraging and wildcrafting is a lot, as you may imagine. Margaret 09:42 Yeah, social media is particularly good at getting us to level our weapons at each other. Yeah. Janet 09:48 Right. So, we see a lot of that, and I feel like the the climate has not been very nuanced for this conversation, because what's true, and this is probably a part of what you're wanting to get out with this episode is that there's a really big difference between digging up a 15 year old root of a plant in the forest that took that long to get that big and taking the whole root and killing it, than there is actually harvesting weeds or harvesting invasive plants or plants that are here in abundance. And actually, you can harvest some kinds of plants in a way that is supportive to the plant community that they live in, because they're opportunistic or taking too much space. And so, I think when we have a black and white rubric around this, and much like all wildcrafting is extractive, we're also forgetting that there is a way for humans to be in relationship with plant communities in a way that fosters diversity and richness in the ecology. And can be a form of wild tending. And that is how Turtle Island was maintained by all of the indigenous folks who are living in so many different plant communities around the continent before Europeans showed up and disrupted that. Margaret 11:04 Okay, so what are some of the...I like, examples. It makes it really more concrete in my head. Like, what are some of the examples of plants that you're helping that plant community by foraging or or by? Yeah. Janet 11:17 Okay. Yeah, that's, that's a good question. And there's, I'll share with you a book, there's a whole book on invasive plant medicines. And so I'm going to say 'invasive' here, I know that that's a controversial word to some people. But, what I mean is plants that came after 1492, and are opportunistic and can take over spaces, and take up space. So, that's what I mean when I'm saying that, and we can say 'non native' or 'invasive' or just 'opportunistic,' but I'm gonna say 'weedy' and 'abundant' plants here. Plantain would be a weedy and abundant plant, and mugwort can be quite opportunistic, and take over in some places. Mimosa tree, the really beautiful pink firecracker looking tree that grows in the southeast pretty abundantly is pretty opportunistic. It can take over spaces for sure, you know, and sometimes native plants are also pretty weedy as well. Yarrow is a plant that comes from Europe, that there are some native varieties too, but they tend to not be as opportunistic. A lot of garden plants that have escaped, like catnip or horehound you might find in other places, sometimes lemon balm goes feral, in some places, as well. So, those would be some examples. But, a lot of trees that you see...[corrects self ] well, it's hard to say...Trees that were planted for landscaping, and then kind of move out like, Tree of Heaven is an example. There's a lot of different trees that got brought in at various points that have spread out and can really out compete other trees. Yeah. Margaret 12:57 This is really interesting to me for a lot of reasons...I mean, I'm kind of notoriously bad for someone who like often lives off grid or like, you know, I live mostly alone on a bunch of acres in a mountain or whatever in Appalachia. And I'm like, kind of notoriously bad at actually knowing the plants around me and how to engage with them besides being like, I swear, one year, I'm gonna be here in the fall and eat the acorns. You know, has been my plan for however many years. I've done every step of acorn harvesting at various points and never actually finished it and eaten them. But, so it's just, it's kind of interesting to me because as I walk around, you know, the place that I live, I become more and more familiar with some of these plants and it's interesting to think about them in different ways. And then also think about, like, whether or not I have a desire or like, a role in sort of shaping what plants grow around me. And like, I don't even know the answer that yet. Like, I mean, what I sort of in my head, I'm like, I believe both the pines and the Oaks near me are fairly, you know, native to this area, or whatever. But, I'm like, but I like the Oaks more. And so I'm like, Is it bad to start, like, kind of cutting back the pines and like trying to propagate more of the Oaks? Like, maybe the tree level is a higher level of thinking about because they take a lot longer, but is that something that like, people should be doing in the kinds of....should be is a weird question....but [people] could think about doing in the places that they forage or, like thinking about what the current plant environment community is and what it could be shifted towards? Or is that like, do you stay out of it? This is not a question. Sorry. Janet 14:39 Yeah, no, I, I think I can pick the through line in there, which is that: what would a good relationship look like when foraging? And to me, you know, I wasn't taught this way at all. I definitely came up in herbalism when this was not part of our conversation. But, I think in general, wild tending is the way to go where you actually have a perennial relationship with the plants that you live around or the plants that you visit, or the places that you'd like to harvest so that you can pay attention to when they're healthy and when they need support. See which plants are taking up some more space, you know, I mean, depending on what pines you're around, you know, those would have at one time been controlled partially through fire management practices, because they burn more than oaks. So, you know, that's like...I mean, not that we're trying to like, go back to some pristine era, because that's not possible. There's just sort of moving forward from where we're at. But, but it is true that in a lot of places where there were mixed forest in that way, there would be periodic fire for....support hunting, which would have taken out the pine. I mean, I think that personally, preferential treatment of different plant communities and landscapes feels pretty intuitive. And also, if you look back through history, but also if you just look at different cultures that are living in a sort of a tending/stewardship relationship with the plants around them, there is usually preferential management practice, which that's kind of like a boring way to say it, but yes, like favoring the plants you would like to see do better and favoring plants often that are useful to humans, and wildlife. You know, before the American Chestnuts went through, they're blight, they're not extinct, there are still a few left, but before the chestnut blight took out such a large amount of the chestnut trees on the eastern coast that was the dominant tree. And yes, they were taller and larger than most of the trees in the forest, but there was a level of preference for those because they made tons of food every year. And so humans and birds and other animals that like chestnuts, propagated the chestnuts by moving them around, even a squirrel burying a bunch of chestnuts is going to make more chestnuts come up, you know? So I think that that is a pretty natural way to relate to the plants around you, which is to favor some over others, you know. And when you start to pay attention to like, who's just kind of taken over, which can be plants that are actually from here too. And you want....ecosystem's tend to benefit from number of connections and number of members. And so you want to see richness in both of those numbers. You want to see more members and you want to see more connections. So, when you have any one member dominating, you're having less of both. And I think if we can think of tending towards, you know, the word diversity is almost destroyed at this point for usefulness, however, I could say that ecologically, what I mean is like, yes, strengthen members and connections. Margaret 17:57 Okay. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. I don't know, I've been really enjoying just like, you know, I have a dog now. So, I have to walk around a lot. And actually, like, pay more attention, because he's always like finding all of the things and making me pay attention to it. I don't know where I'm going with that. There's cactus where I live. And it confuses the hell out of me. Yeah, I live in West Virginia. Janet 18:21 Are they prickly pears? Margaret 18:24 I don't know. They're small. They're like low to the ground. They're like big, round, green lobes kind of like hanging out on the ground. There's not a lot of them. But, it confuses the hell out of me. I have no idea if they're native to this area or not. I don't understand. I don't know why I'm telling you that. Now everyone knows I have cactus. Janet 18:51 Dogs are wonderful for getting us out of the house and out into the world, you know, and then you start to pay attention to who else is around, you know, the dog leads you to the others. Right? Margaret 19:00 Yeah, totally. It's how I know about all the turtles on the property is my dog finds them in and hangs out with them and just sort of stares at them. And then I watch them. Janet 19:07 Are they box turtles? Margaret 19:08 Yeah, there's some kind of. Yeah, I think they're box turtles. They're not, uh, they're not doing so well. I looked them up. There's not a lot of them. But, I live somewhere where there's not a lot of roads. So they don't die as much. Janet 19:22 Right. I love box turtles. I actually wanted to bring up a different similar creature when I was thinking about this topic earlier, which is that I think that, while I can be like, it's all you know, 'we need to turn relationships, we need to be stewarding land,' all of these things, it is worth noting that generally, wildlife and plant communities are under pressure when people get hungry. And you know, I was in Florida near some of the beautiful springs down there a few years ago, and I've also seen these In parts of the Gulf South, but there are these really cool tortoises called gopher tortoises. Have you ever met one of those? Margaret 20:05 No, Janet 20:07 They're kind of big. I just realized I'm using my hands and you're able to see my hands on the podcast. However, they're pretty big turtles.Tortoises. And, they're so cool. One of the things they do is they make these burrows That's why they're called gopher tortoises, but they help a lot of different creatures survive hurricane flooding and other like vast flooding, because other animals will hang out in their burrows. They're like, wombats or something. They're like a helper species that makes habitat for other animals. But, I was reading about them when I was down there and in the Great Depression, the locals down on the Gulf South and in Florida, called them Hoover Chickens. Because they were naming after present President Hoover, who they were blaming for the Great Depression and just got....because they eating so many tortoises to survive, okay, and the tortoise population just like dropped out during that time, and they're slowly getting back, but they have a hard time too, like the box turtles that we live near. And so when I read that I just, it made me really...it made me think about foraging honestly, and how much I had seen this like uptick, with the economic dip, and made me just understand the level to which we need to be emphasizing what's abundant. And what you know...a tortoise....Tortoises are not abundant. They were not abundant even back then, probably. But like, what species are there a lot of? Which species does harvesting actually help the larger plant community? But, also with individual species, there's plants where if you harvest in a specific way that helps propagate them, then you can help increase their numbers as well. And that's going to differ from plant to plant. But, I think that what I would like to see with people getting more and more excited about foraging and wild harvesting of herbs in general, is that actual consciousness about what it is to help their numbers grow so that it's not as much of an extract of relationship? Margaret 22:14 Yeah, no, I remember reading one of the things that like really stuck with me, I read a long time ago, it was about how during the Great Depression, like squirrels and deer were hunted to near extinction in various places. And like.... Janet 22:29 Wow Margaret 22:29 Yeah, exactly. And, you know, these are the things when I think of abundant animals, right, I think of deer and squirrels, at least where I live. And, and so that, that realization that we actually have an impact, you know. Like, the small amounts of destructive things we do really can add up. Obviously, we're living through a, you know, climate level of all of that coming. But no, that's, that's makes me sad about the tortoises. But okay, so So what are some examples then of these? I know I just keeping like, give me more examples, because I like the stories of it. But like, what are some of the plants that you're like helping? I can imagine, for example, like, I mean, obviously, chestnuts are very complicated right now. But, you know, harvesting chestnuts, of course, doesn't necessarily negatively impact the tree. And earlier you were talking about basically being like roots are like much more complicated to extract, or there are like ways of extracting roots that are less bad? Would you mostly say to anyone listening to this unless you know, better just don't mess with roots and work on some other stuff? Janet 23:39 Yeah, you know, and actually, you're reminding me that when I have been seeing a lot of like, more like virally popular foragers, they don't tend to emphasize roots, which I feel grateful for. And yeah, I would say that in general, unless you have a perennial relationship with a plant community than just staying away from roots is a good idea. But with a lot of plants, there are ways to harvest where you're not actually greatly impacting the plant. Let me think of some examples of that. I mean, I almost don't want to bring up ramps because they are so over harvested in some places. Those are wild leeks for people who might not know, but what is true is that if instead of harvesting the bulb, the white bulb, it's kind of like an onion, garlicky thing and each can just take a leaf and harvest leaves from a big patch instead of digging them up that's gonna make a huge difference. Now when you see restaurants start saw offer foragers money for ramps, at least in my neighborhood, I started to see much more like big holes dug where they're just digging up clumps of them at a time and then just taking them wholesale out to sell, you know, and so, I would say like, yeah, the above ground parts are always always gonna be more sustainable to harvest. But also, if you're taking flowers from a plant, for example. I'm trying to think of like a good example of this. I love peach flower medicine, I love peach flower for grief and for hot agitated states and there are feral peach flower trees and, and there's old orchards that are no longer sprayed. And when you're harvesting peach flowers, you can actually support the tree because they need to not let all of those flowers go ripe and become flat fruit because it's too much. So, if you selectively just pick a couple blooms off the into clusters, that's actually going to help the plant overall, you know? Or I'm thinking of, I wanted to give another example of something in a more urban setting. but linden trees are plants, there are some linden trees that are native to this continent, they're called basswood trees, that's the name here. But there's European lindens that are planted ornamentally There's a bunch of them in downtown Asheville. But that's like, where there'll be a huge tree covered with thousands of blossoms and the flowers are the medicine there too. And they're always covered with bees. Bees love them. But, if you see something like that, where you're like, it's impossible to even imagine how many there are, then you can take some flowers, and you're not going to hurt that tree. You know, I guess if we all did that, that would be something we're thinking about. And that's why having a perennial relationship where you see the shifts through the years, see who's getting hit. And, if an area is being over harvested, you can tell because you've been paying attention, that would be something to do. But yeah, I would say like there are a lot of like flowering trees where you can get the flowers or you could even prune some of the branches and have some of what you need. But also with urby plants, the above ground plant, you can kind of see the parts, the aerial parts is what we call them, and notice how much has gone. And usually you can tell if someone else has been there, right. So, that would be what I would say. But again, if you if you're sticking to really weedy abundant plants, then this is going to just be less of an issue like goldenrod, for example, is a gorgeous endemic plant, or a plant that grows on a lot of parts of Turtle Island, which is a really excellent allergy remedy. Not so good for food. But they're incredibly weedy. You'll see a giant field of them right over the place, you know, and so if you just stuck to plants that were pretty weedy and abundant like that, even if you got as much as you're going to need for the year, it would be very little in a dent of even one plant stand. Margaret 27:45 Yeah. Okay, so I took a bunch of notes on what you were saying, because there's so many pieces that I want to pick apart. And one of them is this, I've been running across this thing more, and I suspect you've probably run across a mortgage or rent more in these circles. But this idea that like, the concept of nature is sort of a colonial construct. This idea that like, when we create the idea of nature, we're talking about something that is distinct from humans, and how that's like, kind of this thing that like gets us off the hook. Like when we imagine like humans as only bad. It like lets us off the hook for being bad as compared to like, it seems like you could talk about either you show up and you dig up all the roots of these, you know, ginseng or whatever that's been there forever, and you just like mess everything up, versus they're like other plants that do very well for humans as part of the ecosystem interacting with them in the same way that they do very well for having bees in the ecosystem or birds in the ecosystem. Whatever. Yes. I don't know, it's really interesting to me. And I'm wondering if that's like a conversation that... Janet 28:46 I think that's been a helpful conversation, I think, for people to have around not just having black and white thinking around it, which is what you're gonna get, I think, which is that, if we're actually in relationship, then we're going to be able to care for the plants instead of just taking or just ignoring. I mean, there's definitely, unfortunately, a pretty big segment of people who are into environmental biology who do have a very hands off, 'don't interfere, just leave it,' you know, kind of perspective. Margaret 29:21 The Star Trek approach. Janet 29:23 Definitely, which is I mean, ridiculous given that there are no plants left on the planet who are not being impacted by human activity. So, you actually going in and maybe... So, part of, this is like, kind of an aside from what we're talking about, but there's this concept called assisted migration, which when you're like, "These plants hate how hot it's getting right here. We should move them further north." You know, and so there's all these people who are like, "No, no, we can't interfere. We might ruin everything." You know, it's like time traveling or something like we actually, like do one thing wrong and everything will be, it'll be a clusterfuck. And the whole system will collapse because we move this tree up there. And who knows who else is on there. But then there's a lot of people who there's actually like secret groups who meet to help with assisted migration and to propagate. It's really wild. Anyway, I say all this just to say that, like I'm not on a never interfere with, because I think the interference is happening already. I mean, it's not my life's work to move trees around to places where they might make it. Right. But that is something that, you know, even the research we have about this extinction crisis is just that the loss is huge. And are there places where we could support life becoming, like diversifying and strengthening, plant communities as other trees are coming out? Like right now, where I live? I don't know if this is how you're where it is where you're at or not, but the ash trees are all dying. Margaret 30:56 The ash borer, whatever? Yeah. Janet 30:58 And it's really happening hardcore where we live. So yes, it is true that there will be other trees that are going to come in to those canopy gaps, to live. But we are seeing these forests change dramatically right now. And it's just, it's going to be interesting. Like, there are people who, because the hemlocks are dying out as well from the woolly adelgid along the rivers and streams, and some places around here, there are people who are like, "Well, what are the plants that we could put in here intentionally, that would help shade that would support the trout and support the life in here?" You know, and so those kinds of ecosystem design frameworks make people really uncomfortable because of the level of damage that has happened through the inadvertent introduction of certain species. Margaret 31:48 Right. Well, it's like, if we fucked something up so bad. And 'we' is a weird word to use in this context. But sure, you know, I mean, I'm a settler here and I, you know, reap the rewards of that in terms of like, the foods available to me at the store, whatever, tons of shit. But okay, we fucked this thing up so bad. I can understand people's like, "Oh, no, we fucked it up. We just shouldn't do anything." But, but that's a little bit like, pushing someone over. And then they're like, "Help me up," and you're like, "No, last time I interacted with you, it went really bad. So I'm just gonna walk away." Janet 32:25 No, I mean, exactly. Like, we're gonna just watch the destruction happen that is in the wake of this economic system, and not actually do anything to change it, because we might hurt something. I mean, it's absurd when you actually lay it out that way. Margaret 32:41 Yeah, we set the house on fire. And now we don't want to run in and help people because we just make everything worse, so we should avoid everything. I mean, it's because I think that it makes sense for people to not be like, wildly cavalier about deciding that, you know, they should just get to reengineer the way that ecosystems work. I like, Oh, that's such an interesting tension that I don't have any answers for but... Janet 33:07 Well, I mean, there is a lot of tension with it. I mean, I think a lot of times when I see scientists who are taking a really hard line, 'no interference' stance, they are people who don't study indigenous land management, and don't understand the level to which humans normally play in ecosystem, design and movement, and construction. And so I think that in general, what would be the wisest thing to do for anyone would be you know, what, if you're not indigenous to this place, what are the indigenous folks around you saying about what is wild tending? And what does support and stewardship of this land look like right now? Margaret 33:45 Right. Yeah, though, that makes sense. What is involved in...you know, I'm not indigenous and what would be involved in trying to find that out where I'm at? Do I look for people who are like kind of talking about that publicly? I assume the answer is not just like, go find my friends who are indigenous and be like, "You there..." Janet 34:05 Well, it depends. I mean, it really depends where where people live. I mean, there are in many places around the continent, I'm learning more and more about this, there are actually are cultural centers where you can talk to folks and be like...who are working on land management stuff, right then you know, within whatever tribal sovereignty they have in that situation. Here, this is unceded, Cherokee land, but you know, we are in contact with folks who are doing wild tending and talking about...a lot of the schools there in the Cherokee where the actual reservation is, they are actually trying to introduce more and more wild foods, you know, and so through talking to folks who are part of that project, we've been able to be like, "Okay, like, what, would be helpful for you to have more of?" Also, one thing that I would say in most places, there's some tension between what indigenous groups...what land they have access to and in the Cherokee area, I mean, a specific part that they're still have control over right now, you know, I know a grandmother who was given a $500 citation for picking herbs in the National Forest, for her daughter's memorial, you know, and, at the same time, like they had to have...the Cherokee folks had to push through to try to get a permit to be able to pick this plant called sochan, which is a wild perennial green that people eat in the spring especially. And so through communicating around with those folks, like I've been able to, like learn, like what plants are being prioritized with them, but also like supporting them, you know, like, they had to petition the state for us to be like, "Can we pick herbs on this land?" Right? Yeah. And so actually, like, as annoying as it is supporting that getting the word out, making sure that there's a shit ton of signatures sent to the State Forest, which are just like that this even a question is absurd, right? Especially because there are plenty of settler foragers just going out and foraging with no sort of impact. I mean, they're having an impact, but they don't have to deal with any consequences. So yeah, I guess I would say is like figuring out who's just around you, you know, and usually, and the thing is, is I don't know how the regions are all over the country, but it definitely in the west and southwest and in some parts of the southeast, too, it's not that hard to find cultural centers, or people who are working on land and food sovereignty, where they're at. And so I would just say, I don't know about specifically where you are and that's an interesting question. But, there are cultural centers in a lot of places that will have people working on food, wild food support, and often just like land tending and medicine ways. And I know, in the West, like, we've had a couple of students who actually are doing fire management, intentional fire trainings with with different indigenous tribes out there. And so they're actually learning to do the fire management practices from the people on the ground who had that tradition. And I think that's a fascinating way to learn to and to be like...because that can be somewhat dangerous as you're learning, right?And so like, that feels like a pretty big service to me, to be like, "Could you help do that kind of work somewhere?" And you would learn as you went, what plants are being prioritized, which plants need support, what plants are problems, you know, through through that work as well. Margaret 37:55 Okay. I liked that. I liked that's...I feel like usually that kind of question the like, "Well, what can you do?" doesn't have as good of a concrete answer as that I really appreciate that. One of the things you were talking about earlier, you're talking about, you know, the ramps that are being sold to the restaurants and stuff, right? And I was just thinking about how it seems like when you're talking about foraging, and when you're talking about wildcrafting, obviously, scale matters, but also when money gets involved, it seems like it gets real messy. And like, I wonder how people like, like, is there any ethical wild foods that introduce into market environments? Or is it like pretty much, if you're going to be doing foraging, you should be feeding yourself and your family and maybe your community but not doing it at like market scale? Janet 38:49 Yeah, that's tough. I mean, I don't know. There's definitely some folks around here who do like a wild food, food share even. And then there's people who do wild food...there's like a wild food booth at the farmers market because of this. That's how it is around here. There's just more people with that interest who are willing to pay the big bucks for foraged items. And so I can

