0:03

Most days, the war fields distant, like

0:05

a bad dream from your early childhood.

0:08

You remember it in gasps and flashes,

0:10

moments of horror and pain and laughter

0:12

and confusion that leap unbidden into

0:14

your consciousness. Sometimes

0:17

you have nightmares. Sometimes you

0:19

can smell the bodies of your neighbors buried

0:21

under rubble, mingled with the acrid

0:23

reek of gunpowder. But

0:25

for the most part, the war hides in the back

0:27

of your mind as you try to get on with

0:30

your life. After the war ended,

0:32

he wound up migrating from Canada to the Pacific

0:34

Northwest. The old United

0:36

States had balkanized into a mishmash

0:38

of functional, semi functional, and failed

0:41

nations, and of those, the Northwest

0:43

seemed to be your best option. It's

0:45

weathered the end of the United States and the brutality

0:48

of climate change better than most

0:50

places, thanks mainly to the low population

0:52

density, and of course the water.

0:55

Fresh Water is in short supply these days,

0:58

not just in America but across much of the

1:00

world. Global agricultural output

1:02

never quite recovered from the loss of the United

1:04

States, and famines are common. You

1:06

guess They've always been common, but not in places

1:09

like Virginia and Florida, not

1:11

until now you read yesterday

1:13

that and much of the Old South, lack of

1:15

clean water and adequate food has dropped

1:18

the average life expectancy to under

1:20

fifty years. You

1:22

should feel bad about that, you know, but

1:25

you don't. The dominionists wound up in

1:27

charge of most of those states, and to you it

1:29

feels like karmic justice that they've been the

1:31

once hardest hit by the shifting climate. That's

1:34

not to say that you and your new neighbors haven't

1:37

suffered. The wild fire season is

1:39

now a full six months, sometimes eight

1:41

most days. The fires are the first thing you check

1:43

on when you wake up. Where you live, it's

1:45

not uncommon to have to evacuate two or three

1:47

times a year. So far, your apartment

1:50

building hasn't burned down, though so

1:52

far there's coffee now.

1:54

At least your supply is ration and the

1:56

stuff you can usually afford is cut with

1:58

chicory and other herbs. But after

2:00

the years without, you aren't about to complain about some

2:02

adulterments. You say, we're two full

2:04

cups every morning before you lock up your

2:06

flat and head for the bus stop to go to work.

2:10

None of the pre war industries have really recovered

2:12

either. So one of the few job fields that

2:14

has actually expanded is border

2:16

control. The sheer frequency

2:18

of tornadoes and mud slides has rendered

2:20

huge chunks of the South and Midwest almost

2:22

uninhabitable for much of the year. Flooding

2:25

has done the same for many coastal cities. If

2:27

the USA had survived, a strong federal

2:29

government might have been able to mitigate some of

2:31

that damage. But now much of

2:33

North America is effectively a

2:35

failed state. There's no FEMA,

2:38

no c d C, no one looking

2:40

out for people in many, many, many

2:42

parts of the old United States, and

2:45

so the more stable chunks of the US

2:47

have become magnets for refugees. Your

2:50

job, more days than not, is to tell

2:52

these people that they are not welcome. Your

2:54

first customers today are a family from Alabama.

2:57

They hand you their passports, ragged things

2:59

printed on cheap paper, and I'm blazoned with the

3:01

all too familiar logo of the Fiery

3:03

Cross. You take the documents and

3:05

thumb through them. It's mostly for show. You

3:08

already know you're not going to let them in. You

3:10

look up at the family. The father and mother both

3:12

look to be in their mid forties, although you know

3:15

they're a decade younger than that. They're both

3:17

skinny, with lined, worn looking faces

3:19

and an unhealthy, malnourished yellow tinge

3:21

to their skin. Their son looks

3:23

to be a little better fed, although you can tell

3:25

he's still far too small for a boy of fourteen.

3:28

You would have guessed ten. The

3:31

woman cradles a baby girl in her arms.

3:33

One look at its too thin hand and rasping

3:36

little fingers is the first thing that ignites your

3:38

sympathy just a little bit. You've

3:40

seen babies that small before, and you

3:42

know they don't tend to live. For a

3:44

few long moments, your conscience

3:47

nudges you to show mercy and let them

3:49

in. Both adults look at you with

3:51

pleading eyes, and for

3:53

just a second, you're back on the war, scraping

3:56

your fingers bloody, trying to pull concrete

3:58

and plaster off the buried bodies of your

4:00

friends. You look down at the

4:02

weathered fiery cross on their passports

4:04

and remember the first time you saw that logo

4:06

and blazoned on the hood of a stolen humvy.

4:09

The old anger rises again, boiling

4:11

up from somewhere deep in your diaphragm.

4:14

You take one more hard look at the dying

4:16

infant, and then into the eyes of the man and

4:18

woman who used to be your fellow citizens,

4:21

you tell them no. Up

4:25

on my wall, next to my writing chair is

4:28

a print of a painting called The Fall of

4:30

Nineveh. The painting is from eighty

4:32

nine, but the battle it depicts occurred in six

4:35

hundred and twelve b c. Nineveh

4:37

was then the capital of the Assyrian Empire,

4:40

which was the greatest power on earth at the time.

4:42

It was torn apart when an alliance of Meads

4:44

and Babylonians rebelled against the empire

4:47

and destroyed it in an orgy of apocalyptic

4:50

violence. The painting captures

4:52

the horror of the moment quite well. A wall

4:54

of flames consumes the horizon, burning

4:56

through whole districts of the world's mightiest

4:58

city. In the four A ground, civilians

5:01

wail and rend their garments as they huddle

5:03

around the last of their nation's wealth, gold

5:05

and silver baubles that have now lost all

5:07

meaning and all power in war's fiery

5:10

crucible. It's a beautiful work

5:12

of art, but aesthetics alone are not why

5:14

it sits in my home. Nineveh

5:17

is Mosle. Mosle is, of course, one

5:19

of those cities that's lived long enough to accrue a

5:21

handful of different names. The Fall

5:23

of Nineveh depicts the very first time

5:25

that ancient city was torched by the fires

5:27

of war. In two thousand seventeen,

5:30

I watched Nineveh fall again. The

5:33

soldiers who conquered it were a mix of Kurdish

5:35

Peshmerga, the descendants of the Meads,

5:37

and Iraqi soldiers, most of whom were

5:39

from the area around Baghdad, which

5:41

is, of course Babylon. Two

5:45

wars years apart,

5:47

boiled down to a conflict between the same

5:49

groups of people. It's enough to make

5:51

you feel a sense of the hopeless inevitability

5:54

and the cyclical nature of history.

5:56

The people I met in Mosele had no illusions

5:58

that they were living at the end of history. They didn't

6:01

even believe they'd seen nine of A fall for the last

6:03

time in their lives. There was a widespread,

6:05

dogged acceptance that the next war was

6:07

a right around the corner. Here

6:10

in the United States, our nation's youth and

6:12

wealth has insulated us from this same sense

6:14

of historical inevitability.

6:17

We tend to view the American Civil War as

6:19

a singular act, one shocking

6:21

moment in history. That will never be repeated.

6:24

But on a grand historic scale, it wouldn't

6:26

be at all weird for a region as

6:28

large as North America to see a civil war

6:30

every century or two. In fact,

6:32

it would be weirder for this continent to find

6:35

itself forever at peace over

6:37

the weeks that it could happen here is run. I've received

6:40

quite a lot of feedback from my listeners. As

6:42

with everything else in this country, I've noticed

6:44

a distinct difference in the responses from my

6:46

coastal northern Midwestern

6:48

listeners and my listeners in the South. I

6:51

think the old Confederate States are the only part

6:53

of this country that has a similar attitude towards

6:55

the inevitability of historic cycles that

6:57

I saw over in Iraq. It's

6:59

I've as if you know where to look, what else

7:02

is the South will rise again, but

7:04

an expression of faith in the idea that

7:06

the old conflicts and hatreds that toward

7:08

this nation apart will do so once

7:10

again. So is

7:12

a second American Civil War inevitable? Maybe?

7:16

But I for one, I'm going to move forward with my

7:18

life as if it is not. I can't

7:20

let myself believe that because the Second

7:22

American Civil war would mean the end of life

7:24

on Earth as we know it. The

7:27

United States exports more food than

7:29

any other country on the planet. We produce

7:31

almost as much food calorically as India

7:34

or China, but we do so much

7:36

more efficiently, which is why cheap American

7:38

food stuff has become the backbone of much of the

7:40

world's diet. Canada and Mexico

7:42

are number one and number two recipients

7:44

of American food exports, respectively.

7:47

It's hard to comprehend the scale of disaster

7:50

a second American civil war would bring to the

7:52

rest of the world, but it's worth noting that the

7:54

two nations would be forced to take in the most American

7:56

refugees are also the two nations most

7:58

reliant on the food would stop flowing

8:01

during any serious civil conflict. There

8:04

are other reasons for the rest of the world to fear a

8:06

second American civil war. For one

8:08

thing, the world is running out of fresh water.

8:11

The US Agency for International Development

8:13

currently predicts that by twenty twenty five,

8:15

one third of all human beings will face severe

8:18

and chronic water shortages. The

8:20

Middle East, North Africa, and Sub

8:22

Saharan Africa are all currently the hardest

8:24

hit, but the world demand for water doubles

8:27

every twenty one years, and the United

8:29

States currently has the third largest freshwater

8:31

reserves on the planet. It's hard to say

8:34

precisely what impact a civil war would

8:36

have on the global water crisis, but

8:38

it would not make it better. Perhaps

8:41

the most important global side effect of a second

8:43

American civil war would be how that

8:45

war will contribute to climate change.

