Behind the Bastards - It Could Happen Here Weekly 77

Episode Date: April 1, 2023

All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions like, can we create new senses for humans? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Rosie O'Donnell, and I've got a new podcast called Onward with me, Rosie O'Donnell, on iHeart. Mostly this part of my life is just about moving forward. And I thought, what a wonderful way to do it with good friends across a tiny table and just have a heartfelt

conversation. Listen to Onward with Rosie O'Donnell, a proud part of the outspoken podcast network on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. Robert Evans here, and I wanted to let you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode of the week that just happened is here in one convenient and with somewhat less ads package for you to listen to in a long stretch if you want. If you've been listening to the episodes every day this week, there's going to be nothing new here for you, but you can make your own decisions. Ah, welcome back to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about world stuff falling apart, putting it back together, all that good stuff. Today, we're actually covering something that's

at the intersection of all of that, both how fucked up things are and the attempt to make them more just, more equitable, less nightmarish. We're talking about war crimes, the International Criminal Court, and most specifically, the warrant that was just issued for Vladimir Putin's arrest, which is something you've probably heard about on the internet. People have various takes on this in order to kind of talk about what's actually been done, what it actually means, and sort of the history of attempts to hold the leaders of nations to account for war crimes. I want to talk to Nick Waters. Nick, welcome to the show. Hi, Rob. Nick, you and I have some connections outside of this. First off, you're here on the show today because you work in an investigative capacity.

Geez, can you tell that I'm not used to waking up this early? For Bellingcat, where we both work together, your focus has been primarily on war crimes. You've been covering Ukraine lately, but you have a pretty wide purview and a pretty wide base of experience, including crimes in Libya. I wanted to talk to you a little bit. First off, welcome to the show. Thanks very much, mate. In honor of behind the bastards, I have the largest knife I could find in this place next to me. It's not quite machete, but I thought I should have one just in case. That's good. I actually am more or less knifeless here. I do have a nine millimeter in the desk, but somewhat more limited span of uses. Now, Nick, you and I have shared one of the

strongest bonds that two men can share, which is eating some really delicious repas. But we also share an interest in the somewhat difficult history of attempts from our species to kind of grapple with the nature of war crimes, of acts of genocide, and hold people to account for them. I kind of think before we get into what's happened with Putin, we should talk about what the ICC is and what its history comes from. Because it actually dates back a little over a hundred years, attempts to make the ICC. I think 1919 was the first convention in which a number of European nations were like, boy, we should really have some sort of court put together to attempt to hold leaders and individuals to account for committing war crimes.

Yeah. I'm not that familiar with the kind of the very long history of attempts at international justice. Suffice to say that so far hasn't worked out quite how I think everyone expects it to. That is the TLDR, international justice. Good idea. It hasn't happened yet. Pretty much. Yeah. I mean, there have been lots of agreements, obviously kind of everyone knows Geneva Convention, et cetera, lots of other agreements about how not to kill people in the most horrific ways possible in war. And as part of that, like Rome Statue, which created the ICC, yeah, was agreed in 1998. So, yeah, it's been kind of like 100 years or so of efforts before the ICC actually got here. I should probably also, I need to say, before we

kind of get going on anything, I'm not a lawyer, which is super important because I know all the laws out there will be like angry about it. So, Nick, I want to talk about what, in particular, this decision means because there's been like, obviously, I think it's fair to say, in the immediate term, probably nothing. Like it's not like the international warrants agents are going to come out and arrest Vladimir in the Kremlin or in his mansion that you see fake photoshopped images of on Twitter all the time. But, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, in kind of like day-to-day stuff, yeah, it doesn't have that much in effect. So, Russia doesn't recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC. So, it's not like, you know, the FSB

are going to storm into the Kremlin and arrest Putin and like export him to the Hague in a, you know, death matter bag or something. That's not going to happen. But, in other ways, it's a big deal in other ways. And also, for me, like really the biggest thing about this is that it's an indicator about how seriously the ICC is taking this war. International justice moves so slowly. You know, we're talking like, you know, measured in decades. So, to have an arrest warrant out in one year is like a really big deal for the ICC, at least, yeah. And this is because, if I'm not mistaken, both Putin and the woman, because he's not the only one, by the way, that's been charged by the ICC. There's also, I'm going to attempt to get her name

right. Maria Lvova Belova, who is the Commissioner for Children's Rights in Russia. And part of the reason why this has happened so rapidly is that both Putin and Maria have made pretty unequivocal statements about the removal of Ukrainian children from their families, forced deportation into Russia and adoption by Russian families, which is that is a war crime that is an act of genocide. Yeah. So, I think the actual crime is unlawful deportation, or the actual citation is unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children, which, yes, could be arguably, and again, at this point, emphasise not a lawyer, I think can feed into the kind of accusations of genocide. And so it's a pretty big charge to level against Putin and this