Episode Summary Brooke talks with Alissa and Alex about horrors of the legal system. She walks through both of their legal ordeals from the circumstances of their targeting, arrests, court appearances, and current statuses. Alissa and Alex were both arrested separately in connection to violence from the far Right. Guest Info Alissa Azar (she/they) is currently in need of support to retain legal services. You can find her fundraiser at https://donorbox.org/help-alissa-get-proper-legal-defense. You can also find her on Instagram @r3volutiondaddy, or on Twitter @AlissaAzar. Alex (He/him) can be found on Mastodon @betacuck4life. Host Info Brooke can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter and Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Surviving the Justice System with Alissa and Alex Brooke 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, your host for this episode. Today we are talking with a couple of wonderful leftists about their experiences with the American court system, and how they've been supported by their community and by mutual aid. Without revealing your names or any details, would each of you like to say, "hi" or "hello" to our audience? Alissa 00:37 Hi. Alex 00:40 Hello Brooke 00:45 All right, before we officially unveil today's guests, you know I gotta show some love to fellow members of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. So let's hear a little about one of those other cool pods. Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Brooke 01:52 And we're back. Friends, thank you for joining me today to talk about the injustice of our justice system. Would you please each actually introduce yourselves and share your pronouns? Alissa 02:02 My name is Alissa Azar. She/They. Alex 02:04 My name is Alexander Dial. He/him. Brooke 02:12 Well, thank you. So both of these friendly, lovely folks have had to deal with, as I just said, the injustice of our justice system. They've both been arrested and charged with crimes. And Alex has been through kind of the whole system: jail, bail, going to court, living on probation, including having to do community service and reporting to a probation officer. And Alissa is kind of in the midst of that grinding system with some uncertainty in the future of what's going to happen. So, why don't we go ahead and you know, if each of you want to take a few minutes and kind of tell us a little bit about your backstory of, you know, the circumstances in which you were arrested and what happened there and, Alex, it's your turn to go first. Alex 02:56 Okay, yeah, I was arrested on August 17, 2019. At sort of a big deal to-do street event here in Portland, Oregon. Much Ado was made about this thing, by the far Right, mostly from out of town CHUDs you know. As usual, it's pretty typical for most of the time for us to get invaded....Although it's probably worth noting that they haven't been around lately. I got picked up after a couple of well publicized confrontations. Probably the most famous one was the the bus incident, which I suppose we can get into in detail in a bit here. But, I was arrested that day, and taken into custody, released and then subsequently taken back into custody a little later under some, I don't know probably typically shitty circumstances with regards to how our legal system works here, especially when it comes to cases that are media sensitive, I guess you might say. And today is actually kind of a special day with regards to all of that, which is something else we'll get into I suppose when the time comes, but I've been put through the wringer and am just now getting out the other end here nearly five years later. Brooke 04:21 Yikes. Okay, I'm gonna circle back to more details of the of the 'bus incident' in a second. But Alissa, if you want to tell us a little bit of your story, too, and feel free to throw in some more details to Alissa 04:32 Yeah, so I probably should have said this in my intro, but I am an independent journalist. I don't work for anyone but myself and the community and my situation, actually it was another, you know, fascist invasion. There was a counter protest to a demonstration that was going on countering the Proud Boys and I was there that day as a journalist. I was reporting and covering the event. And it was it was a pretty wild and scary day. I'll get into more detail about that too, later. But anyways, I would say like, maybe five or six months or so after that day had passed, I had received an indictment in the mail notifying me that a grand jury found me guilty and that the DA was pressing charges, including felony charges. And, yeah, it's been, it's been really, really difficult, you know, that in conjunction with, you know, something else that happened more recently, just finding myself being targeted for the journalism and, you know, the coverage that I do provide, both by the State and by, you know, just citizens of the United States that are, you know, members of the far Right. And yeah, it's been Hell to say the least, and not in a good way, not the good kind of Hell. Brooke 06:12 Yeah, I should have said this more at the top too, just to really emphasize how grateful I am that you're here and willing to talk about it when you're, you know, in the middle of going through this hell. I mean, that's I that's got to be incredibly difficult. And I'm just really grateful that you were willing to make the time and talk about it with us. Alissa 06:31 Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate that. My my trial is finally set. It's just a few months away. My trials in April. So yeah, definitely a mixed bag of feelings and emotions, for sure. Brooke 06:45 Yeah, I can only imagine. Alex, I want to circle back to you. Alex 06:52 Sure. Brooke 06:54 Because I think the details of the bus incident. People probably heard the story or will remember it. I certainly remember seeing the photo which was some what iconic. If you want to just briefly talk about what happened on that day. Alex 07:09 Sure. Yeah, um, you know, it was a day like any other. I woke up, donned to my armor, stepped into the streets to confront an invasion of fascists from out of town. You know, regular Thursday stuff. That particular day, I mean, I've been to a lot of protests, I have been an activist for longer than I've been an adult and, you know, things do get sort of predictably hairy, but everybody remembers how the tone in the streets really shifted, probably starting right around 2016. You know, I don't really remember that sort of ruckus, since like, the WTO stuff back in the day, you know, I mean, I mean, barring like a few other flashes in the pan, but the situation out there, just kept escalating, you know, for years, and I was down in Southern California, for the first part of that time, you know, and then I moved up here to Portland, and I was like, "Well, I'm still an American. So I guess I'm gonna get back out there." So out there I went. And that day was a mess. You know, I mean, everybody remembers how....The way that the Right had been touting this event as like a 'bloodbath.' And I need it in their words, "Buy guns," said Joe Biggs, you know, "Bring ammunition. Get concealed carry permits." He was showing off a baseball bat covered in spikes that had Trump's name on it, specifically related to this event. That day, August 17, 2019. You know, they were talking about like, 'taking the the streets of Portland,' and like, 'cleansing' them. I mean, this is all their language, you know, I'm quoting them. So we were, you know, understandably pretty alarmed out here. And, I wasn't running around out there with an affinity group at the time. You know, I had been out in the streets before then. So people, some people recognized me, but Brooke 09:28 You were doing group OpSec wearing your betacuck shirt too? Alex 09:32 Well, you know, a lot of people ask me about that. And the answer I usually give people is, you know, I don't think it's always appropriate to make ourselves small and to shrink back from these threats. You know, there's a time to present yourself and I feel like they were talking about coming here and murding us. And I was like, "Well, at least they're gonna recognize me. They're gonna know who they're trying to kill," you know? Brooke 10:09 Yeah. Alex 10:12 So, you know, the day really wasn't too extraordinary. I mean weirdly enough. I mean, it's crazy to say that now, but at the time, in terms of a Portland Street event, during those years, it was like, not that weird. In fact, kind of low key. There weren't really that many really gnarly confrontations I was party to or saw. But, things got really pretty wild when the Nazi bus came back. A lot of people don't know that they they left. And by the time I confronted them along with, you know, many other Portlanders up on the bridge. They had left Portland and had turned around and come back to reconfront us. Brooke 10:59 And then for listeners who might not know, you know, talk about what specifically happened with you and them in that bus. Alex 11:06 So, we should start, I think by talking about who was on the bus, because this has been, you know, contested information in certain parts of the internet. The people on that bus were primarily hardcore Neo Nazis, from a group called the American Guard. These were not just like Trump supporters or Second Amendment enthusiasts, although they were both, you know what I mean? These people were members of a hate group, tied to the Vinlinders Social Club, which is another group of Neo Nazis founded by Brian James. And they've been linked to a handful of murders here in the United States. So they're very dangerous people. And I knew who they were. That's the thing. I knew who was on that bus. So, when I saw them on the bridge, after having already watched them leave town, I was like, "They came back." You know? There were some people down there with me in the streets, a couple of people I had, you know, sometimes just sort of snowball with people that you meet out there and your roll together for safety, you know? So I was out there with a couple of people I had met, and I saw the bus up there on the on the bridge, and we talked about it, and I was like, "That's the American Guard." You know, "They came back," and we talked it over a little bit. And I said, "Well, let's go get them." And so we went up there. And we didn't actually assault the bus, which was a popular meme at the time of Right wing media, espoused in particular by our very own fascists propagandist, Andy Ngo, we didn't attack the bus, unless you count like a couple of thrown plastic half full water bottles and me flipping them the bird, you know, people stood around, they shouted at the bus, we heckled them. And then they opened the doors. And the first person who came out of that bus had an eight inch blade in his right hand. They had been brandishing both a pistol and a hammer through the windows before they stepped outside. So, we knew they were armed. The doors open, they came outside, and for better or for worse, an elderly man who was among us rushed to the doors, and apparently startled the first Nazi, the one with the knife, who fell on his ass just immediately. Alex 13:55 Right, yeah. And a little tussle ensued between this old man and this Nazi. And during that scuffle, the man in the bus, one of the other Neo Nazis, an American Guard member named Mark Kwan, the one who had been brandishing the hammer through the windows, he stepped into the doorway above the fight going on in the door of the bus and started swinging this claw hammer down at the skull of this elderly man, who at that point was losing the fight that that he had gotten into, and was in the process of being abducted into the bus by the formerly knife wielding Nazi who had dropped his MAGA hat. I saw what was happening. I set down my water bottle, which was made of metal you know, I wouldn't, I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt. So, I ran up there and I seized the hammer in mid swing from Mark Kwan. Mr. Kwan. And together with some of my allies from Portland, we wrestled it away. The Nazis fell back into the bus. They released the elderly man. I tossed their hammer back inside, where it you know, allegedly glanced Mr. Kwan, although there are no victims in my case, and nobody was ever able to contact him for some reason. Yeah, it's crazy. Brooke 13:55 Yay! Brooke 15:34 Mysterious, Mr. Kwan. Alex 15:35 Yes, it's wild. Yes, that Mr. Kwan, if he exists, that was written in my case file by my attorney, "Mr. Kwan, if he exists." And this prosecution never followed up on whether he exists. The door is closed. I kicked in one of the panels on the doors, you know, just having witnessed and attempted murder in process. My blood was a little up. I do admit it. And a nameless hero released a cloud of tear gas into the bus and the bus sped away down the completely open lane in front of them that they could have taken at any time. And yeah, that was the story. That's the Bus Incident. The whole confrontation took, I don't know, maybe six seconds, perhaps. And it's informed my life for nearly five years. Brooke 16:28 Yeah. Were you immediately arrested at that point? Alex 16:30 I was not immediatly arrested. I was arrested nearly an hour and a half later. Brooke 16:37 Okay. Alex 16:38 Yeah, I had an opportunity to help some other people. Brooke 16:41 Yeah. So that's interesting. It was still the same day, same event. But, a little while later in that, and at the time, were you arrested for the bus incident, specifically? Or for---[Alex interupts] Alex 16:54 Yeah. So, that's a really interesting contrast to Alissa, what you were saying because, you know, you went to the event, and you went home, and it was months later. So, I'm curious if you are able to talk at all about what actually happened the day of the event, and then what you were later accused of doing and charged with? Alex 16:54 I'm assuming so. It's tough to say. The the paperwork I got is a little unclear as to what the probable cause was. It cites reports that the Portland Police had received reports from people.... I mean, the truth is that Andy Ngo poached that footage from Elijah Schaefer. And they gave it directly to the Portland Police, who took it as evidence and snatched me up at the first opportunity. But, it might not have been that video that did it. It could have been something else they referenced. The paperwork isn't really clear on that. And in my case, is closed now, so I can talk about it all. But, it's tough to say really what it is precisely that got the cops to get me, but when they tackled me, this gaggle of bacon-backs, [Brooke and Alissa laugh] you know, and stomped me into the pavement and tried to tase me, but couldn't because I was wearing a bulletproof vest, they told me I was under arrest for assault. So, you know, I mean, but that's really all they're gonna tell you. The cops are not really well known for, for knowing things. Alissa 17:32 Yeah, I'll share as much as I can without, you know, like I said, before, my situation is ongoing and my trial's in April. So and it's, you know, it's not that I have anything to hide at all, but you know, we, we all know, here, how the State works and how they love us everything and anything against us. So yeah, as I mentioned earlier, the event that I was documenting and reporting on was a counter to the Proud Boys. And this was in September of 2021. So, it was during a time when things were really, really tense in the pacific northwest. This is after, you know, a lot of growing tension, a lot of escalated escalation from the fascists, you know, after being used to night after night at protests of them doing drive bys and throwing, you know, IEDs and pipe bombs at us and just, you know, just a bunch of shit that had been going on and in Portland and surrounding areas. So yeah, we were we were at a park. And also, I just want to disclaimer, my memory is like, pretty fucking shitty, especially since then. That day, I actually got punched in the head by A Proud Boy who's an MMA fighter and like four times my size, and I got a major concussion that I'm like still dealing with. And then also, trauma hasn't really been great for my memory. But yeah, we were all in a park. And the group of leftists who were there was not very large. I can't remember off the top of my head, how many people were there. But, compared to other events, it was a relatively small crowd. And up until the point that I'm about to get to, there was just a lot of like, back and forth, yelling and whatnot. And eventually, the Proud Boys got closer and closer. And the group of leftist somehow ended up being surrounded. There was basically a circle of Proud Boys just trying to intimidate everyone and up to this point, even when everyone was circled, they were still just standing there in an attempt to intimidate everybody,. Just trying to look tough. And what really kind of sparked things off is I remember I was kind of standing like in the middle of the circle and there was like a group of people in front of me who allegedly...I don't know if it's a flag that they had or if they stole it from the Fasc, but I believe that it was an American flag, and they set it on fire on the ground. Brooke 21:35 That's what that flags for. [Laughs] Alissa 21:39 And I was kneeling down filming and then it just like popped off so quick. As soon as they saw that the flag was on fire, they got so triggered. They came in and like pushed the people right in front of me and like, just, yeah, that's when kind of shit hit the fan....Like, fuck, where do I go from here? There's just so much that happened. Alex 22:07 You know, the reason they did that...I mean, I don't mean to interrupt your flow here, but they.... Alissa 22:11 No, go ahead. Alex 22:12 The reason they did that is because they have their own camera people. They've got all these amatuer, you know, right wing Grifters trying to sell footage, and also the Proud Boys and their ilk, they sell this footage to each other to get each other to join. So, they see Antifa burning a flag. And if no one retaliates, they all look weak. Alissa 22:38 Yeah, 100%. Alex 22:39 Yeah, so that's why they rushed y'all right there. You know? I mean, it's not a justification, but that's the deal. Alissa 22:46 Yeah, they definitely have a game plan for sure. And yeah, I just remember things being really chaotic. There's a lot of people that got injured that day. Yeah, at one point....I mean, before that, like, I was like walking around, filming, taking pictures. And like, I was just getting threats left and right. Like, for what? Like being a photographer?Like what? Like, yeah, this one lady kept being like, "You and me, we're going to tango." And it's so funny, because it's the lady who like, all the Right wingers and Andy Ngo, keep calling like an 'innocent bystander.' And she just kept, like following me, and she's like, "You and me, we're gonna tango." And I'm like, "Girl, I'm not here to fight anybody. Like, just leave me alone. Let me take my fucking picture." Things just. Yeah, things just got pretty crazy. Some of them were like, going after individuals to like, you know, attack them violently. Other people were going towards...It wasn't a gazebo, but there was like this covered area where a bunch of people had stuff at. I had some of my stuff there, too. I remember having like a charger and I think my phone was over there. And like, people were going over there like, some of the Fascists were going over there and like stealing signs and stealing people's shit and stuff. And yeah, it was just really bad. One of the last things I remember, like I said, I got punched in the head. I didn't faint or anything, but like, it was a really bad punch. And I stood up right away. And at that point, the cops had like, come in. And they declared it and unlawful assembly, I believe, Alex 24:45 After you got assaulted? Brooke 24:48 Of course, as they do. Alissa 24:51 Yeah, they declared it an unlawful assembly. It was really weird because the Leftist were trying to leave, like out of the park and go the way that the cops are telling them to go, because it was definitely not a situation where people could like stand their ground. Like, I think that was like the smart thing to do at the time. And I just remember, like, I was being escorted by a medic. And like, I think it was two medics actually holding me. I don't know, I couldn't really see much or like, whatever. But I just remember thinking like, "What the fuck is happening?" because, like, as we're trying to get out of there, and the cops were coming in declaring it an unlawful assembly, it wasn't any longer just the Proud Boys that everyone had had that confrontation with beforehand, like leading up to that moment. All of a sudden, there was this new group of Proud Boys, larger than the group that had already been there, all marching in together with like shields and weapons, like, coming towards us, like walking through the cops, walking with the cops. And it's just like, it was just like, the perfect example of like, "Cops and clan go hand in hand." And it was like they were coming towards the group together, even though they had just declared it unlawful. Like, these guys were still welcome to come in. And mind you, like, you know, most people were just like I said, they're just trying to get out of there. Or you know, there was also quite a few people who were hurt that day. So yeah, it was just it was chaotic in the worst way possible. Brooke 26:37 Yeah. And so then a few months go by, and I think you said it was a letter that came in the mail that let you know? Alissa 26:43 Yeah, I got a letter in the mail that said I was indicted. Alex 26:48 You're a crimer now. [Laughs] Alissa 26:54 [Starts] Sorry...I'm like, trying to separate my charges from like, my most recent, bullshit arrest. Alex 27:00 Oh, God, no, I can totally relate to that. Alissa 27:05 I'm being charged with Relony Riot, Unlawful Use of Tear Gas, and Disorderly Conduct. Alex 27:15 Tear gas? Like 'you're' deploying tear gas? Alissa 27:18 And the best part about it is like my uterus is literally beyond fucked up because of the frequent exposure to the State's deployment of tear gas.... Alex 27:29 [Interuptiing] Yeah, that's right. I totally forgot about that. That's like a thing. Alissa 27:35 Oh, it's definitely a thing. I know multiple people who...[trails off] Yeah, I'm the bad guy here. Brooke 27:44 Okay, So after you get this letter in the mail, I assume it's telling you have to appear at some point, probably or something like that? Yeah? Alissa 27:52 Yeah. Brooke 27:53 And so then you didn't you know, didn't have to go to jail. You didn't have to post bail for that. But they did. You just got picked up by the police, right? They pulled you in and harassed you a time or two. Do you feel like talking about that? Can you talk about that? Alissa 28:06 Yeah, you're talking about the most recent arrest? Brooke 28:14 Yes. Alissa 28:18 So yeah, that. Let's see, I'm like "What is time?" That happened probably like just under a month ago. It was the day after Christmas. And I was pulling in to park in front of my place. And the second I parked, I see this white SUV. it didn't look like a police vehicle. It was just a white SUV. It was coming towards me from the opposite direction. And as soon as I was opening my door, it stopped and parked right next to my car. The sirens go on. And then at that point, there was an additional four to five cop cars that were parked on the side of the street. All undercover vehicles. Alex 29:14 [Exclaiming in incredulity] Four to five?! Alissa 29:16 Yeah, yeah. And all of their sirens and their lights turned on. And I was super confused. I have no idea what this could be about. So yeah, they...[trails off] I'm like, how into detail do I go? Again, this is also like an ongoing thing. This is very recent. So... Brooke 29:16 Yeah, I'm more just looking for like, what the experience of being you know, arrested was like, you know, like, I feel like if I was in that moment, I would be like, "Are they coming from the guy next to me? Is there someone over there?" because it would be hard to believe that that many police had shown up for a little old me Alex 30:00 [Joking] You warrant that sort of turnout. I mean, come on. Wow. Alissa 30:04 For sure. It was very bizarre. At the moment, I was kind of like, I would say I was mainly just really fucking confused. Especially because they would not tell me why I was like...First I was like, "Am I being pulled over? Like, what's going on?" And then they had me get out of the car. They wouldn't tell me anything. It felt like I was being kidnapped, which I was kidnapped. And, you know, I went to the precinct. Still did not tell me like what was going on. They said that they wanted to question me. I said, "Lawyer." The questioning never happened. They didn't like that. [laughs] It wasn't until after....so we went to the precinct and then they took me to the Justice Center. It wasn't until after I was booked that I even found out what my charges are, which got changed like a million times. But yeah, it was really scary. Because that was almost a full day. Because when I when they picked me up, it was quite early in the morning. And that whole day, I didn't know, why I was in there. I didn't know anything. I just knew that they had me and they have the power to do whatever the fuck they want. So I was terrified. I, you know, I was like, I have no way to like, contact anyone and tell them what's going on. It was like, you know, my partner is probably trying to reach me, and is like, "What the fuck is happening?" Yeah, again, like, a very mixed bag of emotions and feelings. But yeah, that type of stuff is really scary. Especially when, you know, let's be realistic, when you're in that kind of situation we don't really have any power to do anything. And it fucking sucks, feeling so helpless and hopeless. And you know, they know that. Yeah, yeah. Like where do I start? Alex 32:10 I gotta tell you that, the story of that arrest there. That's worse than I thought it was going to be. I wasn't anticipating it to be quite so persistently merciless. I mean, they can just detain you and not tell you shit. But, a lot of the time, you know, they don't hang on to you for the whole day and never say anything to you. I mean, because the other thing is that cops cops are cruel. But, also they're like, apathetic, you know, like some, some ass wipe pig is going to say something to you, you know, or someone who's just working a desk that day is just going to be like, "Oh, here," you know, and say whatever. Yeah, and it's wild to me that, um, that they were so dedicated to keeping you in the dark that day, the whole day. Yeah, it's intense. It's worse than I thought it was Alex 33:06 Yeah, it's bad. Brooke 33:09 So, again, I'm interested in the in the contrast here, because Alex, if you want to talk about, you know, you were arrested that day, we started talking about that. So you kind of knew why you were being arrested. But, then you also got booked and I actually don't know if you've spent some jail time right then or if you got out sooner or what happened. But if you want to tell yours? Alex 33:35 Fucking Cops. Alex 33:35 Yeah, yeah, the story of what happened to me on the on the day. That was the day. They didn't really seem all that interested in me, actually. I mean, they kicked my ass a little bit, of course, like they do. Like the arrest was like six officers and they like stepped on my fingers and tried to tase me and got frustrated when they couldn't and then, you know, knelt on my head and stuff. And I was like, "What am I under arrest for?" And they answered me with one word, and they just went "Assault" and I went, "Who?" because you know, I mean, it had been a busy day. So, they took me in that day, and I was stuck in holding. I never actually made it to jail proper, you know, I just sat. When they took me to the station, they stripped me down completely to my underwear. They put me in a paper jumpsuit. Oh, yeah, they got me. Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, they saw they saw at all. I have a bunch of boyfriends down at the police station. Alex 33:44 No, no, no, no, it didn't go down like that, I promise. But they stuck me in a cell. They left those plastic fucking cuffs on me honestly. Well, you know if I'm starting from the beginning, honestly, the first thing that happened was they they threw me in paddy wagon and let me sit in there for, I don't know, an hour and a half, maybe. And they through a woman in the room next to me, because you know, those are side by sides. It's like two long horse stalls next to each other. And you can't see into the other one. But there are these vents, these corrugated vents, you know. So there's air exchange, and you can hear everything, but you can't see. And there's someone in there who's crying and screaming in pain. I mean. Alissa 35:31 Oh my God. Alex 35:32 Oh, yeah. Like somebody was hurt, you know? So, I started talking to her, and I was like, "Hey, hey, what's happened to you?" You know, and she was like, "My shoulder. My shoulder is broken." Alissa 35:46 Oh, my God Alex 35:47 I was like, "Are you sure it's broken?" And she was like, "Yes." And I was like, "Did the police do it to you?" And she said, "Yes". And I was like, "Do they have you in cuffs?" And she was like, "Yes." And I was like, "Okay." Um, so I just started talking to her, you know. I told her my name, and I just started to talk to her, you know, and I was like, "Look, they're gonna take us somewhere, and you're, you're probably going to get medical attention. But I mean, they might not give it to you." So I was like, "The thing you got to do is stay calm and just breathe, you know, because the pain is not going to stop, but you can manage it. So you got to breathe." So we sat there, and we breathed. And we drove eventually, I mean, after a long, long time, but she was in a ton of pain. And later I reconnected with her after a long time, nine months or something. And it turned out to be...Well, well, I don't know that I have her permission to talk about her. But she made a name for herself twerking on the streets. She was twerking on the streets that day. And, you know, I doubt I doubt she would mind being brought up here, but I don't have her explicit permission. So, you know. And she said, she'd been looking for me. She was like, "I didn't know that was you that was talking to me." And when we pulled over into the police station, I started yelling at the cost. "I was like, You need to get her out of here and get her help. She's hurt." And they just left her in there. They took me out and they processed me right away. And they just left her in there. And she's in there. Like, I mean, practically screaming still, you know, she was a lot of pain. It was it was terrible. And we'd been sitting in there for over an hour. Yeah, and then I couldn't feel my thumbs for a couple of days after that ride because they didn't take the cuffs off. They didn't take my cuffs off even after they brought me into the building and processed me and stripped me down. They left those fucking cuffs on me. They took them off, they put them back on and then they stuck me in a freezing cold concrete room in a paper jumpsuit. And Detective Clifton came in and asked me for my side of the story, and I said "Lawyer." But actually what I told him that I wanted to wait for my attorney, and then he came in later with some other cop who was really rude to me. And then Clifton came back and spoke to me again and he was really nice. And I was like, "Oh, so you're good cop, right?" They didn't come back to talk to me again after that. Brooke 35:57 Yeah, of course. Alex 36:19 Call them out. Brooke 37:56 So, you were in the holding you said for the whole day... Alex 38:28 I was. I was there until the night time yet. Brooke 38:42 Okay, and then did you get out after that? Or did they then move you over into jail or? Alex 38:51 I walked out on OR, our I walked out on my Own Recognizance that day. They stomped my ass into the street. They put me in a paper jumpsuit. They zip tied me and then they and they immediately lost my shoes. Like when they let me out, they kept my clothes because my clothes were evidence you see. Yeah, I mean, I just think they liked the way I smelled. But they kept my clothes. They lost my shoes and then they turned me loose. My roommate at the time, he came to get me and I was dressed like an extra from Miami Vice. I had these giant like two big pants on, like jeans and this huge like vaporwave Hawaiian shirt, and and these orange prison crocs. You know they give you these like foam sandals to wear when you're in jail. I still have those. Yeah, I use them to I use them when I shovel shit out of the barn. They're perfect. Brooke 39:56 Well, I have a person close to me who has been arrested many times comes in and pretty much every time there's some piece of something that was on him: clothing, shoes, something that was in a pocket, whatever, goes missing. Alissa 40:09 So weird. For me it was cash. Brooke 40:13 Oh. Weird. Alex 40:14 I got my cash back. I had like 30 bucks or something. I got that back. Alissa 40:19 You know what's fucked up too is some comments helped host a fundraiser for me like, a few weeks before my arrest for my legal fees for my trial that's coming up in April. And I had around 2k in cash. And i didn't realize this till recently, because I was searching every single space, and every single like drawer, and just wanted to make sure, but yeah, they when they raided my house they took all of that cash. Brooke 41:00 That is the thing that they will do. Alissa 41:02 Here's the thing, though. They didn't...It's not listed on the evidence. They stole it. Alex 41:07 Oh, that's what you call, that's what you call stealing. Alissa 41:09 They actually actually stole that cash, along with intentionally destroying my camera and equipment. Alex 41:16 That's the old piggie discount. You know, now that I'm thinking about that day in particular, I'm recalling that, my partner just reminded me, that at first, the cops had said to my roommates that I was being held, and they were like, talking about, like, $3,000 bail or something, like a bunch of money to get me out, but here's the thing, when they were having that conversation with them, I was already out and I was waiting to get picked up. I was just out there waiting for... But I had no phone and no money, you know, so I was just sitting there, but the cops were like, just wrong. Like either they're full of shit, or they're incompetent. Either way. So, it's like. Alissa 42:02 I mean both are true. Alex 42:06 I'm standing out there in like, you know, my prison Crocs and my shitty clothes, but I still have those clothes too. Why would I throw them away? Brooke 42:16 We should auction them off for Alissa's legal fees. Alex 42:21 God, you know, I mean, if anybody's a size 49 in pants, and a medium in shirts then absolutely. Alissa 42:31 Wow. Brooke 42:33 Excellent. Alex 42:33 Gotta love them. Brooke 42:35 You know, Alex, do I remember correctly though, that you did have to post bail at some point? Alex 42:39 See, here's the thing, when they released me on OR, the day of, they let me out that night, right. And it was like my charges were bullshit. I had like Attempted Assault II and Disorderly Conduct, or something like that. They were buccus , charges, nonsense charges, right. And I don't have a criminal record. So, they were just like, "Okay, bye." And I walked out. And then later, just before I was going to be arraigned. I got, like right before my arraignment, and this is a bit of a jump forward in this story, because a couple other weird things happened with the police like just coming to my house and unmarked cars and stuff like that. Alissa 43:25 Yeah Alex 43:26 Yeah, it was real weird. You know, Alissa, the story you told me it kind of rings a bell. But, I got a call from my public defender at the time, who, this was the night before my arraignment about a month after my first arrest. And he was like, "Hey, your charges have been altered. And some of them have been amplified, and you have new charges." And I was like, "Okay,