8:48

The US military is currently the number

8:50

one consumer of petroleum worldwide.

8:53

It is suspected to be the number one contributor

8:55

to climate change via emissions worldwide

8:57

as well, although this is hard to say for sure,

9:00

as in every climate change treaty we've ever signed,

9:02

military emissions have been exempted from reporting

9:04

requirements. We know from

9:06

the d D that the U. S. Army

9:09

emitted more than seventy million metric

9:11

tons of CO two per year in two thousand

9:13

fourteen, just counting our domestic forces

9:15

and not including our overseas bases, fleets,

9:17

and forces. We know that the first

9:19

four years of the Iraq War put a hundred

9:22

and forty one million metric tons of carbon

9:24

into the atmosphere. This means

9:26

that more carbon was emitted per year by

9:28

the U. S Military and Iraq than emitted

9:30

by a hundred and thirty nine other nations

9:33

combined during those years. One

9:35

fairly small war equaled a hundred and

9:37

thirty nine countries worth of carbon emissions

9:40

for four years. We

9:43

also know that the military produces five times

9:45

as many environmental toxins as the five largest

9:47

U. S Chemical companies combined. And all

9:49

this is in a time of domestic peace. If war

9:52

consumes the homeland, we can expect to see military

9:54

emissions leap. Accordingly, tens

9:56

of thousands of hum vs and a PCs

9:58

and tanks currently setting parked somewhere

10:00

in the Arizona Desert will take to the highways

10:03

and byways of this land, admitting carbon every

10:05

second of every day. Artillery

10:07

shells, bombs, and bullets will also

10:09

have their way with the climate. In

10:11

two thousand eighteen, California suffered its

10:13

most devastating wildfires in recent

10:15

memory. More than eight thousand separate

10:18

fires burnt nearly two million

10:20

acres, the largest amount of burnt

10:22

acreage ever recorded in a fire season. I

10:25

keep mentioning that all these terrible things happen in a

10:27

time of peace, but that is really worth repeating,

10:30

because every natural disaster caused

10:32

by climate change gets worse when people

10:34

are shooting at each other all around the country.

10:37

Over in Kurdistan northern Iraq, they

10:39

face wildfires too. The journalism

10:42

collective Belling Cat has monitored these fires

10:44

and noted in two thousand eighteen that quote

10:47

shelling with light weapons and artillery resulted

10:49

in the outbreak of forest and wildfires at the

10:51

parched border lands near the north and eastern

10:54

borders of Iraq. People battling these fires

10:56

were hindered by land mines or other unexploded

10:58

ordinance remnants from the Iran Iraq War. The

11:00

result hundreds of thousands of hectares

11:02

of burned lands, destroyed ecosystems and agricultural

11:05

lands, air pollution, and local communities suffering

11:07

from smoke and loss of land. Now

11:11

we know that climate change tends to make wildfires

11:13

bigger, deadlier, and more destructive. We

11:15

also know that large wildfires like the ones

11:18

California experienced in two thousand and eighteen

11:20

contribute massively to climate change on their

11:22

own. Currently, wildfires

11:24

are estimated to emit roughly eight billion

11:26

tons of CO two per year out of the

11:28

thirty two billion tons of c O two emitted

11:30

worldwide, So more war means

11:33

more wildfires means more climate

11:35

change means more wildfires.

11:38

And all these lurking horrors don't even take into

11:40

account the possibility that a second American

11:42

civil war might involve the use of nuclear

11:44

weapons. The United States currently

11:47

holds about sixty eight hundred of these dooms

11:49

data vices. Even I can't

11:51

easily imagine the government deploying them

11:53

in the event of a vicious civil war, but I

11:55

can imagine the government losing a few.

11:58

In two thousand fourteen, dozens of US New

12:00

Clear Missile Officers, the custodians of the

12:02

deadliest arsenal ever assembled in human

12:04

history, were caught up in a massive scandal

12:06

that involved basically all of them cheating on

12:08

regular competency exams they were forced

12:10

to take, and also dealing and doing shiploads

12:13

of drugs, sometimes while on duty watching

12:15

our nukes. So, yeah,

12:18

the possibility of some nihilistic terror group

12:20

getting their hands on a Nucer three during a period of

12:22

cataclysmic violence, it isn't exactly

12:24

ridiculous. I think I've made my point.

12:26

The world can ill afford a second American

12:29

Civil war. But here's the issue.

12:31

The world can't afford things to go on the way

12:34

they've been in the United States either. We

12:36

are the wealthiest, most influential, most powerful

12:39

nation on the planet, and for the bulk of my lifetime

12:41

at least, we've sort of punted on taking any

12:43

sort of concerted action to fix the biggest issues

12:45

of our time. Earlier this year, the

12:47

UN released a report noting that at current

12:50

rates of degradation, the world's top soil will

12:52

be completely gone within sixty years.

12:55

This news could not be more apocalyptic

12:57

in a way, it's even more dire than reports

13:00

of global warming. Human beings can

13:02

build air conditioning and dikes and levees, we

13:04

cannot survive period without

13:06

top soil, and yet

13:09

this story has received almost no play in the

13:11

international media. Earlier

13:13

this year, when Marina Helena Smeato of the

13:15

Food and Agricultural Organization announced

13:17

that one third of the planet's top soil has already

13:19

been degraded, the response from the American

13:21

public was a big, fat fist on the snooze

13:24

button. If action isn't taken right

13:26

now, the disappearance of our top soil could be

13:28

yet another problem that our political class ignores

13:30

for decades until it gets so dire that people

13:33

have to care. On a related note,

13:35

Fox News just published an article warning that climate

13:37

change could cause sea levels to rise by seven

13:39

feet within the next eighty years, rendering

13:42

most coastal cities uninhabitable. The

13:45

United States of America cannot be allowed to

13:47

die in violence, but it's just as clear

13:49

that it cannot be allowed to live on either

13:51

in the form that we currently know. All

13:53

of these problems are decades long in action

13:56

on climate change, the rise of Charlatan's

13:58

and grifters who have exploited and has ascerbated

14:00

our divisions and son hate throughout this nation.

14:03

The increasing inequality in our economic system,

14:05

and the corruption and graft at the highest levels

14:07

of political power. All of those

14:09

problems are the result of a political status

14:12

quo wherein roughly half of us vote

14:14

once every four years, and that's about

14:16

all we do. If you're the kind of person

14:18

who actually volunteers every four years, it

14:20

spends a few hours handing up pamphlets through

14:22

registering new voters, you qualify

14:24

as among the most politically engaged of your

14:26

countrymen. If you volunteer during

14:28

the mid terms, two, you're basically the democratic

14:30

equivalent of a damned sasquatch. Chances

14:33

are if you know anyone that consistently

14:35

politically active in your life, you probably

14:37

view them with a little bit of awe. The

14:40

United States of America, the one where barely

14:42

half the country bothers to vote for the president, and someone

14:44

who puts in twenty hours of volunteer time every

14:46

two years, is a superstar. That America

14:49

has to die killing. It is the

14:51

only way we can save ourselves. No

14:54

one person we can vote for will fix

14:56

the problems we face. The solution to

14:58

stopping the second American Civil War starts

15:00

at the bottom, with everyone who prefers

15:02

sanity and decency to bloodshed

15:05

and murder. Now, as

15:07

the previous episodes of this podcast have

15:09

run, dozens and dozens of you have reached out to me

15:11

asking for advice on what you can do to stop a new

15:13

civil war. I laid out some of my thoughts

15:15

and know how to save America episode. But here's

15:17

the thing. I'm just one guy, and I'm

15:20

not a particularly bright guy at that.

15:22

I dropped out of college so I could do dangerous drugs

15:24

in a shack for two years. I've drunkenly vomited

15:27

on roughly half of my friends. I am

15:29

no expert on saving the world, and

15:32

now that I think of it, I guess nobody in the world

15:34

is. But for this episode, I decided

15:36

to look outside of myself and ask some people I respect

15:39

who all had insights that I thought might provide

15:41

you all with some inspiration on how we can

15:43

turn this ship around. First

15:45

off, we're going to hear from Molly Conjure.

15:48

Up until two thousand seventeen, she was just a normal,

15:50

not particularly politically involved citizen

15:53

of Charlottesville, Virginia. Then Unite

15:55

the Right happened. Nazis marched through her

15:57

hometown carrying torches, one of them

15:59

murder at a young woman, and Molly decided

16:01

she had to do something. You

16:04

know, up until that point, I've been just a

16:06

regular person, busy with my job, didn't really

16:09

have much of a life. It wasn't really very political. And suddenly

16:12

I lost my job and I had

16:14

all this free time, and then a terrorist attack

16:16

happened in my neighborhood, and I

16:19

just didn't understand how

16:21

this could have happened to us. I

16:24

didn't understand how this had been allowed

16:26

to happen. H So

16:29

I started going to meetings. I went to my

16:31

first child spell City Council meeting, in August,

16:36

and that was not your

16:38

average city council meeting, even by our rather

16:40

rocko as standards here since then, you

16:43

know, people were screaming and people

16:45

were being dragged from chambers by cops, and it was

16:47

it was dramatic. People

16:49

people were traumatized. And

16:54

I don't really know what I expected to get

16:57

from that meeting, or from many of the meetings I

16:59

went to after that. I just I

17:02

thought it would help me understand. M Sorry,

17:09

I edit a lot of this. You're doing a lot of thinking

17:11

about. Yeah, it

17:13

helped you. You wanted to understand

17:16

what the hell was going on that allowed

17:18

this to happen, and so it's it sounds

17:20

like that's what you're saying, and it sounds like the only way you

17:22

could think of to really do that was to

17:24

just kind of stick your head inside

17:27

the local government and be like, what the what

17:29

what's happening here? Right?