Commissioner this early on. I think it's also like one of the easier ones as well. Like in the view of the Russian states, this is a wonderful thing they're doing. They are essentially kind of rescuing these children from and you can't see it by doing equities right now like Ukrainian Nazis, educating them and bring them up as Russian children. And they're taking these children away from their culture, their families and their country to basically erase who they are, which plays a quite big part in the accusation that this could be part of an act of genocide. Yeah. And it's interesting to me, Lvova-Belova has kind of described this, like her justification of this, and I think the Russian state's justification of this is both

that, yeah, the Ukrainians are Nazis. And also, I've heard claims from her that like, well, we're removing children from a dangerous war zone, which, you know, that begs the question, why is it a dangerous war zone right now, among other things. But one of the things that's interesting to me is that Lvova-Belova is not just part of the state apparatus of carrying out this act, but is also thanked Putin publicly for making it possible for her to adopt a child from Donbass, which is one of the Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. So, yeah, it is kind of interesting the stuff that had to fall into place for this to be able to happen in such an expeditious manner. Yeah, I think it helps that they view, or the Russian state views

this act as something that is beneficial. And so they want to say, hey, look, we're rescuing these children. And you can see kind of similar, you've seen similar vibes with like, basically stealing Ukrainian cultural heritage from museums and stuff like that. They, or the Russian state believes, you know, that they are doing the right thing. Like, we are very proud that we have taken these objects away and we are saving them again from Ukrainian Nazis. And so they make public pronouncements about it. They say, yeah, we're doing the thing. It's awesome, isn't it? Yeah. And so the result is quite a lot of evidence that they're doing these pretty bad things. And so, yeah, there's there's quite a lot of evidence there. There are statements from

this commission of children from Putin. It's pretty clear what's happening. So it's quite a, I think it's quite an interesting charge to bring. Yeah. And we're just so people are aware of the scale. President Zelensky, if Ukraine at least, has says that his country has recorded about 16,000 cases of forcible deportations of children. That's not like a final number, just like the death tallies and whatnot are not final numbers. But that's that is the Ukrainian state's estimate of how many kids have been taken away, which is a I mean, that's a pretty staggering number. I mean, yeah, that's a huge number of children. Yeah.

Yeah, I know that's an absolutely huge number of children. And then you have to account, you know, that it's not just the children, they're the victims here. It's also their families who are the victims. So we're talking about like a knock on effect with, you know, tens of thousands of people who've been affected by these acts, if not more than that. Yeah, I think probably, I mean, 16,000 children that probably higher than the tens of thousands in terms of family members and whatnot who are impacted by this. In terms of what technically this means for Putin, there's about there's I think 120 signature signatory nations to the Rome statute. And within those countries, theoretically, if Putin or if Maria were to

travel there, they would theoretically be arrested if they were to set foot in one of those signatory nations. Yeah. So theoretically, theoretically, it's doing a lot of walking there. Yeah. I'm doing a lot of heavy lifting. Okay. So yeah, in theory, if Putin travels to any of these nations, he should be arrested. But some of the nations don't recognize or believe that heads of state are basically immune. And I imagine there'll be several of those signatories who will likely refuse to extra like Putin should Mr. Putin visit them. And this has actually happened before. So I think it was South Africa refused to extradite a former head of state. I think it was the leader of South Sudan. But yeah, wasn't it wasn't an Omar Bashir? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I believe it was Omar Bashir. Yeah. So he managed to travel around and was not arrested and extradited as theoretically should have been. However, it still gives Mr. Putin and especially security details some headaches, because they're still going to have to check with these states when they go and visit, you know, hey, are you going to like arrest him? Yeah, which is not like a call you usually have to ask. And then if they were planning to arrest him, you know, they might not tell them that they're planning to arrest them. So there's always going to be at the moment, there's still like a cost applied to Mr. Putin in terms of traveling to these countries that would still, you know, might still like consider the IC jurisdiction over heads of state to be