Episode Summary Brooke, Casandra, and Margaret talk about the war in Ukraine and how Russia is not doing great, the train derailment in East Palestine, anti trans bills, Adderall shortages and meth, the return of Big Chicken, long covid as potential auto immune disease, further bans on abortion drugs, drought, floods, earthquakes and the US's top priority: shooting million dollar missiles at balloons. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Casandra is just great and can be found at Strangers doing awesome layouts, and Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode A special episode will come out next week on March 17th on Surviving the Justice System. Transcript This Month in the Apocalypse: Feb. 2023 Brooke 00:15 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. This is the February-March installment of our segment, This Month in the Apocalypse and I'm calling it the February-March episode because we're recording in February and we're talking about February but you're going to be listening to it in March, most likely. I'm Brooke Jackson, and with me today, as usual are the quick thinking Casandra and the fast acting Margaret Killjoy. Casandra 00:38 I don't know if that's accurate. Margaret 00:42 Or at least fast talking sometimes, especially when I'm hyper. And today I'm hyper Casandra 00:46 half of what I'm going to talk about today is brain fog and how it impacts me. Brooke 00:51 Nice. Well, before we get into today's episode, we'd like to share a little something something from another one of the swiftly streaming podcasts on the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts. Casandra 01:17 And we're back. Cas, Margaret, how are you feeling today? Casandra 01:51 I just had my first sip of tea. Margaret 01:55 I have been doom scrolling so hard that I didn't sleep last night because of all the anti trans legislation. So I didn't sleep enough and then I ate a protein cookie and pretended like it was food. So I'm great. Casandra 02:07 And you don't do caffeine at all. Not even tea. Margaret 02:09 No, yeah, a bunch of sugar and protein in a cookie form is my equivalent of like making me immediately hyper. Casandra 02:18 Alright. Margaret 02:19 Because I don't fuck with caffeine. I'm straight edge, except for alcohol. Brooke 02:24 Well good, you should take all that energy and tell us some things. Margaret 02:29 Oh, okay, right. I'm first. Okay, February has been a big month for the apocalypse. The Apocalypse is coming in hard with a bunch of mostly really bad shit. I think that the biggest story, or whatever, the earthquake that happened in Turkey and Syria was really fucking bad. Everyone probably already knows this. As of when I'm recording it, the death toll stands at about 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Those numbers are still expected to go up. And a lot of it has to do with poverty and with buildings that are not built to withstand earthquakes. This is happening in a poor region. And that is absolutely affecting everything. I don't have as much information about that to relay, but I just feel like it's like the single most...like now I'm going to talk about the fucking balloons and I hate the fucking balloons. And I want people to know that like the earthquake is more important. But on February 14th, I think, I don't remember, I wrote on February 14, but you think I'd remember that was Valentine's Day. A surveillance balloon, there's a Chinese balloon and the US shot it down. It was a really actually big balloon and it probably included some surveillance equipment. China was like, "It's civilian." The US is like, "No, it was military." I'm not stressed about it because I expect the US government is surveilling me and I don't really give a shit if some other country...whatever, I don't fucking care. It may have been capturing cell transmissions and shit over the US. But then, of course, this sets off this like massive paranoia, where everyone's like, "Balloons are trying to get us. Those Chinese balloons." And the US like scrambled.... Brooke 04:20 I always knew it was going to be balloons. I've always said it, the balloons are coming for us. Casandra 04:22 Doomsday mechanism. Margaret 04:26 I mean... Brooke 04:27 it's the balloons. Clearly. Margaret 04:30 They are creepy. Actually. This is funny, my my dad is phobic of hot air balloons. I'm sorry to reveal this about you, dad. And because he was always like, "No, they're just there. They're on the horizon. They're creepy." Like he's not afraid of being in that. He's afraid of them like on the horizon. Casandra 04:46 One of my most traumatizing childhood moments was this hot air balloon show was like going over the neighborhood and I was spinning in circles staring upward watching them as one does and forgot that my mom had a whole like row of rose bushes. And then spent the whole afternoon having like rose thorns picked out of my ass. So, that's all to say that I don't think your dad's insane. Margaret 05:10 Yeah, so the US government scrambled a bunch of fighter jets to shoot down a whole bunch of other balloons, all of which, like the government is like, "We do not believe that they are surveillance balloons, but we don't know." And the reason that they're saying we don't know is because, well one they obliterated tiny balloons with missiles. So there's like, not a lot left. There's like like half a million dollar missiles being shot at these fucking things, one of which missed. They missed a fucking balloon over Lake Huron, and then it like, fell into the lake. And they're like, "No one was harmed." And I'm like, great, I feel so fucking good that the government is shooting missiles at the US. That makes sense. And so probably those balloons are like amateur weather balloons, like people like do this, where you're like, I'm gonna get a balloon and like, put a bunch of equipment on it and send it up into the sky. And it's cool, right? And because you can like see the stuff. And so fortunately, the US government is there to protect us against amateur weather and radio fans. Brooke 06:11 You know, you know, our friends over that other podcast have been saying we should nuke the Great Lakes. So I think this was just a trial run to... Margaret 06:20 Fuck, Robert Evans is like actually the one that got them to shoot missiles. Casandra 06:24 Cancel Robert Evans. Margaret 06:25 Yep. All right. Yeah. Or he's a prophet. Brooke 06:32 That's what I was gonna say, Margaret 06:34 Speaking of Prophets, but actually, in both mench versions of that word, there was a massive disaster on February 3, in East Palestine [rhymes with Springsteen], Ohio, because it's not pronounced Palestine [rhymes with Stein], in which a train carrying a bunch of toxic shit had overheated wheel bearings, and derailed. It passed like a bunch of sensors that were like, detect overheated stuff. And then like on the last one, it was like, "Hey, you're overheating," and then it crashed. This overturned 11 Toxic cars at a...a bunch of more cars overturned, but 11 of them were full of toxic chemicals, including vinyl chloride, but also a bunch of other shit. 115,000 gallons of vinyl chloride, were let loose. And then they were like, "Slright, well, we better set the shutter on fire," I'm not actually even going to like talk shit on the fact that they set on fire. It might have been the best thing that they could do in that circumstances. There is a lot of stuff that is implying that the government and you know, Norfolk Southern and all that are like downplaying the degree to this disaster. It is a massive disaster, it is a big fucking deal. And the people involved should be held accountable. And there's like, all kinds of stuff about how a lot of the deregulation and of course, you know, the fact doesn't help that Biden like stopped a railroad strike for better safety conditions, because that's mostly huge part of what people are striking for. And they absolutely are like, the numbers are trending upwards. They're like, "It's not a big deal." And they were like, "Hey, there's a bunch of dead fish." And people were like, "There are 4000 dead fish." And they had a very specific number. It might not have been that number was like 300, 800, 3,850, or something. As of this morning, when I double checked, they're up to 43,000 dead aquatic animals. That's 10 times the previous claim. I understand why people are skeptical of these claims. They're probably not forever chemicals. These are the sorts of chemicals that will break down. However, no one knows the long term effects of the exposure that people have already had to these chemicals. And it's fucked up. Norfolk Southern stock has dropped, but not as precipitously as you would might like. It's not even as low as it was last October, just like took a dip. So buy the dip, everyone go out and buy....don't do this. Don't go out and buy stock. Okay, that's what I know about that. Other people might know more about it. Casandra 08:56 Oh, I was just gonna say that.... Margaret 08:57 Next. Okay go ahead. Casandra 08:58 I was just gonan say that the EPA seemed pretty like, firm with them, which I appreciated. It wasn't the response I expected. Oh, were you wagging your finger at me? Or like...they were like. Brooke 09:12 I was being the EPA. Yeah. Because we're in a point of visual medium here, right with a podcast. So, everyone can see me doing that. Casandra 09:19 I watched the recording and the guy was like, "If y'all don't do this up to our standards, we will do it and then bill you and not just like, you'll get the bill, but we'll bill you a certain number of times the amount that it actually cost us as a penalty." Yeah, it's something I don't know. Margaret 09:37 I mean, that's good. Yeah. Oh and then the other thing, when I when I lead with the transition of Prophets in both sense of the word. About a week before this disaster, I watched the Netflix movie "White Noise" based on the 1980s novel called "White Noise," in which a toxic chemical train spill it In East Palestine, Ohio happens and fucks everything up. And it fucks with my head, just straight up. It fucks with my head that I watched a movie about a natural disaster and then... not a natural disaster, a manmade disaster. And then a week later, it happened in the same town of 5000 Fucking people. Or 4000 people. Casandra 10:20 Maybe, you're not a prophet, maybe actually. Your brain just determines all of reality. Margaret 10:29 Oh, no, I'm not a prophet. No, no, no, no, I don't think this is me. Casandra 10:31 I think that what happens in your head is then what happens in the outside world. That's more plausible. Brooke 10:39 Yeah, that seems right. Casandra 10:40 So, don't think anything.... Margaret 10:42 This is a really good thing to tell someone who lives alone. Brooke 10:46 I mean, it clearly anyone who reaches a certain level of podcasting, fame then develops a power to cause things to happen. Yeah, that's what we're saying here. Margaret 10:57 Good to know. And then everyone lived in a happy anarchist society for all times in which everyone was equal, except Margaret was a little bit more equal and got like twice as much tea in the morning. Casandra 11:06 You don't like tea. We just went over this. Margaret 11:10 Yeah, well, I shouldn't have more of something I want. That would be fucked up. Casandra 11:14 This is the like weirdest Catholic version of anarchist Utopia I've ever heard of. Margaret 11:23 Hi, I'm Margaret Killjoy. Alright, so it's speaking of other bad shit that happened this year, or actually, well, okay. The thing that happened in February is is the one year anniversary of the Ukraine war. As currently stands, it's fallen out of the news, which means that no one is dying anymore, and everything is fine. Except that... Brooke 11:47 PBS still does it. So to just throw a tiny amount of credit over there. But yeah... Margaret 11:54 Yeah, well actually it's funny because people will talk mad shit about mainstream news and for good reason. But like, overall, I think mainstream news is a little bit better of a job than like Twitter at like, staying attached to stories over time, rather than just like chasing the clicks, which is fucking saying something because that is what mainstream news was notoriously bad at. I just think social media is even worse at it. On the other hand, it's not the job of the random Twitter person to....Okay, so, the Ukraine war is largely out of stalemate. As stands Russia holds 17% of Ukraine, an area twice the size of Italy. It's less than they controlled at the beginning of the war by a decent amount, and specifically, almost all their holdings are in the east. And it's been like slowly being chipped away at overall is kind of the general thing. Most foreign fighters left after a few months, it went down, there's 20,000 foreign fighters, mostly like vets of various other countries who are like, "Well fuck an invasion." And a lot of people were like, I think actually a lot of people were like, "Well, I fought in all of these like evil US wars, because they have like worked for the US government. Here's a just war," and people went like chasing a just war, right. It's down from about 20,000 foreign fighters to 2000 foreign fighters as the war drags on. China is calling for peace talks right now. And more might have happened by the time you hear this, like this is like news from yesterday and today, and their position is...like I mean overall they're trying to present themselves as neutral, but like overall they're like, "This is a war of Western aggression." You know? "This is a war of you know a Ukraine shouldn't dress like that if it didn't want to get attacked." They've four times abstained....Thank you for laughing at my off color joke. And yeah, I mean, because that is what it comes down to this idea of like, we had to invade you because you are getting too close to our borders with your power or whatever. Like, you can't fucking justify invading another country for that reason. Casandra 14:03 They're opposing US imperialism, Margaret. Margaret 14:06 Yeah, they do. Casandra 14:07 NATO! Margaret 14:10 Yeah. Yeah. And that's China's position. They're with the US tankies. Or rather US tankies are with them. They have four times abstained from voting in the UN votes to ask Russia to withdraw its troops it's possible also that China's like trying to get in....and this is like everyone. This is the actual imperialism from my point of view about all this is everyone calling for these peace talks a lot of it is that they're like they want in on the economic reconstruction aka they want like their economic interest in the capitalism to to do their thing just to China it's slightly more state capitalism in the US it's slightly more.. Casandra 14:46 China's not capitalist Margaret What are you talking about? Margaret 14:48 Oh, right. Sorry. I Forgot. They want to bring their peoples army... and I Love that It's like the tankies pretending that Russia is fucking commie...anyway. The number of Russian soldiers Ukraine is killing is going up, which, you know, whatever, fuck them. 824 Such Russian soldiers a day are dying in Ukraine in February, which is the highest rate since the invasion started. Between 180,000 and 270,000 Russians have died in the war in the past year. And for comparison, Russia is this huge place. And we think about like how Russia just like, bled people during World War II, you know. Russia is only half the population of the United States. And so this is...so when you think about percentage wise, if you think about, it's like, you know, the equivalent of half a million people dying in one year in a dumb fucking war. About 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died. They claim that 13,000 of their soldiers have died. Vaguely neutral observers from the outside of claims that 100,000 have died, which is like, their, their like, kill rate, oh, God, I'm not even going to pretend to put this in video game terms. That's fucked up. And also another 30,000 or so civilians, Ukrainian civilians have died. Like directly, tons more displace. Everything's fucked up. It's war. I haven't been able to get a recent number for the total number of arrests in Russia. But, it's like worth really understanding how much a lot of Russians do fucking not want this to happen. There were 15,000 people arrested protesting against the war and like the first month of the war alone, and there's thousands more at various other times, but I wasn't able to find a total count. And, you know, in case anyone needs any reminding that nationalism is garbage. between half a million and a million Russians have fled, rather than be conscripted and fight in this stupid fucking bullshit. And 200 or so Russians are actively fighting for Ukraine. There is no out good outside guests. That is a guess from one of these Russian fighters. And they all have different reasons. I am aware of their being Russian anarchists. I was not able to find more information about that. Most of the anarchists that I know from other countries I think are more involved in directing solidarity goods, except for Belarus.. A lot of anarchists fighters in Ukraine. Anyway, of the 200 or so fighters, the the one I was able to find the specific motive for he's is doing as his Christian duty to stop invasions. And let's see, okay, almost done with the Russian war thing. Dutch intelligence reports that Russia is mapping power and gas infrastructure in the North Sea for potential attack. This came out like yesterday. So who knows what will happen with that. And then it's also kind of worth knowing there's like all of these, like anti war rallies happening around the war around the world. And most of them are like about trying to stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine, right? They're like, "Hey, this war is fucked up, aka Russia is fucked up." But in the US, we get a different kind of anti war movement, we get an anti war movement that's a weird collection of tankies and Nazis... Casandra 18:20 Margaret, that never happened! Margaret 18:21 ...coming together like a Molotov-Ribbontrop Pact to say stop the war machine. Casandra 18:28 Stalin is the whole reason..... Margaret 18:34 Yeah, no, I know. Casandra 18:38 The reason the Nazis were defeated soley was because of Stalin, therefore, you know, the Soviet Union never never ever could have allied with the Nazis, even though we have historical records that it did blah, blah. Margaret 18:53 Yeah, like at the beginning, Russia was like, "Hey, allies, can we hang out with you, Germany's looking real weird." And the allies were like, "I'm not sure." And so then Russia was like or USSR was like, "Hey, Nazis, can we hang out with you? We know bad shits about to happen," and they were like, "Yeah, but totally," and the USSR sent them tons of aid, just literal material, tons of aid. And collectively, they mapped out which countries they were going to invade together and they invaded Poland together...It's Poland. Am I getting that right? And then, Germany was like "JK, surprise attack." And then the USSR was like, "Okay, we're against you." And then fucking millions of Russians died to defeat the Nazis and that needs to be understood and respected. But like Stalin was like making them...there's like, reports from survivors...This is totally what this episode is about. There's like reports from survivors who were like forced to charge Nazi tanks bare handed. And so like, the high numbers of Russian dead wasn't because Stalin ruled. The high numbers is because Stalin fucking sucks. Anyway. Casandra 20:08 And there's also the whole like, the line that like the USSR saved with the Jews or whatever, when, which was just like totally. Anyway, we won't talk about how Jews were treated in the USSR. Margaret 20:23 When they signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact....Yeah. Anyway, USSR is not modern Russia, but there's an anti war movement. So that's okay. That's Ukraine. Now, the trans laws, the thing that has me up all night. Yesterday, I believe the Tennessee House passed a bill. And now this was misrepresented. And I accidentally misrepresented this too, because I trusted a Twitterer who trusted a news article from a mainstream source that, okay, a Tennessee House did pass this bill. And by the time you're listening to this, probably their fucking Senate and Governor have signed off on it. But the article was like, "And now it goes up to the governor." It doesn't it goes to the Senate first. And a lot of really shitty laws passed the House, but not the Senate in like, any given place. So there's like, still hope. But I'm not full of fucking hope because a lot of these types of laws are passing right now. The type of law I'm talking about, this is an anti drag law. And these anti drag laws are similar ones proposed around the country and all the details are a little bit different. But the overall idea is that if anyone who is a male or female impersonator, AKA a crossdresser, aka, me living my fucking life, or a drag performer, if they perform, and if it's like, in any way, like...some places it's just like literally if they perform, or exist in public, and another one's the Tennessee laws a little bit like, and they perform in a way that has any kind of like, sexual titillation, or whatever then that has to be the venue that is now a strip club legally, or like, needs to be a like 18+ adult entertainment, cabaret or whatever the fuck Casandra 22:15 Like who's deciding if something's sexual? Margaret 22:19 Uh huh. And it is. First cops, then judges, Two groups I trust to the bottom of my....nothing. Margaret 22:35 Or the parents who call the cops. Brooke 22:41 Don't forget about he mob. Margaret 22:42 Yeah, no, totally. They're the first step in it. So that is the literal criminal criminalization of being trans in public. Casandra 22:45 Yeah, there are nine anti trans laws on the books right now in Oregon. Yeah. Margaret 22:52 Yeah. There's 14 other states with similar anti drag laws in the works, including Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, and Idaho. And I just didn't find the full list, I found people like a couple different places giving like short versions of the list. South Dakota did just pass a law like not just the house or whatever, but like it's fucking signed, that forces trans youth to detransition. And Utah passed a law against trans youth also, very recently, or against allowing trans youth to transition. But, I don't believe it forcibly detransitioned. I believe that this one in South Dakota is the first one to force detransition, which from my point of view, pretty much means that trans...families with trans children who can't afford to move are going to have their trans kids run away or kill themselves. Just like, frankly, I am not recommending. I am recommending if you're a trans youth to in a place that is affected by this to get in touch with community to try and help you and your family get out of that situation. That is what I'm directly recommending. But, the the reason that doctors believe in gender affirming care for trans youth is that it lowers the rates of death substantially. Oklahoma is currently considering a bill to ban gender affirming care to adults, anyone under the age of 26. Brooke 24:22 Fucking Oklahoma. Casandra 24:22 I can't remember which bill i was reading, but I was reading about one that was worded in such a way where gender affirming care also ended up including things like hormones for ciswomen dealing with menopause, like it was so broad sweeping that like, I just don't think people consider the broader implications. You know what I mean? Margaret 24:41 I don't know whether this one was that one, but I...it wouldn't surprise me and I feel like people pass laws like that all the time. And then just like, no one's going to actually stop cis women from accessing hormones from menopause, you know, or like, you know, people dealing with prostate cancer often take hormones and you know, testosterone blockers and things like that, and like...All the shit is overbroad, like crazy, but not in a way where I feel like oh, it's overbroad, and it gets struck down like no, it's gonna get targetedly used against trans people against, the Left. And 5% of US people in the US who are under the age of 25 identify as trans or like nonbinary in some way, compared to point .5% of the rest of the population as a whole. And I would like to...don't make me tap of the sign of the that graph of chart of left handedness as a chart of left handedness. Like once they stopeed. Once they started letting people be left handed, it goes up and caps itself, you know. And every major medical association in America recognizes that gender affirming care for youth saves lives. That is not a...I assume everyone listening to this already knows the shit, but it's like worth fucking knowing. This is not a like, medically contested issue. You know, this is like, and I'm not like, "Man, you know, who I trust immediately, the medical institution, they always have our backs." But, they do in this case, because they're not fucking... Oh, God. That's what I've got to talk about this week. Brooke 26:20 Jon Stewart did a good piece that was on gender affirming care that maybe everyone's already seen, because it was a little while ago, but was, you know, citing those...Just what you're exactly what you're saying, Margaret about every every major medical organization in the US. Margaret 26:38 And honestly has been one of the only cispeople I've seen talking about it in public. The silence from cispeople has been deafening. And if your cis and listening to this, I'm hoping that if you've been silent about it, I'm hoping that the reason you've been silent about it, is because you're afraid of taking up too much of the conversation. Because we do have this way of talking about social issues right now, where people are afraid to talk about issues that don't directly affect them. And I think that that is a misstep. And that it will take cis people talking about this angrily, before anything will change. Because, when it's just trans people, and sometimes their immediate families who are showing up to protest, everyone's going to be like, "Well, fuck those pedo whatever," fuck, whatever. Fucking bullshit, you know. So from my point of view, part of the reason this keeps me up at night is not because the Nazis want to kill me, they've wanted to kill me for a long time, they've sent me letters to this effect, with like, my parents address in it, you know, it's that when I don't feel supported, is when I feel the most lost about all of this stuff, just frankly. And so sometimes like that support is like, like, "Margaret's guide to being supportive to your trans friends," is like, like, sometimes, like random people messaging me to be like, "I see you, you're valid." I'm like, that's great. I don't I don't need that from strangers. What I need from strangers is for people to talk to the people, they're around and say shit about this, you know, I have a, I know I'm valid. I have a supportive family. And I have a supportive network of friends and all of that, you know? Yeah, sorry, this is...I mean, all of these things that we're going to talk about are big deals. But you know, this one affects me very directly. Brooke 28:45 Oh, no, I appreciate you saying more about it, because I was gonna ask follow up questions about like, you know, showing support and good ways to do that. So thanks for talking about that. Margaret 28:55 Be fucking angry. Like, you know, and it's like, and this stuff like, it's also all part of misogyny. Like, because people want to control people's bodies. And