17:32

And you know, eventually the meetings calmed

17:34

down. We're a fairly

17:36

civically engaged community, but you know, those first few

17:38

meetings were a lot of people like myself, we've

17:40

never been to a meeting before, and they just wanted to know what

17:43

the funk happened? Um. But you know, eventually

17:46

they calm down. Eventually

17:48

they became more mundane and about the business of

17:50

governing a city again. And it became

17:52

clear to me that the violence of that summer was

17:54

a symptom of a disease that we've had for a long

17:57

time. It was a very visible,

18:00

ugly flare up of what is a chronic

18:02

illness. Um, that there

18:04

was white supremacy just deeply

18:07

baked into the way the government works.

18:10

You know, we think of that Nazi violence as when

18:13

we think of that violences as the Nazis who marched in the streets,

18:15

but really that was just a a

18:18

flare up. It was it was a cold sore caused

18:20

by the virus that reproduces in in

18:23

these meetings day in and day out. Um.

18:26

You know, it became less about spectacle and

18:28

it was more about the process of

18:30

government and the decisions that get made in

18:32

city council are based on decisions meet and other

18:34

meetings and boards and commissions and work sessions.

18:36

And I still didn't have a job then,

18:39

I didn't really know what I was doing.

18:41

I was kind of a drift and I had a lot of time to kill. So

18:43

I went to another meeting and another meeting,

18:46

and I realized that a lot of the governing

18:48

happening in our city was going on in meetings

18:51

that were open in name only. Know there's no one, there's

18:54

there's no one at these meetings. A lot of this is happening

18:56

in the dark. Uh.

19:00

And you know, it strikes

19:02

me that you're talking about sort of the disease of white

19:04

supremacy. That like another disease that's at

19:07

play here is the fact that because

19:09

of how little engagement

19:12

the average person has in their local government,

19:14

Like that's that's another illness

19:16

in and of itself, Like the fact that

19:18

there are these meetings where a lot of decisions

19:21

that affect the day to day life of people

19:23

enough that like some of them lead to this

19:26

deadly rally um that they

19:28

they're not even really happening because

19:30

like you know that nobody's going to show up, So it's

19:32

just whatever handful of people are actually

19:34

going to put themselves out there kind of make the decisions

19:37

and conversations with each other, and most

19:39

people don't know anything about it. Like that's a disease

19:41

to um. And it's a disease that's not just

19:43

in Charlotte'esville. That's every town in this country

19:46

as far as you know, I'm aware, it's everywhere.

19:48

And you know, the news is supposed to

19:50

be just passionate, right, you know, it's it's

19:52

just facts hub, but

19:54

there's you know, there's no shortage of sterile,

19:57

detached coverage of the sort of the day

19:59

in, day out mondanities of running

20:01

a city. And you know, absolutely no offense

20:03

intended towards the real reporters

20:05

I've gotten to know sharing a beat with them.

20:08

A lot of the coverage of this kind of stuff that

20:10

exists just doesn't connect with people.

20:12

You know. I found that people want something

20:14

more than that, you know, totally

20:17

by accident. I discovered there's a real

20:19

desire for news with what I guess you could call

20:21

an audience surrogate. And

20:23

that's what you've been doing, is you've been showing

20:26

up at these meetings and working as an audience

20:28

surrogate to give people sort of to help

20:30

everyone else stick their heads into your

20:32

local governments that these things aren't happening

20:34

behind closed doors, right. And it started by accident.

20:36

I think the first city council meeting that

20:38

I live tweet, I was not a Twitter

20:41

user. I didn't you know sort of a you

20:43

know, I'll be thirty this year, but I'm sort of a grandma

20:45

when it comes to be things like don't It was not extremely

20:48

online until two years ago. You know, I started

20:51

tweeting from this meeting because you know, people were being arrested

20:53

and people were screaming and standing on tables and standing on chairs

20:56

and there's chaos. But it's

20:58

sort of came more than

21:00

that, I think, um,

21:02

you know, as they kept going in, as it calmed down,

21:04

I kept keeping meeting minutes.

21:07

And that's that's really what I do now for

21:09

for a living, I guess, is just keep meeting minutes.

21:12

A lot of people have been taken by surprise by

21:14

the sudden and vicious surge of incredibly restrictive

21:17

anti abortion laws across much of the South.

21:19

A law that would prescribe the death penalty to women

21:21

who get abortions is even being discussed in Texas

21:24

right now. The stuff that's actually been past

21:26

is shocking, but it shouldn't be if

21:28

you've paid attention to the religious right for the last

21:30

twenty years. Everything happening right

21:32

now is what they've been working towards methodically,

21:35

and they've accomplished their goals, in large part

21:38

by spending thousands of cumulative hours

21:40

calling representatives, putting up flyers,

21:42

spreading pamphlets, registering voters,

21:45

and forcing their elected leaders to listen

21:47

to them. The same strategy

21:49

that will stop these people from establishing a theocracy

21:52

is also the same strategy that will lead us towards

21:54

taking these sae necessary actions

21:56

to reduce climate change. It's the same

21:58

strategy that can lead to a active action against

22:00

the spread of white supremacist terror. The solutions

22:03

to all of these problems start with all

22:05

of us getting involved. Right now, Let's

22:08

see, Uh, I do just want to underscore

22:10

showing up. I just that's that

22:12

that is the most important message here. You know, a good friend

22:14

of myne video graduate

22:16

student union organizer at the University of Michigan, describes

22:19

for work as just being a dumb bitch who

22:21

cares a lot. And I laughed at that at first, but

22:23

she's right. You don't. You don't have to be an expert. You don't

22:25

have to read all the books, you don't need to know where you're

22:27

going, you don't need to be a leader. You just have to care about

22:29

the people around you. Jump in, show

22:32

up, and start helping you know, I didn't go to journalism

22:34

school. I don't know what I'm doing. I

22:36

think a lot of people are hesitant to get more involved until

22:39

there's a clearer spot for them, until there's a

22:41

path forward. But there's no assigned

22:44

seats here. You just show up, Just

22:46

show up. If you want to follow Molly

22:48

online, you can find her on Twitter at socialist

22:51

dog Mom. You can also find her on Patreon

22:53

under the same name socialist dog Mom.

22:55

Molly is good people, and she's a good example

22:57

of achievable activism. You don't

23:00

have to make local government a full time job

23:02

like she did, but you can do something, even

23:04

if that's just showing up. And if everyone

23:06

does something, we can fix some ship.

23:10

We don't. Speaking

23:20

of fixing some ship, I've talked an awful

23:22

lot in this series about Nazis, white

23:24

supremacists, and the less extreme but more

23:26

numerous militias and right wing street gangs that

23:28

enable and support those literal Nazis.

23:30

Something has to be done about all of them. And

23:33

while many of the outright fascists probably

23:35

can't be talked down, there are organizations

23:37

who specialize in de radicalizing these people.

23:40

I mentioned Light upon Light and Life After

23:42

Hate and How to Save America episodes.

23:44

The work of those groups is worth supporting,

23:47

but there are an awful lot of people who haven't yet

23:49

made the full jump to fascism. Folks

23:51

who may be enthralled with militias of various stripes

23:54

or fashy groups like Patriot Prayer and the Proud

23:56

Boys, but haven't fallen fully off the cliff

23:58

and bought an s S uniform. These

24:00

people actually make up the bulk of the far right

24:02

street movement that's been involved in so much of the

24:04

political violence we've seen over the last three

24:06

years. Joey Gibson, founder of Portland's

24:09

Patriot Prayer, is probably the patron saint

24:11

of this sort of extremist I open

24:13

this series by discussing my deep worry about

24:15

how one of these rallies might very easily provide

24:18

the spark that ignites the Second American Civil

24:20

War. If that is the case, then one way

24:22

to make that war less likely is to try to reach

24:24

and de radicalize some of these men. Many

24:27

of them probably can't be reached, but you only

24:29

really need to reach a few of them to reduce their

24:31

numbers enough that the rest are too scared to take

24:33

to the streets. Every unhinged

24:35

militiaman and proud boy who gets brought back to sanity

24:38

lowers our national temperature by just

24:40

a little bit. I wanted to provide

24:42

some advice on how to do that, so I talked to my

24:45

friend Marie L. Eaton. She's a Portland

24:47

based activist and she's been present for some of

24:49

the very ugly stuff that's gone down in the streets

24:51

of that city. I think her story provides

24:53

a blueprint other people can use to try and reach

24:55

the other side. I do want to know that I

24:57

am mainly talking about my fellow white folks

25:00

here. When it comes to white supremacists and white supremacist

25:02

adjacent folks, the burden does fall

25:04

more heavily on us, in large part because

25:06

it's more dangerous for people of color to even attempt

25:09

that work. So, without further ado,

25:11

here's Mariel I was at. I

25:14

believe it was the biggest and

25:18

one of the early rallies that happened

25:20

where Joey Gibson and

25:22

his crew and a bunch of three

25:25

percenters and oath keepers and

25:27

other groups came together and

25:29

people from the left showed up in very

25:31

large numbers, and

25:34

we were kind of separated. It was a little

25:36

bit before Portland police started cracking down

25:39

and trying to create barriers between

25:41

the groups. So we just had a street

25:43

blocking us, and

25:46

I was spending a bit

25:48

of time, a fair bit of time, um, just

25:50

yelling across the street at how cute their

25:52

outfits were. And I was just

25:54

saying, oh, that's all, that's so cute,

25:57

all your adorable, kind of belittling

25:59

them on purpose because

26:01

that felt like something

26:04

that was cathartic and would maybe be

26:07

effective. After a while,

26:09

though, I realized I wanted to go across

26:11

the street and see what was going on. I of course

26:13

saw Confederate flags.