lacking. Yeah. Yeah. So it's still there's still like some some cost applied there. If I'm remembering correctly, there have been three sitting heads of state that have faced ICC charges in office. We talked about Omar Bashir, Momar Gaddafi, and now Putin is number three, which is if we're if we're looking at the history of the last, you know, I mean, just since the establishment of the ICC, fewer than the number of world leaders who have been involved allegedly in crimes against humanity, I think fair to say, which brings us to the question of like, what does it mean to be a signatory to to Rome to the ICC? What does it mean to actually be bound by any of these rules? Because both Russia and the United States was looking at a map

earlier that kind of lists out every country's relationship to the ICC. And both Russia and the United States are in the position of like having endorsed aspects of the ICC and then not signed on, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again, not not that familiar with how the ICC works in practice. But basically, if you sign up to the ICC, you have to agree to enforce their judgments, you know, including a restaurant, which again, is something like the US and US and Russia haven't done. The idea that basically the ICC marks itself as marks itself basically thinks of itself as a court of last resort. So, you know, they're not going to be out there prosecuting individual soldiers or very unlikely to be prosecuting like individual soldiers who've like, say, executed like

temperance of war in a ditch. That's something that is unlikely that the ICC is going to prosecute. They are going for, you know, high in commanders, people who've carried out like extremely severe acts. And especially in cases where like, a state is not able to carry out such prosecution. So, for example, take the UK. So, UK has in theory, conducted investigations into allegations of war crimes in Iraq conducted by its troops. That was, I had so the Iraq historic allegations team. It was pretty shambolic. It was extremely shambolic. It was a really bad investigation. The not just for the victims who basically no one really ever got justice from it. Very, very few people ever got justice from it. But also the people who are actually accused were

sometimes like investigated multiple, multiple times. But because the UK made some kind of effort to investigate it, even if it was absolutely shambolic, it's unlikely that the ICC is ever actually going to investigate UK soldiers for war crimes in Iraq. Because in theory, that should be the UK carrying out that investigation. And in theory, they have carried out that investigation. It's completely inadequate. But yeah, that's the justification. That's incredibly interesting to me because it does seem like, on one hand, I can see the logic. And this is part of why the United States, my country's justification for why we are not a signatory is that the Constitution does not allow us to agree to have our citizens tried

for crimes that they are being tried for in the United States by an international court, something along those lines. And I can understand the idea that like, well, national sovereignty, like the only way we're going to get anyone to agree to let this thing exist and abide by any aspect of its rulings is if it does not overly interfere with their national sovereignty and to including their ability to prosecute their own soldiers for war crimes. On the other hand, the state of affairs, as you've just related, the state of affairs is inadequate, right? Like that is the system that has been developed is not adequate to to trying or achieving justice. In a case like the Iraq war, in which there were a lot of crimes

committed that people have not been punished for. And I mean, obviously, you have to kind of marry that to the fact that the attempt to do something at all in this way is extremely new. As we've said, like there are, we have like most of the people who work on my show are older than the ICC. And so that's that's still an achievement. I don't know. I'm wondering kind of like what you see is like the positive future for attempts to hold individuals and nations to account here. Like is that is it continuing to grind like this? Or do you see kind of a more positive opening coming forward as a result of particularly the attention that all of these these war crimes in Ukraine have gotten? I mean, I think it will continue to grind. When you look at the history

of atrocities that have taken place in conflict over the last, you know, like 20 years, it's just absolutely huge. Yeah. You know, there's like a trustee upon a trustee upon a trustee. And the ICC can only investigate a tiny number of those. The reality is that only a tiny fraction of those atrocities will ever actually be investigated and the victims face justice. That is the reality of the situation. The ICC does, you know, carry out investigations and does carry out prosecutions. But again, we're talking like the most grave crimes possible. And usually, you know, really senior people who often are able to evade those kind of prosecutions. I think there's a better chance of some kind of justice at like a national level with