so transmen are affected by this because they're, like, leaving womanhood behind and that's bad or whatever. And then of course, transwomen are like, the reason that people don't want us to exist is a weird protect the women thing, right? And so like, when cis women are loudly like, "No, I would rather have this transwoman in the bathroom with me then like I don't know someone who's like peeking under stalls to make sure no one has a penis." Like people being loud about that kind of support. There's this brilliant video of thus person who I believe is a cis woman who's like getting gender policed by a Karen in a bathroom. Casandra 29:47 I saw that Margaret 29:48 And refuses to answer whether or not she has a dick. Yeah, it fucking...that gives me hope. So, I like. Casandra 30:00 That's like reverse Karen. Brooke 30:02 I just bookmarked that so I can watch it after Casandra 30:05 We should start a Nazis know our parents' address club. Margaret 30:17 And then like...it's funny I try not to talk too much about my family on this podcast, I guess, but then again the Nazis already know where they live. Like my dad's fucking ex marine with anger management issue who loves this trans daughter? How's do they think this is gonnna go? Casandra 30:35 I mean, my situation, my parent's would've been like "Whatever." Margaret 30:41 Yeah, okay, fair. I'm sorry. Casandra 30:43 Okay, who's next? Brooke 30:48 Okay. Can we talk about happier things? Margaret 30:54 What podcast are on? Casandra 30:57 I genuinely can't remember who's next. Is it you, Brooke? Brooke 31:03 Allegedly. Although, if it's something you have segues better for, I'm all for it. I had a good segue from the war thing. But then we then we start talking about the trans issue and I don't know where to go from there. Casandra 31:13 I think the world is shit. There are lots of them. They're diverse, shitty things to talk about, you know? Margaret 31:18 Well, and even the war thing, it's like, you know, what, Ukraine is fucking holding on a year later. That is a fucking positive story. It is a terrible, horrible story. But they're still fucking there. You know, like people thought Ukraine wasn't going to be a country by last summer. Brooke 31:36 That's a really good point. Well, speaking of war, wars, the war on drugs. Drugs. Adderall. I did it you're welcome. We did a, I think our August episode or something like that we did a roundup on like shortages, things that were in shortages. And I know we talked about Adderall at one point and being in shortage and why. And that started like last summer sometime I think August or so it was when people started talking about it. The FDA or DEA, I can't remember which one it was that came out with the announcement. I think the the FDA came out like late October and said, "Hey, we have an Adderall shortage." And everyone said, "We fucking know we've been dealing with with this for two or three months now." And it's gotten worse than it's been in the news again, recently, because of just how much worse it has gotten. We talked about it previously, we talked about some of the reasons why the shortage was happening. And part of it is a production issue. It's a very controlled substance. So, it's not like manufacturers can just start pumping out a whole bunch more. And not just like the creation of the Adderall. But the ingredients that go into it are controlled substances as well, so they can only make so much of that. Allegedly, there's enough supply of the base ingredients that we shouldn't have this shortage. So.... Casandra 33:10 Sorry, I'm stupid about Adderall, is it it because meth. Is that the....? Okay, sorry. Brooke 33:18 That's where I'm going with this, but yeah, that's that is that. That is part of the reason it's such a controlled substance, because Amphetamine is, you know, main ingredient, it's it's people often refer to Adderall as being, you know, legal meth, or prescribed meth. Casandra 33:33 I know nothing. Wow. That's wild. Brooke 33:42 So, there have been some reports of folks that haven't been able to get their Adderall and have, in fact, turned to meth in order to get the substance they need, and there's not a good sense of how like widespread this is, versus, you know, a couple of instances that hit the news, you know, there's at least one story of somebody who died in an ER, because of meth. And they said they were taking the math because they couldn't get their Adderall prescription. And, you know, meth, you know, historically causes no problems to the brain and doesn't make people say things that are wacky and untrue. So we can trust that story. But, that's what's happening. But, the fun conspiracy theorh where I'm going with this that's floating around is that the government is purposely restricting the manufacture of Adderall to force people to turn to meth to perpetuate the war on drugs. So there you go. Conspiracy theories are fun. Margaret 34:43 Wait, So this is a new conspiracy. Okay. How the balloons tie in? Casandra 34:48 Yeah. Margaret 34:49 Is that where moving it? They're getting the Adderall out of the country? Casandra 34:52 They're delivering it. If we would have let them come in farther, they would have just released it because everyone wants Adderall. Margaret 34:58 Oh, yeah. That's sort of true...the part where everyone wants Adderal. Casandra 35:03 I do not. Margaret 35:06 Yeah. No, I don't want Adderall. I'm hyper off a cookie. Brooke 35:12 That's part of the issue is that the prescriptions for Adderall increased 27%. From 2019 to 2022. There were like 35 million prescriptions in the US, which is a fuck ton, in 2019. And then it went up to like 45 million by 2021 or 22. And I mean, shocker. Everybody's stuck inside with a pandemic. Like we overprescribed, that are all for sure. And I and that is not to say there's not people who genuinely need it out there. And I don't mean to bash anybody's use of of that prescription. But you know, one of the articles that I was reading they, you know how news reports like to pick a human interest story to tell their story, they were talking about this 16 year old female in Utah, who's like in all of the AP classes, honors classes is getting ready for college and how stressed out she was and obsessed with perfection, and she couldn't get all her stuff done. And then she got an Adderall prescription. And, and now she's able to get all her homework done, and she's acing all their classes, and it's ready for college and blah, blah, blah. And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you just gave her gave her amphetamines. Casandra 36:36 I feel like there's a misuse potential. Like, the people I know, who have ADHD and take Adderall, it doesn't impact their system that way, you know. And I also think there's a certain, I see this with autism as well, there's a certain amount of like, like the left handed thing that Margaret brought up, you know? Like, it might seem like, it might seem like an undue spike, but I'm sure a large percentage of that is people who are finally getting care they need. Margaret 37:12 And then also, like, I think about it because I came closer to seeking medication for ADHD than I ever have. And what it was for me is that I built my entire life around the fact that I have ADHD, there's a reason that I'm a freelancer, there's a reason that I, you know, I travel, there's a reason I work for myself. Like, there's all these things that I've done, that have made ADHD not a problem in my life, right. But actually, the beginning of the pandemic, it made it more of a problem. It made it harder for me because like, I had to sit in my cabin and work on a computer in order to eat food, and stuff, you know, and so like, and I don't thrive in certain environments, and so I was like, "Man, if I had something that helped me thrive in this environment." So. Casandra 37:56 Which then makes me wonder, like, how much of that need is attached to Capitalism, you know, lthe ike productivity. So? Yeah. Margaret 38:04 Oh, yeah. No, totally. I mean. Totally. I had a day job for a minute. Casandra 38:10 Sitting in a cabin alone with....That sounds like my dream. Margaret 38:16 I know. Well, I was fine until the day job. Awesome. Margaret 38:24 Okay, so, Brooke 38:25 Again, I don't want to like bash anybody that's taking it. I don't know. I don't want to say that there aren't legitimate reasons that some of those people didn't need it. But, we we do know that it's overprescribed, that you take you know, young people who are high achieving, and we've got them overscheduled and fucking

Episode Summary Brooke and Carla talk about parenting as radicals and youth autonomy, but more importantly, they talk about adult supremacy, the history of it, the ways it influences all of our lives and strategies for confronting it as parents and non parents. They breakdown childism, and talk about how the most important thing you can do is listen to the youth and how community is once again the answer to many societal woes. Guest Info Carla Joy Bergman (She/they) is a writer, producer, podcaster, schemer and causer of trouble. Their book Trust Kids! is out from AK Press and can be ordered here. You can find Grounded Futures at GroundedFutures.com or @GroundedFutures on Twitter and Instagram. You can find Listening House Media here. She also cohosts the Grounded Futures podcast with their son Uilliam. Host Info Brooke can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter and Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Carla on Adult Supremacy Brooke 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, your host for this episode. Today we have the honor of talking with author Carla Bergman. We're going to discuss parenting here in the end times. But first, we'd like to honor our membership and the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts by playing a little jingle from one of the other podcasts on the network. Jingle jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle jingle here. And we're back. Carla, thank you for joining us today to talk about parenting. Would you please introduce yourself? Let us know what you do, your pronouns, share where you're from if you're comfortable disclosing that. Carla 01:58 Great. Hi, Brooke. Thanks for having me here. I love this podcast. It's a real honor. Yeah, I'm Carla Joy Bergman. I use she/her, they/them pronouns. I'm calling in from Musqueam. Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh lands, also known as Vancouver and the Pacific Northwest, across the border in Canada. Yeah, I, well, I do a lot of things. I'm a bit of a autonomous scholar, writer, producer, a podcaster or schemer, causer of trouble. I don't know, that's always hard to put yourself on there. Like what do you do? Yeah, I'm a mom, friend. I'm a white settler with Irish and Welsh ancestry. Yeah. Brooke 03:03 Yeah, well, we're really glad that you are here and taking the time to talk about this topic with us today. I know that you just released a book back in November called "Trust Kids", which looks like you can get from AK Press. And they have print ebook and audiobook available. There's probably other sources to get it as well. So I'd love to talk about your book a little bit. And then you know, if that leads into some broader conversations about parenting in general, and especially, you know, parenting here in the end times and how we support each other as leftists, you know, I think that would be great to talk about too. But let's, let's start with your book. I'm curious why you wanted to write the book, like what inspired you to write it? Carla 03:50 It's like, intergenerational? It's a project that comes across many, many timelines. Yeah, so it's called "Trust Kids Confronting Adult Supremacy" and while stories on youth autonomy and confronting adult supremacy, oh, boy, it's really hard to pinpoint a moment. It's so it's so cool to have the privilege to reflect back in your past and you get to evoke where you are today on the past. Brooke 04:20 Yeah, feel free to talk about all of the things that inspired you in the process. Carla 04:24 Thanks. Yeah, I mean, I've always had a problem with hierarchy and with authority, which goes way back to when I was a little kid. I was definitely the kid who stood up to teachers who bullied kids and other parents or other adults who bullied kids, including my own, and obviously, it was meant with not always a lot of kindness, and often a lot of violence. So it's something that's always been kind of in me to be aware of adult supremacy. But really, it wasn't until I had my own child, that I had to really put the practice of youth autonomy and thinking through adult supremacy in the everyday and every night. Brooke 05:11 I'm curious if you feel comfortable sharing the age of your child or children? Carla 05:16 Yeah. So my oldest is 28. And my youngest is 18, the oldest is Zach, and the youngest is Uilliam, and Uilliam and I do a podcast, that's part of the Channels Zero network as well called Grounded Futures. And yeah, and Zach. Both of them wrote for the book, Uilliam did it their own chapter, their own section, and then Zach and I co wrote a piece together. Yeah, so.. Brooke 05:43 Man, that's great. Carla 05:45 Yeah. So, you know, Zack, and I got....and my partner, we got involved in alternative education and youth liberation kind of worlds. We were like, really fortunate because we were working class family and, and I got diagnosed with lupus, like there was all these things that were making it like, well, how am I going to not send my kid to regular school. But I was fortunate to live in a city where there's a dem... that was...it was like, almost 48 years, it ran...ademocratic preschool that was publicly funded. So that meant it was free to attend, as well as a free school, and there was parent participatory, and it was, you know, it went through all different kinds of renditions, and tried all different kinds of models, and but really, at the center was and at the center was this idea of youth liberation and children, self directed sort of education styles, I, you know, through that, at the core of all my work is this notion of solidarity, like how to think about this conversation of youth autonomy and undoing adult supremacy, amidst and alongside all the other horrors of, of empire, whether it be ableism, racism, classism, and whatnot. And I really noticed that a lot of kids, you know, they don't a lot of families can opt out of school, and they can't actually do this. So, I really wanted to move the conversation away from 'school or not school,' because it just marginalizes the, the work and because it becomes siloed. And really, adult supremacy is in it's always in the room. It's, it's it is like at the core, it's at the center of all other oppressions. You know, we just keep replicating this horrible system by raising kids with internalized adults supremacy. And so yeah. Brooke 07:41 That part of the subtitle really stuck out to me, the adult supremacy part, which, you know, sorry to interrupt you, please keep going. But I definitely want to dive more into adult supremacy discussion. But... Carla 07:54 I mean, I think that this conversation, so I'm just gonna really get really to the heart of it. So about 12=13 years ago, I was co director of a youth run arts and activism space in Vancouver that was at the center was youth autonomy and radical politics and this intersectional praxis of working alongside other struggles and being in solidarity with them. And I was really noticing from other radicals that you know, youth liberation, youth autonomy, children's rights, all that stuff was almost always left off of the the oppression chart or pie. And so I would bring it up, and it would be like an afterthought. And they'd be like, oh, yeah, right, of course. And slowly, you know, we've seen that grow. However, what I noticed was I faced a lot of vitriol from a lot of radicals that I was privileged, that I was privileging kids and like that, all this stuff, and I was like, "Wait a minute, like, you know who's privileged is like the middle class family who moves across town to the rich neighborhood to put their kid in the better school like," no, no, no, like that's nuanced this a little bit like. So I came up with the phrase "Solidarity begins at home," which was really the orientation of this book to begin with. And if you follow it on AK Press, they often post about it calling it, "Solidarity Begins at Home," because I was really noticing that anti authority, anti authority folks particularly were like, "Except for with my children, I'm an authority." Or, you know, "Oh, Carla and her weirdness being friends with our kids," or whatever, like it just was just marginalizing the conversation, when really the issue is adult supremacy and, and, you know, I'm just a curious person. So I'm like, "Why doesn't that resonate?" Like it's something we've all experienced at different degrees. Absolutely. This is a really uneven white supremacist, colonial, racist, ableist world. But we've all experiencedi it. It's actually a place where we could connect and have a more generative conversation. And yet it just keeps getting marginalized. And so I just really had to think about how to center it more. And so, on the one hand, I'm saying "Solidarity Begins at Home." But I'm also decentering parenting in the conversation, because I think like this is just so much bigger and beyond like, parenting. It's everywhere that a young person encounters an adult, the adult supremacy world, and it's everywhere, like Malika Radway, who wrote for the book, like, and she does, "Raising Rebels" podcasts with our kids. Like they said, you know, "Adult supremacy is in every single room you're in," you can't...it's just like whiteness, you can't, right? So yeah, so I didn't feel ready to write it. I always had a kind of what's the word like, I guess it's about consent, like, I really needed it to have my kids full consent to talk about our life. And to talk about this in a way that I wanted to, especially that framing of 'solidarity begins at home.' So that's, that's the reason why I held off until I had their, you know, really, they're full consent. And, you know, different people, different adults, different parents, different radical parents write about their kids in different ways. This isn't a judgment, this was just my own ethos with my kids, right? So that's why it took 12 years. I just actually found a new Google Doc from 2012. That said, new book "Solidarity begins at home. "Listen, Adults," or something I was going to call it. Brooke 11:41 Yeah, it sounds like you not only have their consent, but kind of their enthusiastic consent. And they both, you know, wrote for it and participated in that which, you know, what a joy to be able to do that with them. Carla 11:54 Yeah. And my son, the oldest one did the audio book, which is really special Brooke 11:59 Oh, wow, that's really cool. I, my daughter is 11. And we're firmly in that tween phase right now where there's both the child and the budding teenager that, that show up in her and it's a interesting age, for sure. And I just have the one. But I want to rewind slightly back to adult supremacy, to get us on the same page here. And we, you know, what does that phrase mean to you? How do you define that? How do you see that in the world? Carla 12:35 Right? I mean, it's really, it's always evolving and changing, the more I like, learn, and like, explore and research and talk to people who are real nerds and researchers. Two of the folks who wrote for the book, Toby Rollo and Stacy Patton, really do a deep, deep look at the history, the roots of adult supremacy. And so it's, it's hard for me not to start there, because it's like, my mind is just kind of blown. You know, it really goes back to early colonization in the....in Europe. You know, we hear this from indigenous folks on, you know, on the lands we’re both on that, you know, this is not how people do kinship. This is not like the...kind of like patriarchal, heteronormative hierarchical family. It's not, you know, and that, that that's not how it is. And so, way, like it goes way back, this kind of I don't even, I can't even pinpoint it, but it definitely predates capitalism, although like it, you know, it got more entrenched during capitalism to have the house set up the way that the patriarchal family, the way it was set up, like kids had to be subjugated from their parents and the patriarchal parent was being subjugated by, you know, the whole system of capitalism, right, yeah. But it actually predates all that in it. And it goes back to early colonization. And it was by design. It was to sow seeds of control, distrust, and this idea that, I think Toby calls it protocitizenship, that children aren't fully human. They don't have any rights. You know, there's 13 states that still have paddles that can, people can still paddle in schools in the US, I don't know if you know, that and spent, you know, like, you, you will you get fined and go to jail if you beat your dog, but you won't if you beat your kid, as long as they can't see any bruises. You know, so this is like, it's ongoing, this idea that childhood is just a phase, you know, this kind of just creation of this thing that's like less than, was by design. And it's become, you know, it got more entrenched through psychology, the whole, you know, we don't even need to go into that. But even eugenics, like early eugenics was practiced on children...kind of way where children who were street involved and didn't have parents or were, you know, out of care kind of kids. They were sterilized first. Stacy Patton is a doing a book right now on the history of lynching children in the south. she had to actually go to Europe to get to the root of it. And it was practiced first on children there. So... Brooke 15:31 Emotionally, I don't think I could handle that kind of research. Carla 15:34 Yeah, me neither. I just want to get...this is what I said, like, I didn't have all this information like a couple of years ago. And so this isn't where I would have started the conversation. However, I used to say like that this is a Western...Euro Western colonial way of being in the world, and like the hatred of children, they have childhood and, and the violence against children is a construct within colonization. I did know that, but I didn't realize how severe it was. And so alongside the other horrific systems within colonization, I like to call it Empire because it's like a hydra, all of it, capitalism, ableism, ageism. We're still we're fighting all those battles still in use. The problem with adult supremacy is that it just keeps reenscribing itself because, yes, yeah, yes, you can see how it just, it's not that's why I'm not really I'm not a proponent of youth liberation as such. And why I talk about autonomy instead is because it's it needs to be intersectional, it needs to be intergenerational, it needs to be...we have to undo adult supremacy, we can't just focus on doing youth liberation siloed over here, because they grow into adults, and then they become adults supremacists. Right. And like, do you know what I mean? it's kind of like...it is one of...it has mobility, in terms of getting out of being the oppressed to becoming the oppressor. Not unlike class... Brooke 17:13 So if I'm understanding it, then adult supremacy.... Carla 17:20 I could give you a definition. Brooke 17:24 Well, let's see if, well let's see if I picked it up from that. It's the idea that adults are all and always supreme to children, who are just going through a phase and to some degree, it's acceptable to enforce that adult supremacy through violence? That's kind of from all those things. Brooke 17:54 Yeah. And so, if I get it correctly, parental supremacy is like within the bigger circle of adult supremacy, right? Like... Carla 17:54 Yeah, and psychological violence, physical...like all kinds of...it is a violent act. It's a colonizing of the mind and soul and body. And yeah, like, you know, the whole, the whole idea is to prepare your kid for adulthood, which is just ridiculous. Like, they are a full human already, that things need to be discovered. And they, you know, like, all of us, guidance is important. mentorships are important skill sharing is important. Presence is important. Love is important, and ultimately care, right? Yeah, but they....and they are fully human already. They are no less, no more, you know, some maybe, you know, whatever, it's, you know, it's relational. But, the idea adult supremacy is children are under developed, they're not fully human, they need to prepare for ultimate adulthood. And that is the supreme holding of what it means to be fully human, is to be an adult. Carla 18:46 Yeah, I mean, I've always liked Bell Hooks' thing she called, she called it the patriarchal family, like, it didn't matter what gender you were, or how you configurated your family, where if there's adults, taking care of children it was a patriarchal family. And I really liked that phrasing, because I think that's a way to maybe push back against some of the what happens with some of the feminists ideas around parenting that, you know, like a woman, you know, like, I'm talking more like, I'm probably aging myself, but I'm doing more like this second, third wave of feminism where it was, you know more about their rights than it was their children's because they were so oppressed under the patriarch of the family or whatever. And yes, and you know, Bell Hooks came along and was like, you're a patriarch too within that adult supremacy. Yeah, yeah. Brooke 20:02 So, um, we talked about the, you know, physical psychological abuse factor of that adult supremacy. I'm curious what other ways you would point out that it manifests itself in society...families and, you know, adults in general, and maybe there's some, you know, insidious ways that we don't even think of, you know, that wouldn't immediately come to mind that you could teach us about here. Carla 20:28 I mean, it's everywhere. You know, I, I'm not on the socials at all. I left fully back in the spring, but when I was, I was constantly asking my fellow podcasters, and journalists and thinkers and opinionerrs, to please stop calling the most vile human beings on this earth childish, and children and toddlers. It's right there. You know, that is where it's at. Can you... and people would be like, "What do you mean?" And I would be like "Change 'child' to any other group. Woman..." and then their eyes, they're like, "Oh, my God, I'd be canceled. If I called Trump a whiny woman," or whatever. Put any group in there. Right. I don't really want to go down that road. But, you see what I mean. So that's a one that I have to...We just actually, Grounded Futures, just re-released it because it's not stopping. Right? Because so, that's a really, really huge way. It's all those biases, right, those social biases. So, like I mentioned earlier, I was the co director of a youth run arts and activism space, that was free to use, it had a lot of anarchist kind of ethos running around it. It was co founded. It was founded by six youth and Matt Hearn, back in 2001. And my son was on the collective and we did a whole lot of cool stuff. But it was incredible how many adult organizers would email me and ask if they could come in and give a workshop on how to run a space. Or how to run a collective. I'd be like, I think you all could come down and learn something from this youth collective, but that's pretty like a bias, right? Like, I was like, this is the most functional club I've ever worked with, like I've, you know, been in a lot of collectives like, I don't think age has anything to do with it. It's about like some other things going on around power. You know, like, I...Yeah, so there's this idea that they were...it was flaky, and that they didn't know what they were doing. And so that was just another bias, an ageist....it's, it's just terrible. Yeah, I watched it just go down all the time. Another storieas an anecdote...I'm sure you have many....My kid when they were really, my youngest, when they were really little, and we'd go grocery shopping. And they were really good at picking out avocados and fruit. And one of the people working in the store, like slapped their hand and said, "No, you're not allowed to touch fruit." I was like, first of all, don't ever touch my kid. Second of all, they're better at it than me. You know, like I just, you know, like, it's that kind of that kind of like, they just....the person couldn't even...it was just so reflexive. Like, they couldn't even imagine that this five year old knew what they were doing. Stuff like that. It's just constant. It's just everywhere. And I'm sure you you can, you know....and I do it myself. And I want to say, because I know I when I talk about this, it can come off like I have it figured out. I confront my adult supremacy and particularly my power every single day in my relationship with my youngest, like, every single day it comes up in subtle and overt ways because of maybe I'm tired or and the more we get, the more we uncover it, the more we see. The more we get into the like, the nuance of power, like the nuance of like persuasion that you know, like that I hold, the more I'm like, "Dang it!" Yeah, yeah. Brooke 24:19 There's another example I just thought of, too, that I think often crops up around this time of year with people visiting family so often. The hugging example. You know, not making your kid go hug somebody because he's "Oh, you know, hug me." Even if it's you, the parent, like "Hug me goodbye." You know, don't make don't make your kids have that physical interaction with another human being. Carla 24:46 Thanks for bringing that up. It's like it's so true. Like kids live...like especially little kids...live a extremely nonconsensual life. From bedtime, to food, to like touch right, and every thing in between. And parents, you know, there's a lot of nuance in that conversation around parents and parenting, and but it's real. All right. And, you know, people are always trying to do workshops on teaching consent, and I'm always like, just gonna fail if you're not living with your kids. Brooke 25:18 Yeah. Carla 25:19 It's just gonna fail. Like it's so embodied, like, children just live such a nonconsensual life in lots and lots of ways because of this, because of adult supremacy. So yeah, thanks for bringing up...getting right to the right to the point. And, you know, it's interesting because thinking of parenting like my...sorry, my, my youngest is Uilliam, but we often call him Liam, that I do the podcast with, so he does a lot of the social media for Grounded Futures. And he often feels a bit gaslit by like, kind of the algorithm that comes through that one around like radical parenting and