26:15

I saw some people who had Swastika

26:18

tattoos or patches

26:21

on their jackets, and

26:23

then just a lot of people kind of looked a little

26:25

bit like comic con. A lot of people dressing

26:28

up in an outfits. I'm

26:30

sure anyone who has been to these rallies or seen

26:32

pictures have seen some of the people

26:35

that come out. Yeah, a lot of people LARPing

26:37

as you know, soldiers or whatever exactly.

26:40

Yeah, but not just you know,

26:42

the people who look like they're

26:44

in military garb, but

26:48

real just interesting comic

26:50

con style like that, dressed up like a

26:52

Spartan warrior. Yeah, and you saw

26:55

the photo of me confronting

26:57

him. And so I went across

26:59

the street and first

27:01

just walked around and

27:04

I was body checked by multiple very

27:06

large men and yelled

27:09

at and I had my Fearless

27:11

Survivor shirt on, and

27:13

I had some people tell me that

27:15

my I deserved my rape and

27:18

a lot of other really wonderful

27:20

things. And after

27:22

a while, I I, you know, I had a few

27:24

people come up to me and start talking

27:26

to me, because apparently the day before there

27:29

was a video of me that was put on four chan, and

27:31

so some people were like, I saw you on four Chan, and

27:34

some were taunting me, but some started

27:36

trying to bring up conversation points, and

27:39

a lot of them were conspiracy theories,

27:42

white genocide style conversations

27:44

that ones

27:46

that you don't even quite know where to begin. And

27:49

then I went looped around and

27:52

got into an argument with some

27:54

three percenters and oath keepers, and

27:57

before you know it, there were quiet i'd

27:59

say fifteen mostly

28:02

men. I think only one or two people who

28:04

identified as women around

28:07

me, and they

28:10

all were kind of bringing up various points,

28:13

and clearly most of them were wanting to

28:16

belittle me in some way, but some of them

28:18

seem to really want to have conversations.

28:20

And I realized with all the noise

28:23

and everything, you couldn't even begin to have

28:25

a helpful conversation with anyone. And

28:28

so at some point when I got a

28:30

few people who I thought I

28:32

could really sit down and try to have a conversation

28:34

with, to try to show them because they seemed

28:37

to have a lot of misconceptions at my viewpoints

28:40

and the viewpoints of the left in general, I

28:43

said, hey, does anyone want

28:45

to get together to have coffee and have a conversation,

28:48

And a few of them were interested,

28:51

and one in particular Um

28:54

ended up emailing me and saying, Hey,

28:56

you know, I really I think that

28:58

was interesting that you wanted to do that. You

29:00

weren't just wanting to shut down views. You were actually

29:03

trying to answer people, and you were,

29:05

of course unable to do that in

29:08

that kind of environment. I would love to get

29:10

to get together for coffee with you

29:12

and talk about this. And so

29:15

we got together and he

29:18

seemed really nervous. And this is a

29:21

man that was probably six

29:23

three to six five and large

29:27

as well. Um, just a

29:29

large man compared to me. I'm a five

29:32

ft five woman, um,

29:34

and he seemed

29:37

a lot more nervous than I was. I of course let

29:39

people know where I was going and what I was doing, just

29:41

in case. But I intentionally left

29:44

my knife at home, which I usually keep with

29:46

me, h, especially

29:48

since I bust around and around

29:50

late late at night. I like to keep a knife on me.

29:53

Left it at home. And I

29:55

don't know exactly what drove me to do that.

29:57

It's it's like I wanted to go in with

30:00

the intention that I

30:02

didn't need to be armed in this situation, and

30:05

so I arrived. He says,

30:08

Oh, I was afraid

30:10

that you were going to show up with your anarchist

30:13

buddies, and you

30:15

know, you seem so much nicer than I had

30:17

thought you were going to be. You

30:19

know, I came armed and everything, and I was like,

30:21

well, I intentionally didn't come armed.

30:24

And he was so taken aback by that, and

30:26

he said, but you're a petite

30:28

woman, like why would you do that? And

30:31

I just explained to him, I want to have a conversation.

30:33

I didn't want two

30:37

come with any assumption that I needed to be afraid

30:39

of you. I wanted to just come with open

30:42

hands and have a good conversation with you.

30:44

And we sat there for about

30:46

four hours and just had this really

30:48

long conversation covered

30:50

a lot of topics. I didn't

30:52

start with politics with him. I asked

30:54

him who he was and what

30:57

he cared about and where he was from,

30:59

and then you know,

31:01

he learned a little bit more about me, and then we got

31:03

into politics. And what I

31:06

realized really quickly into talking with

31:08

him, and it is probably something

31:10

that I came with an exception about,

31:13

is that he didn't really he

31:16

didn't really explore a lot of

31:18

the topics as deeply as I had,

31:21

and when I brought them up, there

31:23

was a lot that he wasn't aware of. And

31:26

the news sources that he got were

31:29

a lot of the ones that are

31:33

riddled with uh, misinformation,

31:37

whether intentional or unintentional.

31:39

And what sort of stuff specifically was he bringing

31:41

up Alex Jones Daily

31:43

Stormer, a lot of the ones that Fox

31:46

News, a lot of the ones that just

31:50

have a reputation for not being very

31:53

reliable and even intentionally

31:55

misleading. And he had

31:57

even stated as well that he

32:00

he wasn't even

32:03

sure if he liked Trump. He just

32:05

felt like from the information he was getting

32:08

that he needed to vote for Trump in order

32:10

to keep the rule of the land

32:13

in order. And

32:16

you know, I a lot of what he was saying. I could understand

32:19

where he got to that conclusion. And when I brought

32:21

up some of the news sources that I

32:23

looked at, ones

32:25

that he wasn't even aware of, like Al Jazeera, he

32:27

was like, oh, is that the terrorist organization

32:29

one? And so there's just there

32:32

was Yeah. I mean, he

32:34

he was somebody who any

32:39

I believe, And he had said, if

32:41

Trump does some

32:43

of the horrible things people think that

32:46

he's going to do, I

32:48

will stop supporting him and I will

32:51

fight against him actively. And I asked

32:53

him, like, what would that take, and

32:55

he didn't have a really clear concrete answer.

32:57

And I actually, when you asked me to

33:00

retell this story, I decided

33:02

to reach out to him again. And so we'll see, you

33:04

know, if he wants to get together again, and I can see if he's

33:07

now changed any of his views and

33:10

where that's gone. Um.

33:12

Yeah, So did you feel

33:14

like you made progress sort

33:16

of at least in kind of bridging a gap and understanding

33:19

by the end of the conversation, Yeah,

33:22

I think I made him think, and

33:25

I think that it

33:29

reinstilled a sense

33:31

that I had that

33:35

a lot of the problems we're seeing have

33:37

to do with misinformation that

33:39

somebody who

33:42

supports like

33:45

he was talking about the three percenters, how

33:48

he was not yet a

33:50

three per center but was thinking of becoming one.

33:54

And when I talked to him a little bit about the

33:56

background of groups

33:59

like that and some of the

34:02

the racist pieces that

34:04

people bring up a lot, he almost seemed

34:06

surprised, and he said, no, we

34:08

really just care about patriotism, We care about

34:10

defending our country. And I

34:13

think he was genuine. I think some of

34:15

the other things perhaps he hadn't

34:17

encountered yet directly and didn't believe them,

34:20

or he

34:22

he was just searching for community, and

34:25

I think that's what I see a lot with,

34:27

especially young white men who joined these

34:29

groups, as they're

34:32

looking for community in the wrong places.

34:35

So yeah, I

34:38

think that that's why, as I mentioned,

34:40

groups like Rural Organizing Project really

34:43

ah inspire me

34:46

because they

34:48

they realized that information

34:51

and education are the

34:54

things that we need most to fight these

34:56

extremist groups. By the way, Mary l

34:58

also has a message for anyone listening who might be on the opposite

35:01

side of the political spectrum for her and want to

35:03

talk. So if anyone wants to

35:05

have a conversation with me over

35:07

coffee and you're in the Portland area, you can

35:09

find me on Instagram at Ellie

35:12

beaten It E L L I

35:14

E beaten It.

35:17

Now. The far right extremists are only a

35:19

part of the equation of political violence

35:21

in our society. The other integers

35:23

are left wing activists, generally referred

35:25

to as Antifa by the media and of

35:27

course the police. I'm aware

35:29

of how Antifa is presented by the far right

35:32

media, but I've actually spent a lot of time around these

35:34

people and seeing them in the streets of a few cities.

35:36

The important thing to remember about Antifa

35:39

is that they don't tend to rally on their own.

35:41

ANTIPA is not hosting these endless

35:43

marches in Portland. They haven't held a bunch

35:45

of their own torchlet marches in Charlottesville.

35:47

They are a reactive group. They would characterize

35:50

what they do as community self defense. If

35:52

there aren't Nazis marching in their streets,

35:54

most of them will stay at home and chill out. That

35:57

leaves us with the police right now least

36:00

of violence is a huge factor driving anger

36:02

and instability in the United States. The

36:04

most violent protests we've seen in living

36:06

memory in Ferguson in Los Angeles

36:09

have been driven by incidents of police

36:11

brutality. So it would stand to

36:13

reason that de radicalizing America's

36:15

police could do a lot to stop the gears of

36:17

war from cranking forward. I'm

36:19

not a cop, but I sat down with a former

36:22

police officer named Alex who also

36:24

happens to be a fan of this show. He worked

36:26

as a California cop for fifteen years, and

36:29

he came to the conclusion that there were some serious,

36:31

serious issues in law enforcement that

36:33

needed to be fixed. The biggest moment

36:35

that inspired me to kind

36:38

of that changed my worldview was

36:40

when my older brother was

36:43

arrested and booked

36:45

into my jail actually that I worked

36:47

at, and he received

36:51

a rather resounding physical beating

36:54

from law enforcement. Um

36:57

at the time, he was mentally

36:59

ill. He was, I mean, he still is, but he was

37:01

mentally psychotic. He was having a psychotic episode,

37:04

and that

37:07

was the incident. It was within my first

37:09

year of being hired of him just getting

37:12

the kind of dirt stomped out of him.

37:14

And it never really it didn't need to happen. Yeah,

37:18

and it really humanized everything

37:21

for me really quickly. People

37:23

with mental illnesses are sixteen times

37:25

more likely to be killed by law enforcement

37:27

than the general population. Alex

37:30

came face to face with evidence of this horrible

37:32

reality and it radicalized him and

37:34

so he decided to change his department

37:36

from the inside. So a lot of people

37:39

don't really understand what

37:41

happens with cops when you first become a cop, and

37:44

I think that's that's one of the issues is there needs

37:46

to be more transparency about

37:48

the whole process of becoming a cop. Um.

37:52

You know, you go to an academy, you get a certificate

37:55

that says that you're you're a baby cop. Now you're

37:57

not a cop cop. You're a baby cop. You have to go

37:59

get a job first, and then you have to

38:02

pass a field training program,

38:04

and then you have to stay with that department

38:06

for a year, and then you finally get a post certificate

38:09

and then you're finally a cop. But

38:12

what happens is these guys

38:14

go to these academies, they get taught

38:17

the right way, They get taught the at

38:20

least in my personal experience, they were taught the

38:23

ideal way of dealing with people,

38:25

the ideal way of de escalation. This

38:28

is how you should be interacting

38:30

with the public. This is what you shouldn't be doing. Um

38:34

and that's all hunky dorry, it's it's all you

38:37

know, hypothetical at school. And

38:39

then they get out into the

38:41

real world and they get it. They get they get a job finally

38:43

somewhere, and then they go into

38:46

f t O and then they get some guy that's

38:48

their ft O officer sitting

38:50

in the cruiser with them. And

38:53

one of the first things that guy's gonna tell you is everything you

38:55

learn in the academy throw out the door. It's

38:57

not gonna do any good. It's

39:00

uh, that's not how the real world works, is

39:02

what they'll tell you. And this

39:04

guy holds your career in his hands. He

39:07

if he doesn't like you, he

39:09

can fail you. And technically that doesn't

39:11

end your career, but it doesn't mean

39:13

you're not working at that department anymore, and

39:15

it does make it harder for you to get hired at

39:17

another department. So,

39:19

if your heart is really set on being a

39:22

law enforcement officer and

39:24

you know the score and people have told you what this

39:27

program is like, the FTO program. It's the same ever

39:29

where you go. When this guy tells you, you're gonna

39:31

do what I tell you. If you want to pass, that's

39:33

what you're gonna do. You're gonna become the

39:36

cop that this guy wants you to be, and

39:39

he wants you to be a cop just like him.

39:42

And it's this perpetuation of

39:47

you know, that idea of well, this

39:49

is how we did it back in my day, and my day we

39:51

had it hard. In my day, it was rough. In my day,

39:53

it was this and instead of

39:55

looking forward and being like, I want the next generation

39:58

to have better, instead

40:01

they're like, no, you're gonna have just what I

40:03

had, and you're gonna have to go through all the same crap

40:05

that I went through, and I'm gonna make sure

40:07

that happens to you. What Alex is saying

40:10

is that the way this fundamental part of training,

40:12

this police apprenticeship program works,

40:14

allows the biases, bigotry, and bad

40:16

behavior of one generation of cops to

40:18

pass down to the other forever endeavor.

40:21

I can speak to a friend of mine who went

40:24

out to patrol. He had been

40:26

working in the jails with us for years, and

40:30

he was a good cop. He knew his stuff, he knew his penal

40:32

codes. Uh. He was firm

40:35

but fair with with our inmates

40:37

and you know, enforcing rules, regulations. And

40:40

I think he was out on the FTO program for two weeks

40:42

when they sent him back to the jails, and the

40:45

rumor mill starts running. You know, everyone's like, oh, man,

40:47

so you heard so and so failed. What happened? What happened?

40:50

What happened? And the

40:52

only thing we could kind of glean and

40:54

the only thing he would tell us because he didn't

40:57

want to be want I mean, he didn't want to be a snitch, right,

41:00

um is his

41:02

fdo didn't like

41:05

how handed off he was

41:07

during an arrest. And

41:09

when he told his training officer, you

41:12

know, you don't we don't have to do these

41:14

things this way anymore, he

41:16

said the training officer. He didn't say anything out loud,

41:18

but he gave him this long, thousand

41:20

miles stare. I

41:23

just told him, I don't, I don't think this is gonna work out

41:25

for you. And then the

41:27

very next day he was done. He was back

41:29

in the jails. Changing this FTO

41:32

program would be a significant alteration

41:34

of the way many police departments work. It's

41:36

the kind of thing that would have to be approached piecemeal

41:38

in a department by department basis via

41:41

the work of concerned citizens getting involved

41:43

in their local communities. But it's

41:45

also the sort of thing that individual officers

41:47

could work to change from the inside. I

41:49

know we do have some cops listening to this show,

41:52

which honestly surprised me at first when y'all

41:54

started reaching out to me. In case you're

41:56

still listening, here's Alex's explanation

41:58

for how he tried to change things in his department

42:01

from the inside. So what I did back

42:03

in my department that I worked at, I

42:05

weaseled my way into becoming the FTO

42:08

supervisor. And what

42:12

I did was I started making as

42:14

many people f t O s as

42:16

I could because what I found was nobody

42:19

wanted the job. Um

42:21

because it did it had a pay boost on

42:23

it. They would pay you like a three

42:26

increase in pay during the

42:28

hours in which you were actually training

42:30

somebody. Um, But

42:33

nobody wanted to do it because there was a ton

42:35

of paperwork, just tons and tons

42:37

of paperwork you had to do on top of all

42:39

the other paperwork you do. And cops,

42:42

I mean, we're bureaucrats. With guns on our hips. I

42:44

mean, our lives are paperwork, it really

42:46

is. And so

42:50

what I did I started making as many people f

42:52

t os as I could, um

42:54

to spread out the responsibility.

42:56

Because what I found with a lot of these guys that were having

42:58

that that you're going to go through what I went through

43:01

attitude and you know back in my day, attitude

43:03

was they were they were kind

43:05

of just generally burnt out on the job in general.

43:09

Um. And so we were taking a guy who was in like the

43:11

last ten years of his career and

43:14

having him mold the future minds

43:16

at the department. And

43:18

in my my opinion was we take younger

43:21

guys who have shown, you

43:23

know, good skills and leadership and then have a

43:25

clean record, and we make these guys as

43:28

many of them as we can trainers so that maybe

43:31

a training officer would train one

43:33

to two new hires a year, whereas

43:36

a lot of them are training somewhere between ten

43:38

and twenty and it's

43:40

all they do. They don't they're not even cops anymore.

43:43

They're not really doing what they wanted

43:45

to do with their career. They became glorified

43:48

examiner proctors because

43:51

these guys they don't even teach these

43:53

new cadets. They're just evaluating them.

43:56

And it's like, you know, we're gonna go to this call rookie

43:58

and you're gonna do this. And then when he met says it up,

44:00

he just tells him, hey, you screwed that up, don't do it again.

44:03

But they don't actually sit down and go, Okay, here's what you did wrong.

44:06

Let me help you out, because

44:08

like I said, they're they're they're burned out, they're

44:11

done. So what

44:14

I noticed in my department when I

44:16

started spreading the responsibility out

44:18

to everybody was part

44:21

of the culture of trainee

44:23

and rookie or you know, the the

44:26

green guy um

44:28

that started to fade away because so many

44:31

people were trainers that

44:34

they started to rely on each other for

44:36

help with training. Because it seemed

44:38

like I had created

44:41

a sense of community and buy in

44:44

with the other training officers who

44:46

were instead of like, oh, it's you know, it's

44:48

deputy selling, so it's problem, not my problem.

44:51

Now, these guys are like, I've been there.

44:53

I remember what it's like to have a busy day. Maybe

44:55

I'll go help that guy out, take some load off him

44:57

so he can get his paperwork

45:00

first trainee. Now, most

45:02

of what I've talked about up to this point have been

45:04

preventative measures, ways to lower

45:06

the temperature and potentially help unfunded

45:09

this country. But in the year of Our

45:11

Lord two thousand nineteen, very few of

45:13

us are optimists. Even if the

45:15

Second American Civil War does not happen,

45:17

our situation is likely to get worse

45:19

before it gets better. Now,

45:21

a lot of people have asked me some variation

45:24

of the question what can I do to

45:26

prepare for this? And the answer

45:28

to that question breaks down into two separate

45:30

categories, things you can spend money

45:33

on to prepare and things you can't. The

45:35

money stuff is easy. First off, get

45:37

a one month stockpile of dried food for

45:39

you and your family. Wise Food sells

45:41

one month one person buckets for around

45:43

seventy dollars. Amazon has a pretty

45:46

wide variety of survival rations. Survival

45:48

tabs are about twenty two dollars for eight days.