anarchists and stuff around, like on so called holidays on how cool it's going with their kids in that and because then they go on theirs where it's very much mostly trans and LGBTQ+ youth, ranging from 16 to like 25. And all his friends and all his mutual's are in trauma on that day because of nonconsensual hugs, from having to mask, from having from being misgendered, from not being believed that they're trans or I can even be, are non binary, or whatever, the whole gamut, right? And, and I hadn't even really thought about, like how algorithms work. And I was like, well, that's really hard. And he's saying, "I'm not saying that those radical things aren't happening that I'm seeing on Grounded Futures. It's just like, you can get in your bubble and think everything's better. And then you go to this other thing, and you're like, "Ah, the youth are actually not doing well, right now. Overall." Yeah. Brooke 27:02 Yeah, I've often been told as a parent that I have raised a very rude child, because, and I'm not going to try and pretend that I've been some sort of perfect, you know, no supremacy, children autonomy kind of thing. I'm human. I'm not, I'm still working on it. But, that was something that I noticed and chose to do differently early on in her life about not making her hug people or touch people kissing people goodbye. And even, you know, not necessarily forcing her to say goodbye to somebody. You know, I did a lot of giving her the option, you know, "We're going to leave now, would you like to say goodbye to Grandma?" or what have you. And so as she's gotten older, you know, some of those things that I didn't force her to do, she kind of didn't learn, and now she's old enough to where she understands politeness. You know, and I can suggest, you know, it's more polite in this situation, to say goodbye to this person, you know, and she can still choose then how she wants to do it. She can understand the social dynamic of why she's making that choice. Carla 28:11 That's beautiful. Brooke 28:12 You get accused of being a bad parent, or a rude parent or, or whatever it is, because you don't force your kids do these social things. Carla 28:20 I can't believe how many adults came through the Thistle that would say, "Oh, the Thistle youth are rude. And I was like, "You really have a hard time with like sharing your power, hey?" Like, I just would call it what I saw. Like, actually, what I saw was like, you actually want to come in and have kids, like, passively listen to you. And be polite, so called, you know, nice. But, they're like, they're not buying what you're selling. And they're like, "I don't want to do this." And you're thinking they're rude and entitled. I was like, This is what youth autonomy looks like. This is what sharing power looks like. This is what getting out of young people's way looks like. Yeah, I have a really similar thing with my kids. And I, my youngest, like really cared about relationships to the point where like, we've been unpacking this, where it was all overt, but they they took the social niceties on really young, but they had it all figured out. They're like, "At so and so's house, I have to like say 'please,' and 'thank you.' At so and so's house, I get to eat whatever I want, but I'm not allowed to swear. And I just listen because I want to have these friendships." I was like, wow, that's really cool. And also please don't mask. [emotions] Brooke 29:33 Isn't that so challenging? Carla 29:35 Yeah, it's a hard one. Brooke 29:37 Yeah, and mine lives in two households that are you know, very extreme opposites. Carla 29:42 Right. Brooke 29:42 So, the things she's allowed to say and do in this household are much more, you know, open and she's got a lot more autonomy and authority to do things and then she has to, you know, in that house, in order to fit in and not you know, not make waves, she feels like she has to you know, dial it back and behave in certain ways. And that's hard to see. Carla 30:05 It's also practice for life. I mean, you know, until we deal with this, I mean, you know? It's a hard one. Brooke 30:12 Yeah. Yeah. At Least for the world that we currently live in. Carla 30:15 Yeah. Yeah. Brooke 30:17 But yeah, while we're talking about like the liberation of children, I am curious if you would like vision with me, what would relationships look like between parents and children, or society and children if we were treating them in ways that were autonomous, and, you know, honoring them as the human beings that they are? Carla 30:38 Oh, I'd be dreaming. And here's why. Because everything would slow the F down, like so much, like, first and foremost, because there'd have to be a lot more or listening, a lot of questions. And that...I used to, I used to call it the friendship bar, how I trained myself, like, supported myself in my learning and making mistakes with my youngest was like, and I think, John Holt, this a John Holt quote, like never, you know, "Never say to a young person, what you wouldn't say to the person you hold in highest regard." It's a really good bar, it really, it really is. I can't...you know, it seems, you know, a lot of people throw quotes and people go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," but I can't express it enough how much it has helped a lot of other fellow co conspirators who want to undo adult supremacy when I share this with them, and they're like, "Right!" You know, and I think we can do this with some of our closest friends too. Or some of our, you know, maybe if we have some hard times with a partner, like we can be a little bit more snarky with them than we would with somebody we hold in high regard. So like, I mean, I think it's just a good practice across the board to like, figure out what is the most generative, you know, responsible, trusting way to come into relationship with anybody? And yeah, and one of the things we really strive for in our house is this notion of solidarity. My oldest said this on a talk about the book the other night, I hadn't really...it was really nice to hear the feedback, but he's like, you know, "it was always really transparent, that this was the goal at our house, that we were in solidarity with each other." And this is why I use the term solidarity because and, you know, this changes based on their age because they can, you know, they're littler bodies, they have littler nervous systems and stuff, right? But like, it's not...I'm not a child centered home, either. I think that's when we can get into some weird reinscribing individualism. We're very much a relationship centered home no matter what the configuration is, even when we've had roommates and whatnot. And like, it's like, just everything's transparent and slows down. Like, you know, like, food, all the conversations, bedtime, sleeping, care. I had, I had a chronic illness for the big chunk of my children's lives, that's pretty much healed, but that that involved a lot of solidarity and a lot of care going in all directions, right. Like I I used to joke that I parented from bed. Ha ha ha But it was true, right? So yeah, I would like to hear some of your dreams, but like, I just right away, there'd be a lot of listening, a lot of curiosity, a lot of play, a lot of tantrums. But we'd got to have them too. You know? Brooke 33:28 Yeah. Yeah, the thing that stands out to me the most, there is the thing about slowing down, because that is definitely such a huge difference I notice, you know, between the way I would sometimes do things, and my friends with children of the same age, or what I see, you know, now when I'm looking around at different parents and what they're doing that, yeah,you have to engage more with the child. It's not....there's the the jacket debate, right, That you have with little kids, because they never want to put on a frickin jacket. And you have some parents that are like, "Well, they need this jacket, and I'm just going to shove their little bodies into it." And, you know, they have the debate once and they're like, "I'm not gonna fight with a three year old about this jacket." And then they just force it onto their kid every time. Whereas, I mean, you can sit down and talk about that more, you know, "I think you should put on the jacket because this" or you know, "Let's step outside and feel the cold outside and see if you change your mind," and, and then ultimately, also having to honor what they land on, you know? The kid says, "No, I'm not gonna put on a jacket." That's, you know, it's a slower process and then at the end, letting go of that final bit of, you know, authority or autonomy. Like maybe you still take the jacket to school with them, you know, they have to carry it perhaps, but you don't force them to put it on, but it is slower. So your life has to allow for time for that. And you know, of course under capitalism, the the empires you say that we are in, it makes it so hard to do that and then especially if you have multiple children that are maybe all small at the same time, you know, you've got three of them arguing with you about maybe three different things all at once. It's tough. Carla 35:11 Yeah. I mean, and this is why like "Trust Kids", I just want to go on the record isn't a parenting handbook at all. Like if...the essays are stories on youth autonomy, people...youths have written for it. Adults have written about their experience growing up in youth liberation environment, to more theoretical pieces, but and then a lot about confronting adult supremacy. So, it's a book for adults, for sure, and about us doing this work together. But it's not a parenting handbook, because at the core for me, Liam always says this on the podcast, like he's like, you know, "People often ask my mom for advice. And she's always like, "I can't give you advice, because I don't know your child, and they don't know what they need. Like, if you asked them? Like, it's just like, you know, that's my advice. Ask your kid."" I love the coat example. Because it's so you know, like, you're late, you have to pick up your, you know, you have to do the thing, you got to do all the things. And my kids are like the opposite. My oldest, always over dresses, and I used to always have to carry his coat halfway, and then the other ones the other way. So, I just, you know, it's back to like, I think what my Zack said the other night on that call, or that show, the episode, or whatever we did, the public, the book launch at Firestorm was that it was always just really transparent. Like, he never felt like, confused, but what was happening, so I was just always really real, I'd be like, "Dude, you always are hot within 10 minutes, like, can you not wear like 50 coats, oh my God, and because I don't...physically can't carry it, like, I don't have enough strength. So we need to like figure," but that took time, like that kind of negotiating conversation and being in solidarity with my physical body and not being able to carry the coat in 10 minutes in the walk. And him like wanting to like pile on the three sweaters and the coat. He's still like that. You know, like, it was like, yeah... Brooke 37:04 Yeah, as you just pointed out, there are times when, like, you're running late, so you don't necessarily have the time to take to do that. And then, you know, you need to know for yourself as a parent, you know, what, what you want to do in that situation. How you want to handle that. Do you want to be later and take the time to do it? You know, if you want to honor your principles to never shove this child into the jacket, you know, it's it's again, it's not it's not easy. It takes some practice and some forethought. Carla 37:33 Or let them go without a jacket, you know, let them experience it. Brooke 37:36 Right. That's what I did. Carla 37:39 Yeah, exactly. Brooke 37:40 She got cold sometimes. Carla 37:41 I mean, yeah. And even me as a kid like, my you know, so called autonomy was also known as that word 'neglect,' you know, so like, no one around ever, so I was like, I often in the winter would have like no socks on and I'd be running around and like a tank top and..because I early years and northern Alberta, and then down here in the Pacific Northwest, I had like thought it was like balmy, warm you know, and so when my youngest was like, "I don't like wearing like, big coats, and like, as a kid, he would run into the ocean at five in December. And I was like, right, I was like that, you know, also, it's back to that, believing that when they tell you, you know. That's what trust really is, is believing people's experience and perspective. And when they say "I don't...I get hot, I get really hot." And you're like looking at the temperature like, I feel like you're gonna get cold, but you just gotta let go. Brooke 38:39 Yeah, that's a really difficult component. I'm curious, you know, how you would respond to somebody who, you know, maybe wants to point out that, well, you know, kids, they aren't good at looking that far ahead, right? Because their prefrontal cortex isn't fully developed. They are going to be good at seeing that they are going to need this jacket down the line or, you know, whatever the the thing is, that they, you know, maybe haven't developed the capacity to comprehend. And that would mean maybe their argument for why you 'have to' have to in air quotes force them into the jacket. Carla 39:13 I mean, again, just Yeah, I mean, again, just being I mean, it's, I like this, I like this example, because it's not life and death. But, you know, like, you know, the compromises is that I need you to like, throw an extra coat in your backpack, or I'm going to carry one. Well, I you know, this is what care looks like. I'm going you know, we're going to be together so I'm going to throw an extra coat in the in the car. You don't have to wear it, or whatever. Like I just think just being real like. Back to what I said earlier about, like, how would I...How would I talk to my partner about this? Who was, who's being ridiculous, in my opinion, and like, it'd be like, "What are you doing? Like it's like snowing and super cold and you are wearing just like a hoodie," um, Yeah, we would just have a real conversation about maybe some...infuse it with some humor. But yeah, when they're really, really little like, I mean, you know, I definitely when you have like two kids, like, I would have to pick up my oldest from wherever he was, you know, at 11 years old across town and then the youngest at 2 doesn't want to like, leave where...they didn't like transitions, so didn't want to leave the park and whatever. It's like this....Yeah, there's a there's a, there's a lot of tears. And it's just like, what I got good at was realizing that, oh, he needs like, really clear messaging, like 10 minutes before, eight minutes before, five minutes before, and then they stopped like the the tears he...like he just...I had to like, cipher, it decipher it, you know, it could be like, "Oh, okay. Right." Because, you know, he was just so in the moment, so present, which is also what I think the world would be like if we had less adult supremacy, or none.

Episode Summary Brooke, Casandra, and Margaret talk about some laws that the ATF just imposed and how you might soon be a felon, some bizarre tax proposals that have been in the works for the last quarter of a century, and check in our old friend, the Colorado River in This Month in the Apocalypse. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Casandra is just great and can be found at Strangers doing awesome layouts, and Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode Hopefully will come out Friday, Feb. 24th Transcript This Month in the Apocalypse: Jan. 2023 Margaret 00:14 Hello and welcome to Live like the world is dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your today's hosts, Margaret killjoy, and with me are also Brooke and Casandra. How are you too? Brooke 00:25 Hello. Casandra 00:26 Good. Margaret 00:28 Joining me in the background, hopefully that we can't hear, is my dog, Rintrah, scratching at the carpet. So, this is one of the This Month in the Apocalypse episodes, as you probably noticed based on the title of it, which was This Month in the Apocalypse, and it is for January 2020-- whatever year it is now. Three? Are we at three. It's 2020; It's part three. And this show is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the podcast brought up about Jingle 01:03 what's up y'all I'm Pearson host of coffee with comrades. Coffee with comrades is rooted in militant joy. Our hope is to cultivate a warm and inviting atmosphere like walking into your favorite coffee shop to sit down with some of your close friends and share a heart to heart conversation. New episodes premiere every Tuesday, so be sure to smash that subscribe button wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss an episode. We are proud to be a part of the Channel Zero network. Margaret 01:56 And this show is a proud member of the Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, sort of network, publisher thing. Here's a jingle for another show on this network or publisher. Boop boop boop boop, boop. Casandra 02:13 Since I don't have this yet, are you just gonna make one up right now? Margaret 02:19 You know, I think we might have jingles, but I'll make one up anyway. Do you like nerd shit? Are you a fucking loser? Do you spend more of your time thinking about the way that character classes in Dungeons and Dragons relate to the current meta of whatever game system you play? Do you know more about what I'm talking about than me right now? Then, you might like an Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is a new show from Strangers in the Tangled Wilderness where we talk about nerd shit. The first episode is up already and there might be more, I don't know how, I'm not the one making them. First episodes is talking about all about that show Andor and there's gonna be a bunch of other shows that talk about other shows. If you're a fucking nerd and know what the word THACO means. Casandra 03:11 Wait, I'm a nerd and I don't know what that means. Margaret 03:13 I know it's a second edition Dungeon & Dragons thing. It's actually an are you an older millennial or Gen Xer, I think is the actual gatekeeping I just did there by accident. Really just ruining everything. It means "To hit armor class zero." What I Casandra 03:28 I started playing with third edition. Brooke 03:33 I have another new podcast idea to pitch to y'all. But we don't have to do it during This Month. Margaret 03:38 Okay, well, now this is an actual jingle. This...it actually exists. Okay. And that's the end of the jingle ba bop, bop, bop bop. Margaret 03:53 And we're back. Thanks, to the regular show called Live Like the World is Dying. I do too many podcasts. I'm gonna fuck this up at some point. Welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. Today, the cool person we're talking about is at the end of the world. Brooke 04:14 This is what I get for declining to do the intro, isn't it? This is my reward? Margaret 04:19 Yeah. Brooke was like, "I'm tired." And I was like, I'm not. I'm wired on fake energy. Which, isn't even caffeine. I don't even drink caffeine. So what we're going to talk about today is we're talking about a bunch of different stuff. The main topic that I have to talk about today. Have y'all ever heard of this agency that thinks is in charge of us? It's called the government. Brooke 04:44 Vaguely vaguely familar with it. Yeah. Margaret 04:47 I think different geographical locations have different gangs that have gotten together and declared themselves in charge. And they all use the word government once they get bigger than the word gang. The United States federal government, which is the name of the largest gang operating in the territory of central North America has a has a subgroup and they are committed to, you'd think that they'd be really cool, because their name is Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. So, it sounds like fun, right? I mean, actually, these things don't go well together and the middle one mostly just murders you. Actually, all three of them are...Okay, I see why there's a regulating body that people set up. But the ATF are notorious for being kind of...I don't know a government body that comes after you, if you like, do things that they decide that they don't like. And they like to be very mercurial about that. And on January 13th, they announced a new rule that will turn millions of Americans into felons in 120 days, so. Rintrah is really concerned about everyone's gun rights. So, I have a very complicated relationship with guns. I, you know, as people know, I use them sometimes, and I carry them and have ever since I got doxxed, by the far right. And I believe that community defense is very important. I'm also however, very critical of a lot of things about guns. So, I just want to like preface. Before I talk about guns for a whole fucking chunk of this episode, I want to say that I believe very strongly that if your firearm is not on you, at any given moment, it needs to be locked up. And this is something that used to be more abstract for me and is not abstract anymore. And and I'm going to be on about this for a long ass time. That is the safe way, if you are carrying a firearm, you're probably doing so because you want you or your community to be safer and or better fed. And if you don't lock your guns up, when you're not holding on to them, you are not making your community safer, you're making your community less safe. And that is the kind of balance that everyone needs to have at all times if they choose to carry firearms, and if it fucking matters. So, that has nothing to do with the ATF. Because.... Casandra 07:25 I was preparing myself for it to be a rule about keeping guns locked up. Margaret 07:28 No, it has nothing to do with guns locked up. So y'all ever heard of the NFA? Or tax stamps? This is like, gun law bullshit? Brooke 07:41 Well, nope. Margaret 07:42 The National Firearms Act was passed in....And I'll cut to the chase, and then I'll go back and tell you the history. So there's this thing, where you can take a firearm, an AR style firearm is the most common gun by a substantial margin in the United States, as far as I understand at least rifle, and you can, if you have a shorter barrel on it, there's two different classifications, there's a short barreled rifle, which is illegal without specific and ATF approval, which I'll get to why that's actually bullshit shortly. And second, or you can have it be a pistol. And instead of putting a stock on it, you can put something called a pistol brace, which is originally designed so that people who have like, less mobility or missing a limb or things like that can successfully use this style of firearm. And these are fairly new objects, you have something called AR pistols, and they're very common. They're very popular. The ATF estimates that three to 7 million pistol braces have sold in the past 10 years since pistol braces came on the market in 2013. And when they first came on the market, it's okay, it's some loophole bullshit. Mostly, I mean, you can use it as is intended. Well, you could use it as is marketed, which is for being able to fire with one hand in a more stabilized way. Or you can use it as people tend to use it, which is to be able to shoulder a pistol, and so fire more accurately with something that is classified legally differently. Brooke 09:19 Makes sense. Margaret 09:20 Yeah. But before they like went ahead and like marketed this thing, they went and checked in 2013. They were like, "Hey, is this chill, ATF? Can we make this thing and sell it?" And the ATF was like, "Yeah," and then they went back and forth a couple times. By 2017, not only could you sell it, but it was also legal for people to shoulder a pistol in this way. And that that would not make you a felon by shooting this gun that you own legally. Casandra 09:48 What are the concerns like why? Why wouldn't it be a good idea or legal? Margaret 09:54 There's literally...there's fundamentally none, but we'll get...Okay. So I'll get to the where short barreled rifles come from as a classification. Okay, so and then on January 13, the ATF ruled that this is not true that this is not a pistol. If you have a pistol brace on an AR pistol, it is now a short barreled rifle. And this is on some level a reasonable thing, right? Because they are short barreled rifles, that's what they are. You, you shoulder them, you shoot them. Whatever, I don't, someone's gonna get really mad at me about this. But, we were all like, wink, wink, nudge nudge, I never fucking came anywhere near one of these things, because I was like this is gonna get...this is gonna go badly. So I never got one, right? Because it was perfectly legal. But now everyone has 120 days to either register the item with the government, destroy it, or turn it into the ATF, or put a longer barrel on the gun. And the thing that's really messy about this, is that they told people that this was fine. This was good. And everyone tried to cross their t's and dot their i's, which isn't what you're supposed to do. But that's what they tried to do. And and now basically, they like, you have to turn them in or you're in a lot of trouble. It's a 10 year. If you break the NFA it's a ten year felony. It's a 10 year felony. And if you're a felon, you can never use firearms, again legally in the United States. Which if you're the kind of person to collect firearms is a fairly major impact, besides of course, the 10 years that you might lose off your life. Casandra 11:28 Wait, so sorry. I'm not familiar with any of this. So short barreled rifles are disallowed? Margaret 11:36 Correct. Casandra 11:36 And they reclassified this other thing as a short barrelled rifle? Margaret 11:41 Yeah. And it's just this incredibly popular thing. And it's mostly.... Casandra 11:47 I didn't catch that short barraled rifles were disallowed, and was like it's just a classification, what matters? Brooke 11:51 Yeah, no, it's confusing. Margaret 11:55 So, the reason that short barreled rifles are disallowed is leftover nonsense. In 1934, the federal government was like, we want people to not really have guns in the US anymore, if at all possible. There's an amendment in the Constitution that prevents that from happening. So they were like, alright, well, we'll make it really hard. So, they passed this thing were called the the NFA, the National Firearms Act, where you have, you have to pay a $200 tax, you have to get buy a tax stamp. it's just a thing that says I paid $200, which was about $4,000 at the time. Equivalently. They didn't actually write into the law that this would escalate with inflation. So it's still $200 if you want an NFA iteam. And they specifically they were like, we want all the stuff that's used for crime by evil gangsters. So, they wanted to get rid of machine guns, which is honestly,reasonable. They wanted to get rid of pistols. And like all handguns, were going to be illegal. And then they were like, well, if we make our handguns illegal, then people are just going to chop chop down their their little rifle or shotgun, and they're going to suddenly have a pistol, right? So, we'll make short barreled rifles and short barreled shotguns also illegal, or things that you have to register with the government and pay a hefty tax stamp for. Then some people were like, but we have this thing called the Second Amendment. You can't outlaw these guns. So pistols got knocked off of it, but they didn't knock off short barreled rifles. Casandra 13:33 Why? Margaret 13:34 Because they didn't bother. Casandra 13:37 Interesting. Margaret 13:38 So a short barreled rifle is a like contraband item unless you go and you register it and you jump through all these hoops. The other thing is you have to fill out all this paperwork, and then wait like sometimes years in order to get this and the other thing they made illegal at this time was suppressors and suppressors, I will go to my grave believing should never have been. They are an element of gun safety. The ability to suppress the sound of a firearm makes it safer for everyone. It is a better object. It does not make the gun more dangerous. It also doesn't make it quiet. Everyone's like oh yeah, you can like run around James Bond style. It's just like not true if you shoot a suppressed gun. I mean, there's like a few tiny exceptions where if you like really work with subsonic, ammo and .22 And all this shit you can like, make it quiet. But like a suppressed gun just sounds like a gun. It's loud. It goes bang, you can hear from a long ways off. It just doesn't permanently destroy your hearing and give you tinnitus as much. Most of them you still have to wear ear protection for. It's just a fucking...anyway, whatever. That's not what we're talking about today. So, yeah, so that's why they made it....short barreled rifles illegal or much harder to come by. And it makes no sense. It never made any sense. Go ahead. Casandra 14:57 What is it? I know it doesn't make sense. Like it sounds I was like, someone who does paperwork was like let's reclassify this thing. But like, what is their justification? Like, why are they saying it makes sense? Margaret 15:10 Why are they reclassifying AR pistol to a short barreled rifle? Or why do they defend that short barreled rifles are illegal? Casandra 15:17 I think I understand the former. Maybe the latter. Margaret 15:21 So at the time, it literally was just it's closer to a pistol. That was the justification, they wanted to get rid of pistols, so that therefore they got rid of short barrel rifles. The argument being concealability. Casandra 15:36 But at this point in history, there isn't really a justification? Margaret 15:39 There's no justification. It's you can have a full length rifle and you can have a small handgun and you can't have in between. It is. Well, that's. So that's what I think that...there are a lot of cases to be made against guns and gun ownership. And I am like not trying to eventually become some like a gun nut talking head. But like, this is something that people whose primary concern or like one of their concerns is as firearms and firearm law. This is something that I think they wish people understood. The law is incredibly Kafka esque, and nonsensical, and labyrinth and like, just bizarre. And so whenever they're like, "Oh, we're gonna pass this new gun control law," everyone's sitting there being like, "Oh, God, it's going to be some other weird, crazy loophole, where if you don't do all of the following things, you're a felon." And what they've done now is they've gone back and made everyone felons in reverse. And I think it's fucked up. Casandra 16:43 That's wild that that's possible to retroactively make that many people