45:51

If you want to eat a little bit fancier, one

45:53

month supply MRI e crates are a hundred and

45:55

forty dollars or so. Mountain House

45:57

has a one month bucket that's eighty six

45:59

dollars, and in my opinion there stuff does taste

46:01

the best. I want to make it clear

46:03

that I don't receive money from any of these companies.

46:06

I just think buying at least a month of emergency

46:08

food is a sane thing for anyone

46:10

to do. Even if there's no civil war

46:13

close to the people listening

46:15

to this will be hit by a natural disaster

46:17

at some point in their lives. It's just

46:20

sensible to have extra food on

46:22

hand. But if you want to be extra prepared, expand

46:24

to a three month supply. You should

46:26

also get some water. You can buy a couple of

46:28

fifteen gallon containers for pretty cheap,

46:30

fill them up and just keep them in the back of a closet

46:33

or in your garage just in case. You

46:36

should also consider investing in water purification

46:38

tablets or a survival straw. If

46:41

you rely on a medication and can't afford

46:43

to do so, try to get a three month supply

46:45

of whatever you need. Sometimes telling your

46:47

doctor you're going overseas for an extended period

46:49

of time can work to allow you to do this. Now,

46:52

many people have asked me about whether or not they

46:54

should buy a gun, and we'll talk more about

46:56

that later, but it's important to note that owning

46:59

firearms has downsides, keeping

47:01

a sensible stockpile of dried food, water,

47:03

and medication has zero downsides

47:05

other than the upfront cost. These

47:07

are the kind of things that everybody should

47:09

do. But stockpiling can

47:12

only take you so far. What should

47:14

you actually do if order breaks

47:16

down, the police retreat, and your community

47:18

is left to fend for itself. I've

47:21

never been in that situation, but Scott

47:23

crow has.

47:36

In the How to Save America episode of

47:38

this series, I talked a bit about mutual

47:41

Aid disaster relief. An organization I

47:43

advised people to join and support. That

47:45

group evolved in of something called the common Ground

47:48

Clinic, which arose in New Orleans in

47:50

the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Common

47:52

Ground is a perfect example of the sort of

47:54

thing you'd want to build in the wake of a state

47:56

pull out from your community. It

47:59

started as a handful of street medics providing

48:01

emergency medical care in the Algiers

48:03

neighborhood of New Orleans. It evolved

48:05

into a network of clinics and a free public

48:08

hospital which provided care to more than sixty

48:10

people and took in more than twenty volunteers.

48:14

Common Ground offered everything from AIDS testing

48:16

and psychiatric aid, to roof tarping

48:18

and neighborhood computer centers. Common

48:21

Ground established more than a hundred neighborhood

48:23

gardens to help feed people. Their motto,

48:25

solidarity not charity, is the

48:27

same motto mutual aid disaster relief

48:30

has today now. Common

48:32

Ground was not a top down structure.

48:34

They didn't ride into impoverished areas and

48:36

replace FEMA in the federal government with another

48:39

system of control. Instead,

48:41

they helped members of those communities organized

48:43

to secure and see to their own needs.

48:46

Scott Crowe was one of the people who helped

48:48

organize and execute this massive effort.

48:51

But when I saw the devastation there, I you

48:53

know, I was there like two days after the storm.

48:55

So what I saw was actually

48:58

the inefficiency of capitalism

49:00

if you want to use those terms, or governments in general.

49:03

Um. But I also saw the inefficiency of

49:05

not just governments, but also corporations to

49:07

do anything about this. The two

49:10

dominant things in the structures

49:12

in our lives, uh and are

49:14

that that kind of our permeate every

49:16

every part of civil society had

49:19

they just felt they just totally collapsed

49:21

and so there was nothing to do, and so people were

49:23

really left to their own devices and what they

49:25

wanted to do. And so from that I started

49:27

to Germany on these ideas very quickly because

49:29

it needed I'm like, well, you know, we started

49:31

we could do a first date station because we could

49:33

get some anarchists to come here and do a first day station.

49:36

But what if a first date station became a clinic?

49:38

What if a clinic became a hospital, you

49:41

know? And then and then I sort of think, well, why don't

49:43

we feed people so we could get food up bombs

49:45

to come down, uh, and and

49:47

and and begin to feed people. And then what if we

49:49

began to build cooperative restaurants

49:51

or we began to build uh

49:54

anyway, just larger infrastructure. I just kept thinking

49:56

about it over and over again in these larger ways.

49:59

And so what we did we started to call for volunteers

50:01

and networks that we had already built um

50:05

to begin this project which we hadn't even named

50:07

yet. And it was three people that kind of started

50:09

it. It was myself, uh, this man named

50:11

Malik Raheem, who was a former member of the Black

50:13

Panther Party in New Orleans had

50:16

been in shootouts with the police and stuff.

50:18

And then this woman named Sharon Johnson, who who

50:20

was a resident of Algiers and um

50:23

and just decided to take it on. She'd been working

50:25

at a bank before that, and so the

50:27

three of us began to lay the foundations

50:29

of not just uh trying

50:32

to provide charity or support

50:34

for people in that way that everybody

50:36

does, because everybody could see that there was a disaster,

50:39

but we wanted to use it as a pivoting point

50:41

to begin to rebuild neighborhoods

50:43

blocked by blocked neighborhood by neighborhood,

50:46

not in our image, but in the image

50:48

of what the people wanted for themselves,

50:50

so every community wouldn't need the same

50:52

thing. And so I took from

50:54

the Zapatistas to lead by by obeying

50:57

the idea and the concept that you

50:59

know, if you're gonna lead people, you have to ask them

51:01

what they want, and then you just have to direct

51:03

them and facilitate it. And so that's what we did.

51:05

We begin to have conversations with people while we're

51:07

building stuff. But remember the

51:09

thing that made Common Ground Collective different

51:11

than any other organization as well. We

51:14

were willing to go against the state and

51:16

the police and and all the forms

51:18

of governmental entities when they were

51:20

when they were doing things or wrong. We

51:23

stopped them from killing people in the streets.

51:25

You know, I took up arms against the police. I

51:27

took up arms against um,

51:30

against white militia guys who were actually

51:32

killing people in the streets, to

51:34

stop them from killing more people. Now,

51:36

I'm gonna stop Scott right there for a moment, because

51:38

he's just moved on to a topic that I don't think most

51:41

people know much about. In the wake of Hurricane

51:43

Katrina, a lot of news coverage focused on

51:45

the supposed chaos, largely blamed

51:47

on violent gang members and looters. In

51:49

our episode on the Upsides of the Second American

51:51

Civil War, I dispelled those rumors. National

51:54

Guard officers have come out on the record saying

51:56

gang members were actually some of the most active

51:58

volunteers in their relief. Words, but

52:01

there was insane vigilante violence

52:03

in the aftermath of Katrina. White

52:06

supremacist militiamen who refused to evacuate

52:08

spent days hunting down any black people

52:10

who had the temerity to exist near them.

52:13

You don't have to take Scott's word for this or

52:15

mine. Here's several militiamen and women

52:17

bragging about what they did after Hurricane

52:19

Katrina. It was great. It

52:22

was great. It was like pheasant season in

52:24

South Dakota. If it

52:26

moves shot, that's out a pheasant.

52:28

We're not in South Dakota. What's wrong with this picture?

52:31

Who walked the street with it side on? Yeah?

52:35

You had no choice. It was that

52:37

bad, she said, said

52:39

just put him on a silad because they knew what they were doing

52:41

wrong. You know, I said, just

52:44

put him to the side. That's all we could do. I

52:46

am no longer a Yankee. Yeah,

52:49

I earned my understands the N word

52:51

now, I learned my wing. These

52:53

interviews were shot during a barbecue and everyone

52:55

involved was drinking. You can hear how they briefly

52:58

attempt to blame their victims by painting them as

53:00

looters. I think their comments about learning

53:02

the meaning of the inward put the lie to that.

53:05

There is an extraordinary amount of video evidence

53:07

and interviews that attest to the exterminationist

53:10

crimes of white supremacist militias during

53:12

this period. I'd like to quote next

53:14

from a book called A Paradise Built

53:17

in a Hell. Quote. The

53:19

vigilantes had gotten the keys of some of their

53:21

neighbors who'd evacuated, set up barricades,

53:24

even felling trees to slow people's movement

53:26

through the area, accumulated an arsenal

53:28

and gone on patrol. Unfortunately, there

53:30

were also between the rest of New Orleans Parish

53:32

and the Faery terminal from which people were being evacuated.