felons. Brooke 16:50 It just it sounds like these these ATF peoples aren't very good at the F part of their ATF. Margaret 17:03 Like they're drinking and smoking, but they forgot to go shoot guns? Brooke 17:07 Yeah, like, I don't know about the A and the T shit that they do. But they sound like they're really fucking up the F part. Margaret 17:12 I mean, like, and this is like, the ATF is like all of the gun people's like boogeyman, right? Like, because they like, they keep track of people for potentially breaking specific laws, like, right, for example, like straw sales are illegal, I can't go to the store and buy a gun with the intention of turning around and selling it. Even though, in many states, and I think this is reasonable, that's fine. It's a way to skirt the law. In most, in many states, you can privately sell a firearm from one person to another. But if you go to a store in order to buy a gun in order to turn around and sell it, at this point, you're an arms dealer, and you like should have and so the people buying it from you should have to go through background checks and shit like that, right? At least from a legal point of view. So what the ATF sometimes does is they keep track of anyone who buys a whole bunch of guns at once, or a whole bunch of guns over some period of time. And they just like show up on that at your house and be like, "Hey, Where's all your guns? We wanna see them. And we want to prove you didn't sell any of them." Even though, if you buy a bunch of guns, for your own sake, and then turn around and sell some of them because you don't want them anymore, that is usually legal. And so there's kind of some like thought police stuff that has to go in because they have to prove intent and all this like weird shit. So the ATF is this like boogeyman that everyone's like weird about anyway. And then the other new thing that I'm a little bit less confident about, I've seen some stuff about this, that also has people up in arms is that with these NFA items, previously, NFA items being the short barreled rifle or a fully automatic weapon, right? It is legal as a as a citizen to own fully automatic weapons in certain contexts, right, if you fill out certain paperwork, you know, use them in certain environments, things like that. It's usually basically rich people have them because you have to buy ones that are from like before a ban and they so they there's like only a certain number of them that are available in the civilian market. So they just become more more expensive, which is always what the NFA was, of course was a tax on...so it was like poor people can have guns. Rich people get to have guns. And so there was this thing that the ATF...no go ahead. Casandra 19:26 I just think about how the justification originally was like, "We don't want mobsters to have access to these things," when when they were probably the only ones who could afford them at that point. Margaret 19:35 That's so true. Fuck. Casandra 19:38 We only want monsters to have these things. Margaret 19:41 Yeah. Yeah, if your shotgun cost $5,000....Yeah, only a certain class of people would have shotguns. No, that's such a good point. Okay, so one of the other things the NFA says that you can use...if I own...I do not On any NFA items, but if a hypothetical person were to own a short barreled rifle, if they are supervising, other people can shoot it. Because they're there. They're present, whatever. It's my short barreled rifle. And so you have this whole market of people who are like, "Yo, you want to go shoot a machine gun, like come to my range, you get to shoot a machine gun," which like sounds like fun. And these are very controlled environments, and it's perfectly fucking...Well, it's the safest shooting guns ever is. And now the NFA has like quietly changed in it's frequently asked questions of sorry, the ATF has changed on its frequently asked questions on its website, to just say, "No, only the only the person who has registered the item can be in possession of it. Can can use it." And so... Casandra 20:47 Weird. Margaret 20:48 Yeah. So like, if I have a suppressed rifle, which I don't, but I want one, I want to I want to go through the tax stamp paperwork in order to get one. Not only would it be illegal for me to let someone else use it, it would be illegal for me to store it in a way in which anyone else can access it. Like if I live somewhere and my husband has access to my gun safe, then that would be now a crime. This is more hypothetical. The other thing is very specific. And they released a fucking 300 page document about how they're going to turn everyone into felons. And everyone has 120 days. Casandra 21:26 They put so much thought into it. Margaret 21:27 Oh, yeah, they've been working on this for 10 years. And like fairly literally. This other thing is like a weird....And so the reason I want to talk about this is because like, this is a thing that is mostly being talked about in gun spaces, and is therefore mostly being talked about in center, right of center spaces. I don't want to just say right wing spaces, I think there's a lot of center and center right groups that are not like aggressively racist or something like that and are just like rural people who are into guns or whatever. And so people were really upset about it. And sometimes when we see certain types of people get really upset, we're like, "Haha, fuck you." But like, I think it is a completely legitimate thing for people to be upset about. I think this is fucked up. I think this is overreach. I think that this is like...the the sort of hope that people have is that at the very least, they'll just get rid of short barreled rifles off of the NFA list because it's nonsense. They shouldn't be there...in as much as....in as much as there's going to be a society I can imagine that society being like "There's a level of weapon we don't really want around here," right? Like I'm not like nukes for everyone kind of girl. And if I'm not a nukes for everyone kind of girl. Am I a machine guns for one kind of girl? I'm kind of not? I kind of just don't care. You know, like people would come at me, whatever. Like maybe it's hypocritical ofmyself, of me as an anarchist. I don't fucking know. Whatever but like, but I don't know. Whatever. That's my fucking weird gun rant. I've watched like so many like YouTube people rant about it. What's up? Casandra 23:02 That was a pristine conclusion. Margaret 23:07 It's so funny, because I'm like more anti gun this month than I am most months Brooke 23:14 Is it that you're anti gun? Or is it that you're anti ATF? Margaret 23:17 Yeah, I'm definitely anti ATF. Unless you're listening ATF, in which case I fucking love you. Don't come over, though. God that sounds sketchy than I meant it. I just....whatever. Anyway, that's the main thing I had that I had to talk about about January. This not the most important thing happening, but it is a big thing but you have some other stuff that you want to talk about, right? Brooke 23:42 I do and I like don't even know where to go to there from here. Oh, man. Well, I guess we can talk about.... Margaret 23:50 Well, speaking of tax stamps and tax.... Brooke 23:54 Yeah, well done. I was gonna go for like, ridiculous government nonsense. Margaret 23:59 Oh, that's actually better and more accurate. Casandra 24:01 That's taxes. Brooke 24:02 Yeah, there you go. Yeah. So there's this act has been proposed in Congress called the Fair Tax Act. And it's ridiculous and far fetched and is not going to go anywhere. But it has come up like three different times in my own life in the last week from from different people asking me about it and asking me what's up with it and I even had to kind of walked my mom through what was going on with this too, cuz she was talking about it. Hi, mom, if you're listening. Margaret 24:39 Hi, mom. Hi, Brooke's mom. Brooke 24:44 Nice. So this tax act is a Republican act. And the succinct version of it is that they want to abolish the IRS in its entirety and institute a 30% national Sales Tax. Margaret 25:01 See, I was with them for the start of that sentence. Brooke 25:04 First half is great. Stop there. We're good. Yeah, so that would get rid of income tax, and payroll tax, estate tax, gift tax. I mean, the whole stupid, ridiculous tax system that we have would go away. Casandra 25:16 I thought it was in addition to state taxes? Brooke 25:20 No. Casandra 25:21 Oh, interesting. Brooke 25:21 Well, I guess, I guess I don't know if they can regulate state income taxes and all of that. Margaret 25:26 Not without a war. Brooke 25:28 Yeah. So. Margaret 25:30 Anyway. Brooke 25:33 Anyway, and if so...so it's a 30% national sales tax on all goods and services purchased, which, interestingly, some of the Republicant's have tried to call it a 23% Tax. Because, they're playing with the way the math is presented. Alright, quick math lesson. Margaret 25:54 Oh, is it the which direction? Okay, yeah. Give us the math lesson. Casandra 25:57 Numbers. Numbers are arbitrary. Is that the lesson? Brooke 26:02 You can use math to lie. That's the lesson. Margaret 26:05 Yay! Brooke 26:06 Yeah. Yeah. So if you have to buy something that's $100. Let's say just for a nice round number, and there's a 30% tax on it, you're gonna pay $130 for that item. And most of us look at that and go, that's a 30% tax. Margaret 26:22 Right. Casandra 26:22 Cause it is. Brooke 26:24 Right. But... Margaret 26:26 If you reversed it. Brooke 26:27 Yeah, exactly. Casandra 26:29 What? Brooke 26:29 $30 is 23% of $130. Margaret 26:35 Heh, heh heh. Brooke 26:39 So if you just pretend that the item costs $130 Then you can claim that you're only charging a 23% tax. Margaret 26:46 Because 23% of that is tax Brooke 26:50 Of that $130. Casandra 26:53 I want to know how I missed the like stereotypical autistic person thing of understanding math. Brooke 27:03 Yeah, the thing that that was that some people were like, "Well, it's only 23%," but they're just lying with...they're just using math to lie. Casandra 27:13 23%? Was that only? Margaret 27:15 I know exactly. Like, that's a lot of my money. Casandra 27:19 Still doesn't make sense. I mean, there's been Brooke 27:21 130% I guess. Margaret 27:23 I mean, as a freelancer I pay some fuck off high percentage of my income in taxes. I don't even remember. Casandra 27:29 As an Oregonian, I don't pay sales tax. Brooke 27:32 Yeah, so any sale's tax is like "Fuck you you, world." Margaret 27:40 This is the real tyranny. So why do right wing people want this? Like, is it because it helps the rich because they're not paying a state tax or whatever and it's like... Casandra 27:49 And why is it repeatedly brought up? Brooke 27:51 Yeah, so it's...it would be a flat rate tax on like a current system, which is it's called a progressive tax system. And please don't confuse progressive with like the liberal sense of the word progressive, but progressive as in like graduated taxes we have now. Poor people pay less, richer people pay more. You pay tax as you progress in income. Casandra 28:13 So, this is a fuck poor people? Brooke 28:20 Well, the flat rate tax would be simpler than the progressive system. And allegedly, under the current proposal, low income individuals could apply once a month for a rebate on some of the tax that they spent. Margaret 28:34 Oh yeah, with all of that free time that poor people have. Brooke 28:37 Yeah, exactly. Casandra 28:38 What if I mean, if it were actually to pass, how much do you want to bet that the rebate would just be on like yachts? Brooke 28:48 Yeah, yeah. Under the system, everyone ends up paying more in tax except for the wealthiest 5% of Americans who actually end up paying less in taxes overall. But yeah, as you just alluded to Casandra, this is like not the first time this idea has come up. In fact, it has been introduced in Congress every single year since 1999. Casandra 29:12 Really? Brooke 29:14 Yep. Casandra 29:14 Why? Why. Margaret 29:15 Is it just some guy? Casandra 29:19 No, why are people making such a big deal out of it this time? Brooke 29:22 Yeah, solid question. Casandra 29:24 Because it's so Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Brooke 29:28 Hypotheses are welcome. It has no more chance of passing right now than it has the last 24 times it has been introduced. But there's a larger contingent of right wing extremists who are behind it like 30ish people this year. Margaret 29:43 Uuuuhm, 23..... Brooke 29:52 Okay, so it's, you know, there's enough support for it that it is garnering more attention. It's not just one or two people throwing it out there. And it anytime there's been kind of this larger contingent of more extreme right wing people in Congress it has gotten attention in the news media. So, like when the Tea Party folks came into Congress, it got proposed that year as it has every single year, and it made the news a little bit more than because they were more supportive than usual. Casandra 30:26 So is it just like Margaret said, is it just some guy is it? Is it the far right just like fucking with our understanding of normalcy, like the Overton window? Brooke 30:38 Yeah, probably. That's part of it. I mean, it made news in '99, when it was first introduced. And I couldn't tell you exactly how many times it made any kind of major news between then and now, except for when the Tea Party folks came into power. Casandra 30:54 Do youever look back and think like, we used to just have a Tea Party, you know? Brooke 30:59 Yes, do. Yeah, okay. So I couldn't...go ahead. Margaret 31:06 I, it's so hard, because it's like, there is a part of me, like, I hate how complicated our tax system is, right? So I could understand this appealing if you don't think it through, right? Because then you're like, well, it's just based on how much you actually spend, and not what you make at work or whatever, you know. Because like, I fucking hate turning around and giving some percent of my tax that I can never keep track of, to the government. Basically, just every April, I'm like, there goes all my money. And now every quarter there goes all my money. And like, so I get the appeal of it. And it's so frustrating, because I feel like they're tapping into something that's like real, which is people's frustration with the tax system in this country, like you explained to other....I am under the impression I have seen on the internet, that people from other countries are like, What the fuck is wrong with you? What do you mean the government just like? Because it's like, you go to a restaurant and you order food. And then they're like,"Alright, pay me now." And you're like, "How much is the food?" And they're like, "Yeah, I mean, you can figure that out. And if you get it wrong, you go to prison." That sucks. I'm never going to that restaurant again. Like, if the government and I know the government can can give me a bill with a number because sometimes I underpay and they send me a bill with a number. And sometimes I overpay and they send me money back. They know the number. Just fucking tell it to me and I will pay I will. I would begrudge taxes so much less if it wasn't just this weird dance of fucking death with the goddamn government. Anyway. Brooke 32:42 You're totally fair. I have spent countless hours getting tax stuff done. Now, I spent 10 hours yesterday doing tax stuff for various things. That's just what I'm going to do for the next few months is spend a whole lot of time with taxes. Margaret 32:58 Can we call it the Illuminati tax because the number 23? Or is that bad because anything related....anyway...conspiracies. Brooke 33:06 We can call the buddy tax. Because the fella whose turn it was to introduce it this year is Earl Leroy Carter, whose nickname is Buddy from Georgia. Casandra 33:17 Leroy. Leroy is such a good name. Margaret 33:21 But, Buddy is the name of someone who's too old to be in government. Brooke 33:25 Right! Like I had to look at a picture of the dude and he's exactly what you think he looks like. Margaret 33:30 If your nickname is Dick, you are too old to be in the government. If your nickname is Buddy, you're too old to be in government. Maybe. Okay, wait, wait I want to say older people deserve representation too. The entire government should not be run by people who are all of one generation that is much older. That's how I'm going to walk back from ageism. Yeah, totally anger issues Yeah. Brooke 34:03 Oh, I just it was Buddy's turn to draw the short straw I guess because he hasn't....It hasn't been him every year. it's been different folks in different years. He's only been in the US Congress for five or six years or something like that. So, I don't know if they just start off the governmenting season with a you know, drawing straws or... Casandra 34:30 It's some sort of hazing ritual. To be part of the crew you have to like propose this ridiculous thing and everyone will hate you for it. Margaret 34:43 Like I don't even want this. It's just literally their hazing. Brooke 34:50 Alright, whose turn is it to bring out the old Unfair Tax Act law and abolish the IRS this year. Margaret 34:58 Which is funny because it's like I mean, I just went on this rant about how we should abolish the ATF. Brooke 35:06 Anyway, yeah, Margaret 35:08 I get so frustrated by the..... Casandra 35:11 Like you're almost there. You almost reached to the point.. Margaret 35:15 Yeah, and they go on down this wild side path where they're like and and then they wander off into the fucking.... Brooke 35:24 The other part of it is that 30% probably is not quite enough of a tax to replace the income that they currently get from the tax system. So, it would probably actually have to be higher than that to work. Casandra 35:39 It's just while to be thinking about...whatever...how the fuck much we all pay in taxes and what happens with that money and what doesn't happen with money. And who doesn't pay taxes. Margaret 35:51 All of you listening who are anti gun, but pay taxes I have. I have bad news for you. You buy so many more guns than any like than anyone who lives in any other country. Because half of your money is just guns. Brooke 36:07 Fucking US military. Hey, speaking of government brutality. The second topic I have, is that there's some news that's gonna drop tonight. The night of the stay that we are sitting here recording this episode. It hasn't been released yet. Margaret 36:26 So it'd be like last week or the week before for you all? Brooke 36:28 Yeah, exactly. And it has the potential to spark some George Floyd esque levels of protests. It's the body cam video footage from early January of the traffic stop and the brutal arrest of Tyre Nichols, a 29 year old Tennessee man who died as a result of the brutality he experienced that day. The descriptions of the videos that have come out from those who have seen it in advance have likened it to the 1991 video of Rodney King being beaten by the Los Angeles Police and Tyre's mother, excuse me, who hasn't seen and is not going to watch the video said that her son was beaten to a pulp by the arresting officers, of whom they were five. He was pepper sprayed, struck by a stun gun, restrained, kicked and more. And the family's attorney described the beating by saying the Tyre was used as a human pinata. So, some caution in watching those videos. Of course, if you're listening to this, it's the week after the they've been released. So either they have sparked intense rounds of protests, or they've quietly flamed out and gone down as just another act of extreme police

Episode Summary Margaret and Nadia talk about harm reduction, what it is, how it relates to community preparedness, strategies for including harm reduction in your preparedness routines, and a little bit of history and legality as relates to different kinds of drug use. Guest Info Nadia works with Next Distro and can be found at https://nextdistro.org/ Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript LLWD: Nadia on Harm Reduction Margaret 00:15 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host today, Margaret killjoy. And today, I am really excited about this episode, I think you'll all get a lot out of it. I guess I say that every time but I wouldn't record these episodes, if I didn't think you would get a lot out of them. Today, we are talking about harm reduction. And we were talking about preparedness that includes drug users. Because, if you think you don't know any drug users, you just don't know anyone who is willing to tell you that they're a drug user. And we will talk about that and a lot more. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Margaret 01:01 Okay, we're back. And if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns. And then kind of a little bit about your background about the kind of stuff that we're gonna be talking about today. Nadia 01:52 Yeah, sure, hey, Margaret. My name is Nadia, I use they or she pronouns. And I am a harm reductionist, a drug user. And I have both worked at in-person syringe service programs, and currently work for an online meal based program, where we ship safer drinking supplies to folks all over the country. Margaret 02:16 That's cool. So we talked about having you on, because we wanted to talk about preparedness that includes the drug users in your community, whether the person listening to this as drug user, or whether they care about drug users in their community. And I know it's a big open question, but I kind of wanted to ask you that. How prepare that? Nadia 02:45 Well, you know, I think that when we talk about prepping, disaster prepping and harm reduction, they're really similar, because it's really boils down to a risk assessment and thinking critically, right? The world isn't black and white, it's not really an easy question to answer, for example, should I evacuate or not in a disaster? Similarly, how do I protect myself as a drug user, in a world that isn't concerned about my health or safety? And you know, for people who historically lack access to resources, and healthcare, I think talking about how to prepare or what readiness looks like, is especially important. Margaret 03:28 So, I guess I kind of want to start with some of the practical questions. It's like, what are the things that one should do that are different from what one would otherwise do? Like I'm like thinking about like, even for my own sake, right. Like, I'm like, like people say, like, carry Narcan, for example, like, how does one access that? What is the shelf life on that? Is that a thing that if community like mutual aid groups or individuals who have like large stashes of things or whatever? Is it like worth having a bunch of. Is it depend on community access? Is it better to just like, specifically coordinate with existing harm reduction and like needle exchange groups in your area? Like, it seems to me that like, like, one of the prepper mindset things is like, "Oh, there's a thing I need, I should go out and get a bunch of it". Right? And my instinct here is that maybe that rather than run out and get a bunch of say, Narcan, it would be more about like, be aware of how people can access that and which groups do distribute that and then maybe have like enough for me to carry around? I don't know. Yeah, like, I guess let's start with Narcan. What's What's the Narcan? Nadia 04:40 Sure. Um, so for folks that are listening that don't know, Narcan or naloxone is a medication that will reverse an opioid overdose. And you know, it, it should be kept in a relatively temperature stable area, but there's there's been a lot of studies on it. And they have shown that it maintains its efficacy, much past expiration dates and the kind of temperature parameters. So you don't want to keep it somewhere freezing or super hot, but it is more resilient than you think. And having some naloxone is better than having none. And you mentioned, you know, going out and sort of stocking up. And I think that this is a broader conversation about prepping too, the difference between being ready and hoarding, right, yeah, and sometimes that line definitely gets blurry. Do you really need 100 pounds of rice? Are you going to go through it before it gets bad? Do you have a proper place to store it? I mean, you can talk about naloxone in the same way. And you know, just like you can keep Narcan in your bag. If you're going to a show going to a bar, you can also keep some in your gobag, if you have one, to evacuate, for example. Margaret 06:06 What's the....you know, I usually present myself as sort of the the person who pretends like she doesn't know what she's asking in these episodes, but I actually don't know as much about this as I would like. Alot of my friends are way more knowledgeable about this stuff. Like what is the difference between Narcan and naloxone? And how would I go about getting some to carry around with me? Nadia 06:29 Sure. So Narcan is really just a brand name, that's the the nasal spray. Naloxone is the actual medication. You can pick it up from certain service programs in your area. If you don't have a needle exchange in your area, you can go just Google Next Distro. We mail Naloxone to folks, so just check the website, see if you live in a state or an area where we do that. But we do try to encourage people to sort of seek out resources where they live. But yeah, there's there's a lot of different organizations, everything from sort of anarchist collectives, running needle exchanges to health departments that are, you know, offering trainings and providing Narcan. Margaret 07:19 What's the legality of it? Nadia 07:21 So, as far as you know, carrying it with you, there is what is called a standing order. It's basically a sort of blanket prescription. You can go to the pharmacy, purchase Naloxone, it can be prohibitively expensive, especially if you don't have insurance, which is why I kind of mentioned, you know, needle exchanges and health departments first. But I think, you know, as far as having it on your person, it's not going to be a situation where it's illegal. However, we know that cops like to fuck with people. So if you do happen to have Naloxone, and you have syringes on you, I'm not going to say you'll be fine. However, the law is on your side in that regard. And another piece of that, too, is different states have different Good Samaritan laws. So if you are with someone that is experiencing an overdose, in many states, not all, you can call 911, without the fear or threat of potentially being arrested for small possession, or things like that. They are very narrow in a lot of places. But that's something that you're going to want to look into for your state. Margaret 08:37 So it's like, this makes sense, like so probably, if I have some drugs on me and my friend has some drugs on me and my friend overdoses. There's a fear of involving the medical establishment because there's a fear of me or the person who's overdosing getting arrested for what we have on them. Is that what you're saying that this law protects? Like, yeah, in some states protects people about? Nadia 09:00 So you know, there's, there's a lot of stigma, right? And you know, just the the illegality piece. And at the end of the day there, there is an overdose crisis in the United States, in many places. And so these laws are designed to sort of take some of that fear away. And if you are responding to someone who's experiencing an overdose, you don't have to tell 911 when you call that this person is on drugs or that they are overdosing. You can just merely describe the symptoms and what is happening to them. For example, this person is not breathing, they're turning blue. I can't hear a heartbeat, whatever it might be. And you know, if you do have to leave and you have given them Naloxone, you can just leave the vials or or the package next to the person that way when EMS does arrive, they do know "Okay, this person has been given Narcan, "and they can kind of go from there, Margaret 09:59 Right. Okay, so like if you have reasons that you don't want to interact with emergency personnel and need to leave the scene, okay. Nadia 10:07 Yeah, and you have options. And that's kind of the whole thing about harm reduction, right? It's a pragmatic approach to drug use and a realistic one. And so, you know, that's why there, there are no hard and fast rules of do this, or don't do this, but, you know, sort of a continuum of human behavior. And, you know, acknowledging the risks at any point of it. Margaret 10:30 I want to come back to that in a little bit, because I want to have this whole conversation about what harm reduction...like why the work that y'all do is so like, philosophically important, to like disaster preparedness, and probably life in general. But first, I want to, I want to keep talking about some of this stuff, like with, like, you're talking about the, you know, there's an overdose crisis in the United States, I feel like everyone, on some level knows that. And one of the things that's so interesting to me, I would think I was thinking about before we did this episode is that it's like, you know, this is all about like, disaster preparedness, right? The whole show. And it feels like a lot of communities and certainly including drug communities. I don't know the way phrase that..... Nadia 11:18 You can say, "people who use drugs." Margaret 11:20 Okay. But so there is a disaster happening right now. Like, there is a crisis. Like there's a reason we call it crisis, you know, it's like a really fucking bad thing. And I'm wondering if, without necessarily going into it, like, too great, but I'm curious, like, what is happening? Like, what is what's happening right now? Why is everyone OD'ing? , Nadia 11:44 Well, you know, there's a lot of different facets to the overdose crisis and a lot of different solutions. Some of them sort of more triage, you know, we were just talking about Naloxone, and, and it's a great medication, it saves lives. But ultimately, what we really need is a safe supply of drugs. If people are aware and knowledgeable of what they're taking, how potent it is, if there are any adulterants in it, you know, that's where we would like to go. Obviously, drugs are illegal. Most drugs are illegal in most places in the United States. And, you know, there there has been pushes for access to safe supply in places like Canada in, you know, I believe Oregon has, has I think, legalized some drugs, right? You can purchase I think mushrooms now. Don't quote me on that. I'm not actually familiar with Oregon law. Margaret 12:46 Anyone listening this, you can go out and buy mushrooms legally. And if the police stop you, you can say "it''s okay. It's not a crime." Don't do that. Okay. Anyway. Yeah. Nadia 12:57 I mean, you know, philosophically, it's not a crime. It's not a crime to do drugs. And, you know, the, the