53:35

A lot of people had good reason, as well as every

53:37

right, to walk through those streets. At one

53:40

point, they even demanded a black man leave the neighborhood,

53:42

even though he lived a few blocks from where his neighbors

53:44

threatened him. Suddenly, in that mixed

53:47

neighborhood, blacks were intruders. The

53:49

vigilantes were convinced that their picturesque

53:51

neighborhood on the other side of the river would be overrun

53:53

by looters, but they did not report the loss

53:55

of even a garden hose or flower pot from

53:57

a single front yard. There's

54:00

a good article in the Nation about this, called Katrina's

54:03

Hidden Race War. It notes that right

54:05

wing news website Cox News called

54:07

these murderers the ultimate neighborhood

54:09

watch, and while police claims

54:11

about gang snipers shooting at them have been

54:14

largely debunked, substantial evidence exists

54:16

to back up Scott's claims of police brutality

54:18

against black residents. I recommend

54:20

the pro public article Body of Evidence

54:22

if you want to read more about that. What

54:25

struck me as I researched all of this was

54:28

the similarity between what these white militias

54:30

did in Katrina and what neo Nazi

54:32

organizer Lewis Beam planned back in the

54:35

nineteen eighties when he attempted

54:37

to organize an underground Neo Nazi army

54:39

for the race war he believed was imminent. I

54:41

quoted Beam in an earlier episode, and

54:44

I'd like to quote him again here. Quote

54:47

We'll set up our own state here and announce that

54:49

all non whites have twenty four hours to leave.

54:51

Lots of them won't believe it or won't believe us

54:53

when they say we'll get rid of them, so we'll have to exterminate

54:55

a lot of them the first time around. This

54:59

brings me to the subject of armed self

55:01

defense and whether or not you should

55:03

consider purchasing a firearm. I

55:05

can't make that decision for any of you. I can't

55:08

answer that question for any of you, and I'm

55:10

not an n R. A loving evangelist of firearms

55:12

is magical talismans against danger. Having

55:15

a gun does not guarantee anything, but

55:17

it does provide you with options that people without

55:20

firearms do not have. And because

55:22

Scott and his fellow activists at Common

55:24

Ground had guns with them in the wake of Katrina,

55:27

they had the option of defending their community

55:29

against rampaging racist militiamen.

55:32

So, again taking a page from anarchists

55:35

books and also from the zapatistas

55:37

um, what we did was we wanted to create

55:40

an area within a few square blocks

55:42

that was that was under our control, mostly

55:45

not and I say our control that means community

55:47

control, not the not the people in Common

55:49

Ground, but the people in the neighborhood.

55:52

And so that gave us safety to be

55:54

able to build the clinic, to

55:56

build the food distribution in the and

55:58

the hygiene distribution, to begin to build

56:00

the programs, to begin to do the health,

56:02

to do the the free schools and things

56:05

like that. But the the armed defense

56:07

was in a major component at the beginning

56:09

because the police were out of control

56:12

and they turned a blind eye to white militias

56:14

and algiers and in the

56:16

um in the French Quarter who were

56:18

killing black men, largely unarmed

56:21

black men, and and um. And

56:23

the thing is it wasn't a lot of them. It didn't take

56:25

a lot, but what they did was they shot at a lot

56:27

of them. And so two white guys

56:29

from Texas, myself and another guy, we

56:31

joined with three guys in the neighborhood.

56:34

This is in the early days, this is when we first came

56:36

to do the search and rescue, and that was

56:38

one of the things that people needed. We said, they

56:40

said, we need people to stop, we need

56:42

to we need we need to form community

56:45

community patrols to stop these

56:47

white militia guys from killing people because they were driving

56:49

around like the clan in the backup trucks,

56:51

drunk with totally armed shooting

56:54

people. I mean, it looked like something out of Somalia

56:57

or something, except it was totally white dudes,

56:59

you know, and they weren't sensitive

57:01

and they were just they were just drunk rednecks is

57:04

what they were. And so uh,

57:06

you know, and I'm gonna redneck myself, so I could see

57:08

myself and them, but that's you know that we had to

57:10

stop them. So we ended up in an arms standoff

57:13

with them that really literally lasted

57:15

for minutes, but it changed

57:17

the shape of power and that

57:19

that block of neighborhoods just us

57:21

doing that because they stopped patrolling

57:24

as often as they did. Now the police

57:26

still turned a blind eye to it. But

57:28

the police were also killing people. And when I say the

57:30

police, I'm not talking about just random police. I'm talking about

57:32

New Orleans Police Department. We're actually

57:35

randomly killing people. And many of the officers

57:37

were indicted later for many

57:40

atrocities of crimes, and then they walked

57:42

away with many other ones. And

57:44

so the arms self defense component

57:47

was only a piece to hold a space

57:49

while we began to create this other stuff.

57:52

And again taking a page out of the Zapatista

57:54

playbook, what they did was they rose up in n with

57:57

arms, and then they said, we will put

57:59

our arms away when we have enough

58:01

safety and security from those around us in

58:04

civil society who are paying attention to what's going

58:06

on. And so we use the same thing, the

58:08

arms we you know, because the way I

58:10

want to build liberatory community arm

58:12

self defense is not that we perpetuate the

58:14

problems of power of those

58:17

with guns have more power than the rest of the

58:19

people and communities, and so we

58:21

the whole idea was to take up arms

58:24

and put them away when we didn't need them anymore,

58:26

because there's enough people on the ground doing the things,

58:28

and we could use other forms. We could use

58:30

media to talk to people, we could use community

58:33

control, um, you know, within the

58:35

community to actually stop people from being killed,

58:37

just physical protection. And so

58:40

that's what we did. And so within the first few weeks

58:42

we put the guns away and then continue

58:44

to build all of these programs and

58:46

and and and after disasters. One

58:49

of the things I've recognized is that you know, disasters

58:51

take many forms, right, It's

58:54

ecological, it's political,

58:56

it's economic, and war. These

58:58

are all forms of dis maasters that have very

59:01

similar things where everything that you

59:03

think you know about the world disappears

59:05

immediately and people

59:07

begin to die. And as as climate

59:09

change causes human induced

59:11

climate change is causing more

59:14

and more calamities and disasters.

59:16

I think that what we need to do is

59:18

build more autonomy, more communities

59:21

that are autonomous but networked.

59:23

So while firearms are important tools

59:25

to have in the event of a civil collapse, focusing

59:28

on building an arsenal is probably a mistake.

59:31

Having a gun can be part of a survival

59:33

plan, but guns alone will not keep you safe

59:35

when you get right down to it. The only thing that

59:38

really provides long term security and a disaster

59:40

is a community. That's what Scott

59:43

Crowe in the Common Ground Clinic proved in Katrina.

59:45

Training with a rifle has its place, but you'll

59:48

gain more benefit from volunteering with street

59:50

metic collectives and organizations like Mutual

59:52

Aid disaster relief, because that will help

59:54

you build connections with local networks

59:56

of people you can rely on and cooperate

59:58

with in the event the state falls apart.

1:00:01

This is not just your hunky dory um

1:00:03

scenario where we're just like, oh, everything's okay,

1:00:05

and we can do this and we can have time. We had to build

1:00:08

all this from scratch, with no money, no

1:00:10

infrastructure except for the larger

1:00:12

networks that anarchists had built around

1:00:15

the country over the over the preceding

1:00:17

fifteen or twenty years and and the and the rise

1:00:20

of the alternative globalization movement. We had created

1:00:22

these networks of like street medics, anarchist

1:00:24

street medics who had been showing up at all

1:00:26

these protests around the country and

1:00:29

providing support for protesters or

1:00:31

or food not bombs, chapters that have been around for

1:00:33

thirty years but had also been had

1:00:35

formed these networks. We were able to call these

1:00:37

networks in and so these people were willing to

1:00:40

risk folonious

1:00:42

arrest to feed people, to risk

1:00:44

felonious arrest or to be

1:00:46

killed, to just provide basic medicare

1:00:49

medical care to people. And so with

1:00:51

that is like we just started to build. And as

1:00:54

more people came, they brought ideas of

1:00:56

building more and more projects and more and

1:00:58

more programs, and so, uh,

1:01:00

you know, we started with three people and

1:01:02

and you know and self defense and community

1:01:05

arm defense, and then from that we began to

1:01:07

build this incredibly beautiful train

1:01:09

wreck called the Common Ground Collective. The state

1:01:11

is fragile. It never looks that way when times

1:01:13

are good, but disasters like Katrina are a peak

1:01:16

behind the curtain. They revealed that behind

1:01:18

the armored riot cops and tanks and flags

1:01:20

is a naked old magician relying on smoke

1:01:23

and mirrors. The state is as brittle

1:01:25

as the power lines infrastructure

1:01:27

that the things that we rely on, the electricity

1:01:31

grid, the food grid that delivery

1:01:33

deliveries, the fuel grids, they

1:01:35

all go down really fast. It

1:01:37

doesn't take very long for them to just

1:01:39

takes a few key places for them

1:01:41

to go down. So if it floods somewhere

1:01:44

like on the coastline, all the oil

1:01:46

production in Texas stops. And

1:01:48

when oil production stops in Texas and

1:01:50

it's the refineries and stuff the extra processing,

1:01:53

then that means it stops for the whole country, the whole United

1:01:55

States, like quickly. So

1:01:57

this is, this happened at Harvey, this happened in Katrina.

1:02:00

Of this happened, and I just keeps happening over

1:02:02

and over but hasn't had a complete stop

1:02:04

yet. But it's common. And so I don't

1:02:06

even live and I don't live in fear about

1:02:08

things. But so just recognizing

1:02:10

that I watched, I watched what happened at

1:02:13

Katrina as an isolated thing like in the

1:02:15

in the region that happened like in three or four states,

1:02:17

like like most hurricanes do. But

1:02:19

what I watched was that the stores

1:02:21

that had their delivery warehouses

1:02:24

are all predicated on this very

1:02:26

minimal thing where they just barely keep

1:02:28

them stopped and so they can run out

1:02:30

really fast food, water, like you know,

1:02:33

like all the things that would be in a warehouse for

1:02:35

Walmart, not you know, pitching

1:02:37

them, but anywhere. And so it's

1:02:39

concentric circles, so like it's New Orleans

1:02:42

and say it's Mississippi and Alabama, like

1:02:44

isolated storms right that have happened.