idea that some of these drugs are illegal, and some of them aren't, really, is sort of goes back to like this puritanical history of our country. You know, why is alcohol legal when we know that drunk driving rates are through the roof, and you know, it can cause incredible damage to your body over time. But then, you know, smoking marijuana is, is still illegal in a lot of places. where I live, for sure, especially in the south. So, you know, I think that there's there's that moral component Margaret 13:38 So we should bring back prohibition? Nadia 13:40 Yeah, exactly. And so I think, you know, as far as having access to drugs that are safe, drugs, that that you know, what you're getting, you know, I think that we don't want to short....when I say 'we,' I mean people who use drugs, I mean, people in the harm reduction community. We don't want to shortchange ourselves. I don't want to say, "Oh, well, the overdose crisis would be so much better if everyone had not Narcan." Yes, that's true. But that's a temporary fix, Margaret 14:11 Right. It's...no, that's such a good point. Because I feel like that's like the...I know I owe came out the gate with like that as the first thing that was on my mind. And I, and I'm, like, kind of embarrassed about that because it's such the like, it's the band aid we always keep getting presented. And it's like a real good band aid. It's more like the tourniquet we keep getting presented. But, it does seem like yeah, what you're talking about decriminalization, it's almost like when you make things illegal, it doesn't make the problem go away. Nadia 14:40 Yeah, and you know, I think about it in terms of living under capitalism for so long our entire lives, right. And you get to a point where it's hard to think about solutions outside of the current system. We're so focused on kind of again, that that triage, right, how do we make things better within this oppressive state that we live in? But really, ultimately, the goal should be moving past that and moving beyond it, right? Margaret 15:11 Yeah. Yeah. So to go back with preparedness, I know that you do a little bit of preparedness yourself. We talked before we started recording about, you know, canned vegetables and things like that. How does it impact your preparedness, both that you are a drug user, and also that you, like, care about and take drug users into consideration in your preparedness? Nadia 15:40 Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is planning, right? I'm gonna use the example of of evacuating, I lived in the Gulf South for a very long time. Hurricanes were a yearly occurrence. And so I had to think about it a lot. But, you know, just in terms of what your risk is, and making a decision based on that, for example, if you are evacuating, do you bring drugs with you and sort of chance getting pulled over? Or do you try and score in a new place? And you have to decide what the bigger risk is for you. For example, if I'm driving with five of my friends in an unregistered van with acab stickers all over it, I might not want to be riding dirty, I might not want to have drugs on me. Versus, you know, if I am going somewhere completely unfamiliar to me, I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to score when I get there. It might be worth the risk, right? And so thinking of those things in advance is really important. And the longer you wait in an emergency situation, the longer it's going to take you to get out of that cone of impact, right? If you wait to the last minute, there's going to be you know, traffic on the road, it's harder to to get out, it's harder to find a hotel room, for example. So really, that thinking of it in advance, you know, I think can save you a lot of critical time when you need to act. Margaret 17:10 Yeah. Yeah, like, I don't envy a lot of my friends who live in the Gulf South, are like, "What do I need?" And I'm like, I don't know, a house in the mountains somewhere. And then I'm like, No, that doesn't. That doesn't help. You know, I can't just tell people that. Nadia 17:26 Well, and I mean, you know, we're talking about preparedness, we're talking about disaster prep. And, you know, a lot of places that haven't had to deal with disasters, like hurricanes or flooding, or wildfires are seeing more and more of that now. And there's a greater impact on bipoc, queer and trans folks, disabled people, you know, marginalized groups whose access to resources is already more limited. And, you know, I think we really need to look towards communities that have been repeatedly harmed, especially by structural and environmental racism, I think they're best informed as to how to survive and how to support each other. And I don't want to say just in the Gulf south, but I'm talking about Flint, Michigan, I'm talking about, you know, Jackson, Mississippi, there's a lot of places where, you know, people are painfully aware that no one is coming to save you. It could be weeks or months for FEMA to arrive. In many places, local governments rely on mutual aid networks and charity groups to provide support. And so that kind of vacuum speaks to the importance of building dual power. Because it leaves the field open, I think for kind of any group that wants to become entrenched or inevitability, to sort of step up, right, whether that's a homophobic church group, right wing militias, especially in rural or remote areas, because, people remember who took care of them. You know, that's one of the reasons why the Black Panthers were such a threat with free breakfast programs and community care, is why Food Not Bombs is illegal in some places. There's just there's a lot of power in community sufficiency. Margaret 19:23 Yeah. I mean, and so you, you mentioned that there's like lessons that you draw from these specific places, especially bipoc. communities that are under like constant threat. What are some of the lessons that you feel like you draw from that? I mean, besides the one that you just pointed out, maybe that's the answer to the question, what you point out that like, building mutual aid networks and stuff like that, but.... Nadia 19:45 Yeah, absolutely, figuring out who is in your support network. Also in a disaster or crisis situation, how will you communicate with that network is really important. You know, do folks know where you're staying and vice versa? Yeah. Also, you know, we're talking right now and 2022, almost 2023, the COVID pandemic isn't over. So figuring out how you can shelter places safely, you know, do you have masks on hand? That sort of thing. And then going back to prepping for people who use drugs, stocking up on drugs, you know, you might be thinking, "Oh, well, after the fact, I can just XYZ," whatever your plan is, but what if your dealer evacuated? You know? And, you know, the, as far as staying with other people, how do they feel about drug use? Does everyone know where the naloxone is and how to use it, you know, disasters are stressful, you might be dealing with extreme temperatures, hunkering down with people and their different temperaments, and, you know, for most of us to, stress impacts drug use, and it's important to keep that in mind. If you're, you know, for example, trying to cut back or regulate your use. I think all of these things, you know, are useful for people who use drugs, but ultimately, I think they're all skills or at least, you know, aspects of preparing that are beneficial for anyone. Margaret 21:14 Yeah. Well, so interesting, because it you know, normally we think of like, okay, if you can get more of a medication that you need ahead of time, right? That's great. And, you know, there's this limitation, it's actually very similar limitation, the limitation is legality. In this case of like, you know, it's, it's sometimes very hard for people who even have a prescription to get more than, you know, a month's worth of supply or whatever, at a time of any given prescription. And it's, it's something that people run up against a lot. And then obviously, with, I don't know, whether the way to phrase it as street drugs or not, or like drugs that are not being bought through the pharmaceutical networks or whatever, you know, there's an accessibility that is hit and miss. And then there's also an increased danger of stockpiling, because it seems like the the level of risk that you're carrying for getting busted changes a lot based on how much of any given drug you have on you. Nadia 22:11 Yeah, definitely. And I do want to kind of speak to one of the pieces you talked about, as far as having medications, you know, if you're on prescription medications, you know, you can check in with your provider, see, if you can get a larger refill than normal say, you know, instead of 30 days, can you get a 60 day supply, especially for people who use drugs, who might be on, you know, medication assisted treatment, they might be taking methadone, naltrexone, and, you know, these are highly effective in terms of either regulating your use, or perhaps, you know, not using it all. But they can be difficult to access. And in some places, it's harder to pick up the prescription for Vivitrol or suboxone because of stigma, because pharmacists, you know, have this idea of, of drug users, or they just might not know the the regulations and laws in their area. And you might not know them either, because you're new. So, I think that checking in, like I said, with providers ahead of time, if that's possible, and you know, doing what you can in terms of stocking up, but this, that whole plan needs the assistance of people in the medical field. And even they have, you know, that kind of stigma, unfortunately, Margaret 23:33 Yeah, yeah. To self insert this, I got refused a COVID shot because I was wearing a harm reduction shirt once. Nadia 23:41 Wait, why what was the excuse that they gave you? Margaret 23:45 I went in, I was like this dirty punk wearing a Steady Collective shirt, which is the harm reduction group in Asheville, North Carolina. And I, it's funny, I feel like it's like Stolen Valor that I wear this shirt. Because people like when I wore in Asheville people were like, I love what you do. And "I'm like, thanks. What I do is I designed the logo." And the reason I wear the shirt is because I designed the logo for it. So I'm very proud of...and it's just crossed hypodermic needles. And Nadia 24:13 It's a cool logo. Margaret 24:14 Thanks. Thanks. And I was in like, rural fucking right wing California. And I wanted a COVID booster. And so I went into the pharmacy. I found out ahead of time that this particular pharmacy did walk ins. And I walked in, and the the pharmacist at the counter was talking to a doctor who was in line in front of me. And they were both just complaining about drug users. And they were just both sitting there being like, "Oh, these damned, you know, junkies," or whatever. I don't remember how they phrased it, but it wasn't polite. And then like the person finally leaves and I walk up and I'm like, Yall take walk ins? and she's like, "No." And I'm like, "Can I make an appointment? And she's like, "Not for today." Nadia 24:59 That is wild. I mean, also you have a lot of people in the medical community that don't really believe that COVID is a thing or that vaccines are effective. I mean, you can have an anti Vaxxer pharmacist, which is, yeah, I mean, Margaret 25:16 And, like, this is such a, like, I face stigma once....I so it's like, it's really easy for me to imagine after that, that like, of course, people face stigma coming in and picking up their fucking medications, if they're like, the kinds of medications that are, like methadone and stuff like that. That's fucked up. I don't know, that sucks. Nadia 25:40 Yeah, and I mean, you know, we're talking about COVID. And I think harm reduction is a huge piece of you know, how we can kind of move through the world right now. People are continuing to die and be disabled by COVID. And, you know, we were talking a little bit before, before we started about, you know, kind of the beginning of COVID. And I was really optimistic at first kind of seeing mutual aid networks spring up and more people coming to the realization that the government will kill us for the sake of the economy. But you know, now I think even in radical spaces, that sort of care and community level protection has given way to the more mainstream sentiment or desire to return to normalcy. And that's just something that isn't possible. And it's not desirable to many, many people for whom normalcy was oppressive and a danger. Yeah, you know, I think that, especially as anarchists or folks that consider themselves radical, preppers, as well, we know that we keep us safe, right? That's kind of the tagline. But, that should also apply to immunocompromised people as well, and disabled folks. And, you know, now, I think it's a really great time to take stock of your existing protocols, and safety measures and sort of ask if those things that you're doing or not doing are still in line with what our current risk is. And right now, going into winter, you know, nationally, over 10% of tests are coming back positive. And we know that we're severely under testing, and we know that COVID reinfections, wear down your immunity. That increases your risk for long COVID or kind of lingering COVID symptoms, and, you know, makes people more susceptible to things like the flu, RSV, or Strep A, all three of which we're seeing a surge of in this winter. Margaret 27:43 Yay. Yeah. I think about it, like the fact that...I don't know how to put this. Like, I wear a mask for the same reason I carry a gun. And it...and not that I want everyone to carry guns, that is a very personal decision based on the legality and the threat models that you're facing. Bu,t I carry a gun, so that it is harder for someone to murder me and it is harder for someone to murder the people I care about who are near me, right? I wear a mask, so that I am less likely to die, and other people around me are less likely to die. This seems like such a, like the idea that there's people who are like preppers or prepper adjacent, who are anti mask, and then anti vaccine is just so nonsensical to me. And I mean, I do think that like protocols do like, they do need to shift, we do need to realize it as we realize that this is endemic, and you know, we can't...like we probably can't just say no more live music in the course of human history. Right? Nadia 28:58 I would hope not. Margaret 29:00 But I especially like, when I walk into the grocery store, there is literally no cost to me to wear a mask. There is just, there's only positive effects of me wearing a mask minus social stigma. Nadia 29:17 You know, I think that we need, if we're going to survive, care, kindness, and a lot of grace. Which requires us to acknowledge that there's a huge cognitive dissonance people are dealing with right now. We're three years into a global pandemic that's killed six and a half million people around the world, the rise of fascism, I mean, there's a lot and people's responses are going to vary wildly. Kind of the metaphor I like to use is, it sort of feels like a house fire. And we've all just gone through this traumatic experience, and we've run out of the house in the middle of the night, and everyone is sort of behaving in a trauma informed way, some people are trying to run back into the house, some people are claiming that there was never a fire. And, you know, it's, it's trying to take care of each other, and hold ourselves accountable to being, you know, I think responsible for our communities, but while also acknowledging, you know, this is a weird fucking time. You know, I think too, this kind of goes back a little bit to our Naloxone conversation. You know, when we talk about masks, when we talk about boosters, these are sort of individual steps we can take, right? But ultimately, that's, that's only a piece of it, right? We need a societal shift. We need proper air filtration in schools, we need access to rapid testing, we need the working class to have the money and ability to take time off of work when they're sick. I mean, all of these things are sort of interconnected to this larger struggle. And one way that capitalism and our sort of overlords here and Imperial core, are able to shift blame is by you know, kind of making everything this individual choice and individual responsibility when it's not at all. Margaret 31:33 No, that's such a good point. And there's it, it shows that there's even like, some of those things are small scale community, things can be done as well, like, it would be a shame for a small scale community to have to suddenly like come up with the resources to provide rapid testing to everyone constantly or whatever, right. But like, I don't know, like, helping your local venues get real good air filtration systems, you know, or like, expanding outside infrastructure in climates that allow it, and like, there are the steps that we can take that are sort of medium. They're not....And I think that's actually where anarchists and radicals actually do best is not at the individual level. And frankly, if I if I'm being honest, not necessarily at the systemic level, but like this sort of in between level, this community based this community size level of like, how do we? Yeah, I mean, we can't....the punks or the anarchists, or whatever is can't pass a mask mandate, but like, we can create, like, cultures where, when there's no reason not to, we wear masks, and we work on our air filtration. And this is really just me thinking about COVID instead of the whole point of this conversation was drug use stuff, but... Nadia 32:54 Well I mean, they're, I think they're interrelated. You know, if you are putting on a punk show, is it accessible, right? Does that mean, you know, for folks in wheelchairs, folks with, you know, mobility aids, as well as immunocompromised people, and ensuring that you know, this is a place that they have access to? Or if it's not, saying that. I at least want you to say, "Hey, this is a dangerous place for you. And, making it accessible is not our priority or isn't possible in this situation. Therefore, you can make your own decision about whether or not you want to attend." Margaret 33:36 I've been in like, an now I can't remember if it was France or Montreal, somewhere where people spoke French. I've been in places where like any anarchist event will put on the fliers the accessibility or lack of accessibility for wheelchair access. And that's such an interesting, good point, right? Because if you have to flag on it, "This is not wheelchair accessible." It means you have to think about it when you do it, right. And like, Which isn't to say you shouldn't...I don't know one way or the other about what I'm about to say, which doesn't mean like you can't put on an event if you can't find it, accessible space, but you should have to own it, and you should have to be working on making the space more accessible. Is that, uh??? I'm really talking about my ass here. I haven't I haven't been part of these conversations. But. Nadia 34:21 I mean, as someone who is struggling with long COVID still a year in, you know, I am also new to the disability conversation. And I definitely feel grateful for the folks who have been activists and have been organizing around these issues for you know, forever, honestly. And it really was shocking to me, even though I'm fairly realistic about how our society treats folks they deem unworthy or undesirable, but it was really shocking the level to which you become invisible. All. And you know, I think, to sort of shoehorn a little segue back to our orginal conversation, people who use drugs also live in that sort of liminal space, right? There's so much that is invisible about drug use. But also, this kind of caricature of drug users is sort of trotted out anytime people want to talk about society's ills, right? When people are talking about folks without homes, inevitably drug use comes up as if people aren't sitting in their houses doing drugs. They just have walls and you can't see them. Margaret 35:38 Yeah, well, and then one of the things that I really appreciate about this conversation with you is that you're talking about the implication, or the the inference that I'm picking up on, is that basically saying, It's okay, if people use drugs, that is their choice, it seems to be like, like a lot of the conversation that I've feel like I'm exposed to is this, like, we should have pity for these poor drug users, and everyone is trying to stop using drugs. Whereas, it seems like you're trying to present an alternate case where people can choose whether or not they want to engage with drugs in different ways? Nadia 36:17 Yeah, I mean, you know, harm reduction is the sort of set of principles or tenants that allows for autonomy and allows for people to make informed decisions about what they do. You know, abstinence doesn't necessarily work or isn't feasible for everyone. And so, you know, giving people the space and acknowledging that there's always going to be some risk in the things that we do, you know, helps us kind of approach it with clear eyes. But the I think the moral question around using drugs really does us a disservice. Doing drugs is fun, and cool. And that is, I think, an important message to have out there because, you know, so often, we're just inundated with all of the terrible things that can happen to you. And again, this is normal human behavior. This is normal behavior in other other species, you've got monkeys eating, you know, fruit that's gone, gone bad and getting drunk, you've got bears eating psychedelic honey. We do this because it's enjoyable. And to deny it that, I think, sort of leaves us on our back foot in terms of "Okay, well, how do we do this safely?" Margaret 37:41 Yeah, presenting as this is a bad thing that someone shouldn't have done and now we have to deal with the bad parts, as compared to being like, every animal on the planet wants to do this, we should figure out ways that people can have freedom to do it as safely as they want or to not do it, if they don't want. Nadia 38:07 Right, and you know, both are fine. It's also cool to not do drugs. I do want to put that out there. But as a drug user, you know, this touches on our conversation about safe supply, right? When you're buying and you don't know the quality or if there's cross contamination, obviously, a lot of folks are very concerned about things like fentanyl right now. There's also you know, other sort of fillers or things people can use. Xylazine is something that is sort of making the rounds right now that can have potential, like negative health impacts. So yeah, I think this, this goes back to sort of those bigger picture solutions as opposed to the band aids. Margaret 38:55 Okay. And then, how useful is it? You know, like, as you pointed out earlier, right....Again, before, we had a long pre conversation. We knew each other back in the day for, now, people can know that about us, I guess. You know, pointing out because like, I mostly don't do drugs, but I do drink sometimes, right, and that is a drug and alcohol is absolutely a drug. It's a very dangerous drug. And it's one that I engage with very rarely, but I do engage with, and it does seem like a fairly useful comparison for talking about other drugs. Like cause there's this drug that is socially acceptable while also being massively destructive, right? And it seems like that actually maps fairly well to most of the other drugs that are like, problems for people. I don't know is that too simplistic? Nadia 39:51 No, I don't think so. You know, and that's also not to say that people don't struggle with their drug use that people you You know, might be really unhappy with their relationship to drugs. And, you know, the more openly we can talk about it and the more access to different options people have, that sort of allows them to, you know, find the most comfortable place for them. Right, there is this, you know, kind of individual piece to it, even though we're talking a lot about sort of community care, Margaret 40:24 Right. No, that's what I mean, that, in some ways, is part of why alcohol feels like such a good comparison. It's not even a comparison, it's literally a drug. It's a drug that is somehow held into a different class than the others, is that I think we all know people who....for whom alcohol is a problem. And we all know people for whom alcohol is not a problem. And then we all know, people who completely abstain from alcohol, who are in one of those two camps, if they weren't abstaining, you know? Hmm. I don't know, I'm having this like, epiphany, that should have been obvious a long time ago, I think about this. Nadia 41:02 Well, and, you know, thinking in terms of alcohol, and using that as an example of how constrained we are in terms of our choices, you know, if if you are someone that struggles with drinking, really the the options that are given to you are abstinence, right? 12 steps, complete sobriety, and the message that that is the only way that you will be able to, you know, become a functioning member of society. And the fact is that that's simply not true.You know, abstinence really doesn't work for many, many people. You know, I think most of us can remember the "Just Say No," campaigns of the 90s, or maybe the 80s, depending on how old you are. And we know those didn't work. It don't work for children, it doesn't work for adults. And, you know, I think I don't want to get too far down the rabbit hole. But I think it would be important for folks to sort of think about, "Well, why is alcohol illegal? And all these other drugs aren't?"And I think it all goes back to capitalism. It goes back to money. It goes back to social control. Margaret 42:22 Yeah. Well, ironically, one of the reasons that alcohol is legal, is that a bunch of people fought the KKK to the death to make alcohol legal. I only learned as kind of more recently when I did a

Episode Summary Brooke and Margaret recap the passed year of horrifying events, from climate collapse, to inflation economics, to developments with Covid, mass shooting, why the police continue to suck, culture wars, bodily autonomy, why capitalism ruins everything, as well as a glimpse of what could be coming this next year both hopeful and dreadful in This Year in the Apocalypse. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Brooke is just great and can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Next Episode Hopefully will come out Friday, Jan. 31st. Transcript This Year in the Apocalypse 2022 Brooke 00:15 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, your co-host for this episode, along with the indomitable Margaret killjoy. Margaret 00:27 Hiiii Brooke 00:28 We have something extra special for you. Hi, Margaret. You might be familiar with the monthly segment we started in 2022: This Month in the Apocalypse, and today we will take that into a sub segment: This Year in the Apocalypse. But, first we have to shout out to another member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts, but playing a little jingle from one of our comrades, Boo doo doo doo, doo doo. Brooke 01:18 And we're back. So, before I tell people about this extra special episode, I want to officially say "Hello," to my co host, Margaret. Hi, Margaret. Margaret 01:36 Hello, how are you? Brooke 01:38 I'm doing okay. How are you doing? Margaret 01:42 I'm doing terrible, and I'm not going to talk about it. Brooke 01:45 Okay, that's fair. That sounds like me most of the time. Okay, well, speaking of terrible, how did the last year treat you now that we've flipped the calendar? Is there anything you would like to say to the year 2022? Margaret 01:59 You know, it's fine. It's just the year 2020 part three. As far as the other parts of the year 2020, it's been...it was chiller, then parts one and two. Not from a climate point of view, but from a fascism point of view. Brooke 02:21 Oh, okay. That's a good point. Well, I feel like 2022 as with most years....Sorry. What, Margaret? Margaret 02:30 Everything's fine. Nothing bad happened. That's the end of the episode. Brooke 02:33 Always. Margaret 02:34 Everything's good. Brooke 02:35 Okay, cool. Well, this has been a fun recording. Yeah. Well, as with most years, in the last decade, I say, "Fuck you to 2022," and would like to burn it all down. So, we have that going for us. Margaret 02:51 Alright, fuck you, 2022. I do that when I leave a state. Brooke 02:58 You say, "Fuck you," to the State behind you? Margaret 02:59 Yeah, yeah. Brooke 03:01 Even even Oregon, even when you came to visit us out here? Margaret 03:05 Why would I? Why would Oregon be any different? Brooke 03:08 Because some of the people you love are in Oregon. Margaret 03:16 Whatever, fuck you too....I mean, many of the people I love were also in the year 2022. Brooke 03:21 Okay, all right. You got me. Margaret 03:24 Okay. Brooke 03:24 One point: Margaret , zero points: Brooke. Margaret 03:26 Yep, that's what I was saying. Brooke 03:27 Yeah. So. So, I was thinking about how we do this extra fun, special episode of This Year in the Apocalypse. And being typical Brooke, I was like, let's come up with a very orderly fashion in which to do this. I shall take all of the months and pick one thing per month, and we shall be organized. And spoiler alert for the audience. Margaret and I came up with separate lists. We haven't seen each other's lists. We don't know what each other shittiest things are. Margaret 03:53 Wait, I didn't pick the shittiest things. I just picked stuff. Brooke 03:56 Oh, damn, I pick the shitty stuff. Margaret 04:00 Okay, well, I tried to go with a little bit of, there's not a lot of hope in here. There's a little bit of hope in here. Brooke 04:08 It's funny, because when I was thinking about this, I was like, oh, Margaret should do the happy stuff, because Margaret does Cool People. And I can be the the Roberts Evans, everything's bastards side of the simulation. Margaret 04:20 Okay, well, it's a good thing we're figuring this out right now, on air. Brooke 04:23 Right? Margaret 04:24 Okay. So, we'll start with your month by month and then I'll interject? Margaret 04:28 That's fine. Brooke 04:28 Super fun. Yeah. And like a disclaimer on the month by month is that not all months were created equal. So, it's like, whatever the shittiest thing in one month, maybe, you know, way shittier than next month. That's annoying to like, try and compare them in that way. It was a silly way for me to do it, but.. here we are. Brooke 04:30 All right. flashing back 12 months to January, 2022: America hit a million COVID cases with Omicron surging, so Good job America. COVID ongoing and bad. Margaret 05:04 We're number one. Brooke 05:06 Yeah. The other the other real shitty, horrible thing in January was inflation, which technically was pretty crappy in 2021, as well. But we started feeling it more in January like that's when it started hitting and then was kind of ongoing throughout this year as businesses responded to the inflation, had to start raising prices and stuff. Well, had to...some had to, some chose to because they could get away with it. Margaret 05:34 Should I? I wrote down all the inflation numbers for the end of the year. Brooke 05:39 Yeah, baby. Margaret 05:41 The OECD, which stands for something something something, it's a group of 38 countries that sit around and talk about how great they are, or whatever economic something, something. You think I would have written it down. They do. They calculate inflation for their member countries, based on the Consumer Price index. It averaged. This is as of October, the report in December, talks about it as of October, it averaged about 10.7% overall inflation across these 38 countries in the last year. Food averaged at...I wrote down 6.1%. But, I actually think it was slightly higher than that. I think I typo-ed that. Brooke 06:22 In the US was closer to 8%. Margaret 06:26 Yeah, and then, okay. More developed nations saw this all a little bit lower the G7, which is the Group of Seven, it's the seven countries who have the elite cool kids club, and try and tell everyone what to do. Their overall inflation was 7.8%, as compared to the 10.7%. Inflation in the US actually tapered off most than most other countries, probably because we fuck everyone else over, but I couldn't specifically tell you. Inflation is a bit of a black box that even the people who know what inflation is don't really understand. And, energy inflation in general was the most brutal. Italy saw 70% energy inflation in the last year. It was 58%. In the UK, it was 17% in the US. So energy, inflation is actually outpacing even food inflation. And most of the food inflation, as we've talked about, at different times on this is caused by rising costs of fertilizer and like diesel and things like that. Yeah, that's what I got about inflation. There was a lot of it. It's technically tapering off a little bit in the United States. Just this moment. Brooke 07:41 Yeah, I was actually listening to a economics report about that yesterday about how it's tapering off a little bit. The extra shitty thing that happened in February, which added to the drastically increasing fuel prices and food prices, was that fucking Russia invaded Ukraine,and started bombing shit there. Margaret 08:04 Boo. Brooke 08:06 And that that might win as...if we're taking a poll here of all of the worst things that happened in the last year, I kind of feel like that, you know, that's got to be one of the top three. Margaret 08:16 It's, it's up there. Yeah. Even in terms of its effects on the rest of the world, even like, if you're like, on a, well, what do I care about what two European countries are doing? Because, but it affects the shit out of the global south. Ukraine in particular, and also Russia providing a very large percentage of the grain and wheat that goes to, especially Africa. So, yeah, a lot of the energy inflation in the rest of Europe is also a direct result of Russian imperialism. Brooke 08:47 Yeah, it's pretty...it's fucked up a lot of stuff. There was another shitty thing that happened before that happened in February, which is what the Olympics began. And you know, Boo the Olympics. Yeah. So then we then we moved into March and there was this thing called COVID. And then there was this bad inflation happening and then this war over in Ukraine, but then we also, in Florida decided to pass a bill, the nicknamed 'Don't Say Gay' bill. Margaret 09:18 Yeah. I can't believe that was less than a year ago. That was like eight culture wars ago. Brooke 09:26 I know, because I got some of the other ones coming up here. And it was like, oh, fuck, that's still a thing. And then moving into April, so, there was like this war going on, and inflation was bad, and people were dying of this pandemic that we were living in, and then also, the Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard trial began. And that might not seem like one of the shittiest things, but for like anyone who's been a survivor of domestic violence, and the way that trial it seemed like you know, every social media platform like you were getting like ads for it. Right? I know, other people talked about this, like everyone was seeing all these ads for news reports on it. It was like way at the top of the list. And, you know, again, domestic abuse survivor, like, I don't, I don't need to be reminded about, you know, this awful ongoing domestic abuse trial. Margaret 10:19 Yeah, yeah, that was, um, I like try to avoid everything that has to do with celebrities, but realizing how much that that like, ties into, I don't know, how we all talk about all of this shit. I have nothing really clever to say besides like, oh, my God, it's so fucked up. And I don't trust mainstream discourse around any of it. Yeah, Brooke 10:39 For sure. We also saw because of climate issues, Lake Mead was dropping to dangerously low levels, starting all the way in April. And I feel like we could have done this whole episode on climate catastrophes that happened in the last year, like This Year in the Apocalypse could have just been climate change. It was a lot. Margaret 11:00 Yes, well, fortunately that will start overriding everything else over the next couple of years. So, you know....One or the other just to Lake thing on my note, Lake Powell, which provides power to 4.5 million people could reach minimum power pool status by July [2023]. So that's a that's an upcoming thing to look forward to. Brooke 11:29 Yay, for the year ahead. Yeah, I don't even know what the status of Lake Mead is right now. I'm sure it's not doing great. And we'll probably start hearing about it again in the spring as it's at dangerously low levels, find more bodies and boats and whatever else. Margaret 11:46 And they're both. Both are on the Colorado River. Yeah, they're both on the Colorado River. Brooke 11:51 Yeah. And if you're not familiar with why Lake Mead matters, John Oliver actually did a really good piece on it on his show that talks about the water rights and stuff. I think it was John Oliver. Maybe it was John Stewart. Margaret 12:07 And if you want to read a terrible...a very good, although misogynist dystopia about what's coming in terms of water rights, there's a book called "The Water Knife" by Paulo [Bacigalupi], whose name last name I don't know how to pronounce. It's an Italian name. I think yeah, Brooke 12:21 I actually have that on my to-read-shelf. Margaret 12:23 Yeah, it's, um, that man should not be allowed to write sex worker characters ever again. Brooke 12:29 Thank you for the notice there on what to expect on that aspect. Margaret 12:34 But other than that, other than that, it's very interesting book. Brooke 12:40 Okay. May brought us a couple of big bad shootings, which is, you know, not again, not to diminish any other school shootings or shootings that happened or the fact that they're going on, you know, all the time in schools, but they were the ones that like, hit the news, really big. There was the Buffalo, New York supermarket shooting that happened. And then the towards the end of the month was that just God awful Robb Elementary School shooting in Texas, that I don't know how everyone else experienced it. But I, as a parent, you know, whose child who's only slightly older than that. It was absolutely horrifying for me and enraging, and I had a lot of feelings about it. And you know, school shootings are always hard to see, but that one in particular... Margaret 13:29 This is the coward cops one, where they kept parents out who were the parents who were trying to like save kids? Brooke 13:33 Yeah, for like 72 minutes or something like that, more than that they were outside the door where the guy was actively shooting on children. Margaret 13:41 This is...the character of American law enforcement was laid bare on that day, is how I feel. I mean, I have many feelings on all of it, but... Brooke 13:53 And that was in Uvalde, Texas, where they have two separate police systems. There is a police system just for the schools there in addition to the town's police. Margaret 14:07 There was that, uh, there was that lawsuit 10,15,20 years ago, something, where a man who was like, I think it was someone who's like stabbing people on the train, you know, just like, just just doing that thing. And, and a man stopped him, stopped the stabby guy while the cops cowered in behind, like they went into, like the driver's compartment of the train, and they just hid from the stabby guy. And the the guy stopped the stabby guy sued...I might have the details of this wrong. Sued and was like, the police have a duty to protect people. And it came back, the judge is like, "Actually they don't, it is literally not the jobs. The police's job is not to protect you. That is not their job." And, the sooner we all realize that the safer we'll be, because the more people will realize that safety is something that we're going to have to build without the infrastructure that pretends to offer a safety, but absolutely does not. And legally is not required to. Brooke 14:21 Yeah, I didn't know all the backstory of that. But, I know that that one went to the Supreme Court. And that became, you know, the national standard, because I remember reading about that part of it that, yeah, they don't, they don't have they don't have a duty to protect. Margaret 15:27 I think it was the stabby guy on the train. But I, you know, I'm not like a classic thing rememberer, it's not like my skill set. I didn't put my points in character creation in memory. Brooke 15:41 Well important thing there is was the the outcome of that. The other big bad shooting I remember making the news pretty loudly this year was also the Highland Park Parade shooting that actually happened in July. So that was a couple of months later. But yeah, good times. Guns. Margaret 15:58 Hurray. [sadly] Brooke 15:59 All right. So, we moved into June. And a couple of things are going on, on the global stage. Flooding began in Pakistan. And that flooding continued for a couple of months. We talked about this on one of our This Month, episodes, and even to right now, there is still flooding. And that flooding that did occur, you know, has displaced 1000s, if not millions of people. And it's really, really fucked things up and continues to fuck things up in Pakistan. Margaret 16:25 And I would say that flooding in general, is one of the things that we're seeing more and more of all over the world. And it's one of the things that like...I think a lot of people and maybe I'm just projecting, but you know, I grew up thinking of floods as sort of a distant thing. And then actually where I lived, most recently, we all had to leave because of constant flooding as climate changed. And I think that floods need to be something....It's the opposite of quicksand. When you're a kid you think about quicksand is like this thing to like, worry about, and then you grow up and realize that like quicksand is like not...don't worry about quicksand. That's not part of your threat modeling. And, so I think that flooding is something that whether or not it was on something that you were really worried about, wherever you live, it is something that you should pay attention to. It's not like, a run out and worry, right. But, it's a thing to be like more aware of, you know, there was recent...New Years in San Francisco and Oakland, there was really bad flooding. And then again, a couple of days later, might still be going on by the time people listen to this, but I'm not actually sure. And you know, there's the footage of people running out with like boogie boards or surfboards or whatever into the streets and, and playing in the flood. And, I'm not actually going to sit here on my high horse and tell people to never go into floodwater, you shouldn't, it is not a thing you should do, but it is a thing that people do. But I think people don't recognize fast moving currents, how dangerous they are, just how dangerous floods are, no matter how they look. And, if there's more than a foot of water, don't drive through it. Brooke 17:58 Yeah, if you're not experienced with floods, those are things you wouldn't know. So I have, you know, you said, that wasn't a big thing in your childhood, but because of where I live, it you know, I don't know if this is true of all the Pacific Northwest, but certainly, in my town, flooding is a big concern, we''re right on a river, and when there was bad rainstorms back in 96', like most of downtown got flooded. I mean, I was I was a kid then. I was I was a youth. And that experience, you know, kind of informed some of my youth, you know, we had a lot of lessons learned about how to manage flooding, what you do and don't do inflooding. So that's something that's been in the forefront of my mind. And yeah, as I see other people dealing with flooding for the first time in the news, it's like, oh, no, no, you don't. No. That's bad. Don't do that. Don't go in those waters. But it's their first time. They wouldn't know. Margaret 18:53 Yeah. Unless you were like, directly saving something or someone, especially someone, and then even then you have to know what you're doing. You know, they're a bigger deal, even smaller ones are a bigger deal than you realize, I guess is the thing to say about floods. Anyway, so Okay, so where are we at? Brooke 19:10 We're still in June, because there was, you know, in addition to the inflation, and the flooding, and the heat waves, and the war going on, and people dying of a pandemic, this little thing happened in the US where the Supreme Court's overturned a little a little old law called Roe v. Wade. Margaret 19:29 That was about two different ways of interacting with water? [joking] Brooke 19:33 Yes, exactly. Ties, ties, right and flooding there. Yeah. It was just a minor... Margaret 19:39 Yeah, that's my joke about people losing their capacity to control their own bodies. Just a little light hearted joke. Very appropriate. Brooke 19:48 As a person with a uterus, I genuinely can't...i can't joke about that one. Like, it's just too close to home. Margaret 19:54 Yeah, fair enough. I'm sorry. Brooke 19:57 No, it's I'm glad that you are, because it is good to laugh about these things that are actually very upsetting. It's how, it's part of our, you know, grieving process, how we deal with it as being able to laugh a little bit. Margaret 20:08 Yeah. Yeah, although and then, you know, okay, so we've had this like, fight, you know, America's polarizing really hard about a lot of very specific issues: people's ability to control the reproductive systems being a very major, one people's ability to control their hormonal systems and the way they present being another one, I'm sure I'll talk about that more. And, you know, the, the weirdly positive thing that happened this week that I started writing notes about, but didn't finish, is about how there's now...they're changing the laws about how the accessibility of abortion pills and so that they're going to be available in more types of stores for more people in the near future. This will not affect people who are in abortion ban states. So it's this polarization, it's becoming easier to access reproductive health and control in some states, and it's becoming harder and illegal to access it in other states. My other like, positive...It's not even a positive spin. It's the glint of light in the darkness is that abortion was illegal for a very long time in the United States, and people did it, and had access to it and not as well, and it is better when it is legal. Absolutely. But underground clinics existed. And people did a lot of work to maintain reproductive health. And now we have access to such better and safer tools for reproductive health, whether you know, it's access to abortion pills, or just everything about reproductive health has...we know a lot more about it as a society than at least medical and Western, you know, methods of abortion. We know a lot more about than we did a couple decades ago. And then, the other big thing that I keep thinking about...so there was the Jane Collective, right, in the US is I'm just like moving into history mode. Is that annoying? Brooke 22:06 Go for it. Margaret 22:07 Teah. It's my other fucking podcast, all history and so like there's the Jane Collective in the US. And they were really fucking cool. And they provided all these abortions to people in Chicago, and they actually pioneered a lot of methods of abortion and pushed forward a lot of important shit, right? In the 1920s, in Germany, anarchists ran more than 200 abortion clinics. Basically, if you wanted an abortion in 1920s, Germany, you went to the syndicalists, you went to the anarcho syndicalists. And because they sat there, and they were like, "Oh, a large amount of crime needs to be done on an organized fashion. And what is anarcho syndicalism? But a way to organize crime?" In this case, usually it's like class war against bosses and illegal strikes and stuff. But, "How do we organize that on a large scale?" And the anarchists were the ones who had the answer answers to, 'How do you organize crime on a large scale,' and I want to know more about that information. I haven't found that much about it in English yet. But, that kind of thing gives me hope. It gives me hope that we can, it's better when it is legal, I'm not being like, this is great, you know, it's fucked up, but we can do this. And, you know, on this very podcast, if you listen to one of the Three Thieves, Four Thieves? Some Number of Thieves Vinegar Collective, Margaret, famous remember of details, they they talk about their work, developing reverse engineering or making accessible, different abortion drugs and how to basically like, create them, and get them to where they need to be, regardless of the legality of those things. But, you might have more to say about this, too. I just wanted to go into history mode. Brooke 23:50 No, I I liked that. And yeah, you did those episodes in a few different ways about it that are super important. I mean, I don't think I need to rehash why Roe is so important. We we know that, you know, and it's not just about reproductive rights for people with uteruses, either. It's about the trends towards you know, bodily autonomy and regulation of bodies. And you know, what that signals as well, it's an issue for everybody. Margaret 24:17 Yeah. And remember, like at the very beginning, some people were like, they might be coming for birth control next, and everyone's like, Nah, they're not coming for birth control. And now you can see the same, the same right wing people who are like, "We should probably just kill the gay people." They like say it and city council meetings. They're also being like, "And birth control on my right, like, fuck that thing?" Brooke 24:36 Yeah. Frustrating. Margaret 24:39 Yeah. Get it out of someone's cold dead hands. Brooke 24:45 Yeah, this is one of those things where the months don't necessarily compare. Yeah. Margaret 24:49 There's that meme....Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, go. Brooke 24:52 We...you know there were historic heat waves going on. Continued flooding and droughts. And all kinds of climate nastiness. And then in, in Tariff Island, we saw a whole bunch of British officials resign, and then Boris Johnson resigning, which, you know, fuck the government and all of those kinds of things, and fuck that guy. But, it did also lead into this, what has been kind of a lot of turmoil in the UK as they've gone through now a couple of different prime ministers and just like, you know, just the the, the sign of the crumbles of how just overwhelmingly corrupt political leaders are, you know, at this point in so called, you know, democratic and stable democracies, that, you know, they're falling apart too. Margaret 25:39 Now, that's a good point. Um, what year did that lady I didn't like die? What day? What month? Queen? Brooke 25:48 I didn't put down the month because that's a happy thing that happened, not a shitty thing. Margaret 25:51 I know. Remember positive things about 2022. And like, stadiums full of like, Irish folks being like, "Lizzie's in a box. Lizzie's in a box." There's like some positive things. Brooke 26:08 I might rewatch some of those after this, just for a little pick me up. Margaret 26:11 Yeah. The people dancing in front of the palace, anyway. Yeah. I don't like colonialism or monarchy. I don't know if anyone knew this about me. Brooke 26:20 Yeah. No, same. I've been trying to explain to my kid about why Queen Elizabeth was bad. And she's having a hard time. Because, you know, children and fantasies and stories and kings and queens, and blah, blah, blah. Margaret 26:32 Yeah. Which is the fucking problem. Brooke 26:34 Yeah, a similar kind of thing happened in August in terms of like, you know, unstable, so supposedly stable governments, in that the the FBI had to raid Mar-a-Lago and Trump which, again, fuck Trump and the FBI and the federal government and all of that, but as a sign of, you know, our democracies actually not being very sound, and how just grossly corrupt politicians are and stuff, the only way they could get back a bunch of confidential documents and like, nuclear related stuff was to fucking invade a former president. Yeah. Also in August Yeah. monkeypox started hitting the news, which of course, speaking of culture was, right, that led into a whole bunch of stuff about, you know, a bunch of anti-gay stuff and reminders of what the AIDS epidemic was like, and just a whole bunch of fucking nonsense up in the news because of that. Margaret 27:32 God, I barely remember that. Brooke 27:34 Right, I think we did it on an episode, a This Month episode. Margaret 27:38 I mean, I remember it now. It's just there's so much. There's so much. Yeah. Yeah. Brooke 27:44 So September brought us protests starting to erupt in Iran. Finally. There was a woman, Masha Amini, who was arrested, you know, they had been doing caravans, were doing these crackdowns and the morality police and stuff. And so that was the start of a bunch of turmoil there that went on for at least three months. It's finally settled down some last month. But that was going on, and then also towards the end of the month hurricane Ian hit in Florida. So, not to make it all about the climate. But again, historic hurricanes and flooding and stuff. Margaret 28:19 Yeah. And these things are related to each other. I mean, like, as you have global insecurity caused by climate, it's going to show all of the cracks in the systems and like, it's hard, because it's like, overall, you know, I see the the attempted revolution, the uprising in Iran is an incredibly positive thing and like reminder of the beauty of the human spirit. And also, like, what happened, the end result of that, that, I don't even want to say, 'end result,' though, right? Because like, every social struggle is going to ebb and flow. And, our action is going to cause reaction. And you know, and whenever people have uprisings, they remember power. They also remember fear, right? And the system is hoping that people remember fear. And the people are hoping that they remember power, you know, and, and it seems impossible to predict which uprisings will lead to fear and which ones will lead to power in terms of even when they're crushed, right? Whether that is the fertile soil for the next rising or whether it you know, has salted the earth to try and keep my metaphor consistent. Brooke 29:43 Nah, mixed metaphors the best. Okay, yeah, it's not a bad thing that people were protesting against what was going on there. It's it's awful that they had to get to that point that the morality police were so bad that they had to start protesting and ongoing conflict and unrest in the Middle East, never ending. Margaret 30:06 And I want to know more. I haven't done enough research on this yet, but another like hopeful thing about, you know, sort of global feminist, radical politics, there's been a recent movement of men in Afghanistan, who are walking out of exams and walking out of different positions that only men are allowed to hold, you know, in schools and things like that, in protest of the fact that of women's disinclusion. Brooke 30:33 Okay, I hadn't heard anything about that. So that's, yeah, We'll have to add that to a This Month, because I want to know more about that too. That sounds really positive. Margaret 30:40 Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know whether it's, you know, happened three times, and it's caught headlines each time or I don't know enough about it to talk about it as a movement. But it matters. That kind of stuff matters. And yeah, it's hopeful. Brooke 30:57 Well, we moved into October and the fall season, and y'all might remember this little one, some South African asshole named Elon Musk, Mosh, Mosk, whatever that guy's name is, Margaret 31:10 He's named after the rodent, the muskrat. Brooke 31:13 Okay, that'll be easy to remember. That guy officially took over at the only social media platform that I don't mostly hate, which is Twitter. A lot of his fucked-up-ness...Nah, he did some of that the first week, that was still in October. And then definitely more came after that. But, he's destroying the microblogging site that we all love so much. Margaret 31:36 Yeah, I will say, my favorite meme that come out of that was basically like, you know what, I've decided that I am okay with Elon Musk being in charge of the exodus of all the rich people to Mars. [Laughs] Brooke 31:50 Yes, winning. Do that quickly. Margaret 31:53 Yeah. He'll fuck it up. Like he fucks everything up. You've seen Glass Onion? Brooke 31:58 Yes, I did. Margaret 32:00 I don't want to like spoil it for people. But, I'll just say that movie did a really good job of pointing out that Elon Musk is just a fucking...is not an intelligent person, is not doing genius things. And it was pointed out really well. Brooke 32:15 Can I point out something embarrassing? Margaret 32:17 Absolutely, it's just you and I here. Brooke 32:21 No one will ever know. I didn't realize when I watched it that that guy was supposed to be a parody of like Elon Musk specifically. I thought it was just like generic, you know, rich people are terrible. And then it wasn't till like after I watched it, and everyone else started watching it and commenting that it was Musk and I was like, "Oh, damn, obviously it is." Margaret 32:42 Yeah, it's the like, the car thing and the space thing are the main nods. I mean, it's at the same time. It could be Bezos it could be any fucking, like tech billionaire asshole. But I think it was, I think it was intentionally Musk. Brooke 32:56 Yeah, I've got to rewatch it with that in mind. I was too busy going, "Oh, it's that guy. It's that actor or actress. Someone I know that person. Enjoy the characters. Yeah. That was a thing that happened in December, but we haven't done November, so November, Powerball made some poor asshole into a billionaire. So I feel bad for that guy. Yeah. So the Powerball, nobody had won it for like three months, and the pot got up to like $2 billion. And a single a single person had the winning ticket when it was finally pulled. Which, if they take the cash payout, which I think most people do, it's actually only $1 billion. And then, probably the government takes that. So you're only half a billionaire, probably by the time all is said and done. But still, that's, you know, what a way to fuck up the rest of your existence by suddenly having that much money. Margaret 33:51 I'm like, I'd take a shot. Brooke 33:56 I like to think, you know, I have this list of all these nice things that I would do and people I would support and love, but the evidence bears out that anyone who's ever won something like that doesn't make all the great choices. Margaret 34:09 No, no. Okay. Yeah, I think you need to have a council of people who direct...I think that any anarchist who's like, possibly going to end up rich, like, whether through inheritance or becoming the next Stephen King or whatever needs to, like, seriously consider how the dealing with that money should be a collective effort and not an individual effort. Anyway. Brooke 34:35 I agree. Yeah. Margaret 34:36 I went through this when, at one point, I did not get...I did not become a millionaire. But, at one point, Hollywood was interested in one of my my books, and we had long conversations about it. I had conversations with the Hollywood director around it, about whether or not they would adapt a certain book of mine into a TV show. And it didn't work out in the end. But, I like sat there and mathed it out and was like, oh, if they make it TV show out of my book, I will become a millionaire. And like, what would that mean? And, and so that's when I started having these, like, which just totally the same as winning the Powerball and having a billion dollars, and also not just not my weird...I don't know, whatever. Now everyone knows this. Brooke 35:16 I don't think that's a unique thing. Yeah, so that happened in November. And that sucks. And it didn't make the news the way it should have. So I just wanted to highlight that horribleness. And then, also that orange clown douchebag potato that lives in Florida, said that he's going to run for president again. So, we have that to look forward to. But, then the third thing that happened, which isn't just isolated to November, but the World Cup started, and I have nothing against football, love football, the World Cup as a concept. Fine, but there are so many problems, much like the Olympics, with the way they do it. And what happens around all that. Margaret 36:00 Yeah, yeah, I love...I love that I should be able to like a lot of things. And then the way that they're done by our society precludes me from really deeply enjoying them. Brooke 36:10 Why do you have to take such a nice thing and ruing it. Margaret 36:13 All things. All things. You could name anything, and we could talk about how capitalism and fucking imperialism ruined it. Brooke 36:20 Yeah, pretty much. Down with those systems. Alright, so now we're finally getting into the end. You'll remember this one, because it was only like a month ago that there were some targeted attacks in North Carolina on power stations. 40,000 people without power for several days, in fact, it wasn't like a quick fix thing. They really fucked some shit up there. One that I didn't hear about, but that has some pretty big implications is that the country of Indonesia banned sex outside of marriage, even for