1:02:47

But then then all of a sudden, the infrastructure

1:02:49

spreads to the northern and western

1:02:51

parts of those states where there's like in concentric

1:02:54

rings where there's no supplies available, and

1:02:56

then within two more weeks there's nothing

1:02:58

available within the states nearby, within

1:03:00

that you know, and then it keeps going until at

1:03:02

Katrina, people didn't start to

1:03:04

bring supplies in from

1:03:06

until it was like four states away.

1:03:09

There was nothing. There was nothing to get like

1:03:11

you could even in Texas. You couldn't bring water to

1:03:14

people in Katrina unless you were far

1:03:16

like you were getting a nel passo. This was only

1:03:19

in the first few weeks. So I watched

1:03:21

like watching that, watching the grids go down

1:03:23

really quickly, really changed the way I think

1:03:25

about stuff. But I am not

1:03:28

somebody who wants to sit in fear and

1:03:30

worry about how

1:03:32

we're going to do this, because I can tell you all

1:03:34

the fear mongers, like that asshole Alex

1:03:36

Jones, the fucking dumbfucker

1:03:39

that he is. Um, those

1:03:41

guys they make their they make their money

1:03:43

on fear. But fear only goes

1:03:46

so far. Preppers and militiamen and

1:03:48

their ilk like to present an aura of power and

1:03:50

preparedness, but many of them are ultimately quite

1:03:52

fragile. To A network of human beings

1:03:54

working together to protect one another are

1:03:56

stronger than any bunker. They're stronger than

1:03:58

any state. Those bonds are not just

1:04:01

what will save us if the state collapses, they're

1:04:03

the only thing that can carry us through to a better

1:04:05

future. We've all seen in the months

1:04:07

and years since two thousand and sixteen the fragility

1:04:09

of the world order most of us grew up taking for granted.

1:04:12

As the climate worsens, as disasters grow

1:04:14

more frequent, as fascism surges forward,

1:04:17

we find ourselves in a position we're just patching

1:04:19

holes in the dike. Isn't enough. We

1:04:22

need to build new, more resilient

1:04:24

systems if the things we love about our culture,

1:04:26

our society, our species are

1:04:28

going to survive. I know the task

1:04:31

of building a new world is a scary thing to consider

1:04:33

in its own way. It's as frightening as the thought

1:04:35

of collapse. When

1:04:37

I was young, I read a book by Stephen Pressfield

1:04:40

called The Gates of Fire. It's a fictional

1:04:42

retelling of the Battle of Thermoboli, and a

1:04:45

much more historically accurate depiction of

1:04:47

events than the one scene. In Frank Miller's Three hundred,

1:04:49

there's a running question in the book, asked by several

1:04:52

of the characters, what is the opposite

1:04:54

of fear? What is the thing that binds

1:04:56

people together in the most desperate and hopeless

1:04:59

of situations. By the end of

1:05:01

the book, one of the characters, Dianikis,

1:05:03

finally answers that question. The

1:05:06

opposite of fear, he says, is

1:05:08

love. I hope this

1:05:10

series has had an impact on all of you. I hope

1:05:12

it inspires you to read Cities under Siege

1:05:14

and Scott Crowe's own book about Katrina, Black

1:05:17

Flags and Windmills. I hope it convinces

1:05:19

you to study democratic confederalism and

1:05:21

what's happening in Rojava. I hope

1:05:23

that many of you will start volunteering on farms,

1:05:25

studying emergency medicine, and volunteering

1:05:27

with groups like Mutual Aid, disaster Relief

1:05:30

and Food Not Bombs. More than

1:05:32

anything, I hope it convinces you that the

1:05:34

only antidote to the hatred and suspicion tearing

1:05:36

apart our society is solidarity,

1:05:39

and at the core of solidarity is

1:05:41

love. At the end of the first

1:05:43

episode of this series, I talked about Jeremy

1:05:45

Christian, the fascist extremist who

1:05:47

stabbed two people to death on a Portland max

1:05:50

Light rail train in two thousand seventeen.

1:05:52

I talked to fair amount about Christian in that episode,

1:05:55

his support for the right wing street gang patriot

1:05:57

prayer, his belief that his murders were justified

1:06:00

by the perceived liberalism of his victims.

1:06:02

To me, Jeremy Christian is a human

1:06:04

microcosm of everything pushing this country

1:06:07

to madness. It is important to talk about

1:06:09

him, but it might be more important

1:06:11

to talk about the men he killed. On

1:06:14

that terrible summer day in Portland, Christian

1:06:16

had focused on two young women, one of

1:06:18

whom was black and the other of whom wore a hijab.

1:06:21

He started screaming in their faces about how

1:06:23

all Muslims needed to be exterminated. When

1:06:25

several men on the train decided to intervene,

1:06:28

the two men who would die defending those young women

1:06:30

could not have appeared more different from each other,

1:06:33

at least on paper. Tallis

1:06:35

and murder Nam Kaim Mesh was a twenty three

1:06:37

year old social justice advocate from Ashland,

1:06:39

Oregon. He was passionate about environmental

1:06:42

issues and wrote eloquently about Islam and

1:06:44

an effort to counter the prejudices many Americans

1:06:46

have towards the faith. Rickie

1:06:48

John Best was a fifty three year old army

1:06:51

veteran, a father of four, a devout

1:06:53

Catholic, and a registered Republican.

1:06:55

Based on the conventional political wisdom

1:06:57

of our increasingly polarized times, Tallison

1:07:00

and Ricky should have been yelling at each other.

1:07:03

But when two young, vulnerable members of their community

1:07:05

needed defending, both Ricky and Tallison

1:07:08

stood up and put their bodies in harm's way

1:07:10

to protect strangers. The emotion

1:07:12

that propelled them forward in those last moments

1:07:14

was love. As he bled out on the floor

1:07:16

of that train, Tallison told the woman attempting

1:07:19

to render first aid to him, tell everyone

1:07:21

on this train, I love them.

1:07:24

Having love in your heart, like having a gun in

1:07:26

your hand, does not guarantee anything.

1:07:28

It does not mean victory.

1:07:30

But I also know that we can't turn this ship

1:07:33

around without it. And

1:07:35

that's it. That's all I got. It's

1:07:37

up to you all now to go out and unfunck

1:07:39

this country. So good luck,

1:07:42

godspeed. One last time, I'm

1:07:45

going to turn to four fists to play

1:07:47

us out I never been to war. Knock,

1:07:52

neither of you so doing pretty

1:07:54

good. I never killed a man.

1:07:59

I would start this. I'll

1:08:01

just make leave. I think I'm George Patton

1:08:03

Herbert Hoover, speaking Shakespeare to

1:08:05

the stones, hope that they will be moved by

1:08:07

woods, turn riffles into reservoirs.

1:08:10

I think I'm fuck. He's to think

1:08:12

guy's hasting over. But I chrome on nowadays.

1:08:15

Never I sleep without. I used to worship

1:08:18

popular Spanish Civil War fishing

1:08:20

off the keys. Three sense the guards.

1:08:22

Me and that ship don't work for me. I'm a Superkowsky.

1:08:26

Heaven help us. Isaac Rock's right, turning

1:08:28

over every single stone in search of

1:08:31

suns of light. Kind of nice quiet

1:08:33

life. Yeah, far from the guns bore.

1:08:35

Run my fingers through the grass and

1:08:38

listen to you so seland

1:08:40

in the curtains, records on your

1:08:42

skin. And this my empress, this my super

1:08:45

this myself on shackleton. Yeah, lengths

1:08:47

protests me. All my bits got dead love

1:08:49

like air spring. They are frontier, they

1:08:51

are endless, in there in everything.

1:08:54

This Sunday, So I

1:08:59

got y

1:09:12

r. I'm

1:09:17

ready. I'm pacing our way. Wait wait,

1:09:19

wait, no, I ain't. I'm scared and I'm

1:09:21

quick to escape. And he went that away

1:09:24

maybe flattered and scattering or

1:09:26

flattened and shattering or collecting

1:09:29

dad and he's an unbaffling

1:09:31

group free where the freezer take me?

1:09:34

Hell yam and ballooma no string because

1:09:36

but nobody wanted to be stuck. Stuff under was

1:09:38

so out of sinking. Just remember

1:09:40

to breathe, Just remember the breathe.

1:09:43

Just remember how feast to be reached. Like anything

1:09:45

you do that ship easy if it comes easy, just

1:09:47

to get easy to do what it needs me. There ain't

1:09:49

no freezes earn with your keeping like

1:09:51

they do not need me, because they don't. If you're sleeping,

1:09:54

caught in the romance and drama, woe with me stopped

1:09:57

from catching, they open it and they won't be credits.

1:09:59

Let's stop happening every Sunday,

1:10:02

sound design

1:10:09

your I'm

1:10:16

learning never be since that's okay,

1:10:20

Like his weapon self shall

1:10:22

best place. There's not a hair

1:10:25

a hair, but just each day left

1:10:28

is a death in themselves, and I can't

1:10:30

chase. I'm hurting the leg of a letter,

1:10:33

the soul strength that's

1:10:35

the front of me. Now I'm

1:10:38

made up the buber myself, you see,

1:10:41

and at you're racing best.

1:10:43

Back when I lost to I ain't it. I

1:10:46

ain't ain't

1:10:49

it I. I

1:10:52

ain't it I I

1:10:56

ain't I I

1:11:01

I. I hated

1:11:04

my, I hated

1:11:08

I. I hated

1:11:12

I. I b