universal jurisdiction. So recently, universal jurisdiction was used in Germany to prosecute two Syrian officers who basically carried out torture against Syrians during the revolution. And those two Syrian officers basically fled to Germany and were later prosecuted there. And so it's not just the ICC. It's also universal jurisdiction. It is, you know, tribunals. There's other stuff there. But again, like this is only a tiny fraction of everything that gets investigated. And I've been reading, going through several different books about Joseph Mengele most recently. And including some accounts from, you know, Jewish doctors who were enslaved and who were forced to work at Auschwitz. And I've been thinking a lot about the, like the different kinds of

war crimes, right? You have a group of Australian or US or British soldiers in Afghanistan or Iraq who commit a massacre, kill a number of civilians. And that is a war crime. But there's also the kinds of war crime that is a war crime that is the result of individuals taking individual actions, right? Yeah, as opposed to the actions of a state and the actions that are a result of years worth of directed cultural efforts, which I think is part a way to look at what the Russian state's attitude towards Ukrainians are and a lot of the crimes that have been committed over there, the denial of the existence of Ukrainians as a people is deeper and more complex than the kind of crime that a soldier might commit in a moment of passion and fundamentally

different from that. And it's one of those things if you like, for example, to go back to Mengele, if you're trying to judge Mengele for his crimes, you have to judge the entire German medical establishment, which joined the Nazi party in higher numbers than any other group in the country, and which was directly implicated in how Auschwitz functioned and why it worked the way it did. And there's realistically, like most of the doctors, Mengele, there were attempts to punish him, obviously, he escaped. But the doctors who educated him, who taught him, who inculcated him in the attitudes that were directly responsible for the crimes that he committed were never punished. And legally, I don't know how you would punish people for that. How do you punish

someone for promulgating ideas, like the ideas that Ukrainians are not a people, which leads to a lot of the violence that you're seeing over there? Like how do you, like there's not realistically, and at least in my understanding of the law, a way to punish that. But it is a factor in these crimes. Yeah, the creation of a culture absolutely is a key, like a really good example of this, is the radio station Rwanda, who, you know, broadcast basically what were effectively caused genocide. And I think they were actually ended up being prosecuted by the ICC, I think actually as well. I believe, yeah, I believe there were at least attempts. Yeah, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Yeah. I mean, it's one thing, when you're talking about like direct

incitements to violence, it's another one you're talking about, like, kind of the stuff that Dugan is responsible for, which is absolutely a factor, the kind of ID, the ideas that he was one of the people who was kind of promulgated under the direction of Putin and others in the Russian state, are like a factor in the behavior that we've seen over there. But it also is harder to kind of qualify it as a direct call for war crimes in some cases. Although some of the stuff Dugan has said, I think you could argue is certainly like a direct call to violence. Yeah, I mean, like, yeah, well, it's really difficult to kind of get that to raise that to the threshold of prosecution. It's really difficult thing to do, especially if you are

external to the culture that is, or to the organization that is creating that internal culture. And I'm like very familiar with this kind of stuff, having for those of you of your listeners who might not be familiar, I was an army officer. So like, quite a big part of my job was making sure that like, the culture within my platoon was a beneficial good culture in which the blokes would not go off and like murder people. And you read about stories like my lie, or there's a really good example for this book called Black Hearts, this American platoon in Iraq. Yeah. And it's really clear where basically institutional culture has completely failed, or has created a culture in which basically committing atrocities

or murder is either, you know, mildly ignored or actively encouraged. And yeah, that that culture is something that is really difficult to police, because it really has to come from within the institution itself. You know, unless you just completely destroy the institution itself, which is also another option, which is what the Canadians did with their airborne regiment after some of their guys in Somalia, like roasted some poor guy alive on a fire. Jesus. The Canadians basically just disbanded the entire airborne regiment. They basically said like, the culture in this regiment is not, it's too far gone. Basically, we're going to disband this entire regiment, which is what they did. So you can do that too. But it's quite difficult

thing to do. Kind of the last thing I wanted to go over is the most recent, the response of the Russian state to these warrants. One of them has been they've announced that they are in carrying out an investigation into the ICC, which is, you know, I'm sure as meaningful as the sentence I just said. And I, the other thing that they've done is sort of threaten to launch a hypersonic warhead at the Hague, which I mean, like it's not, it he does have a lot of missiles. So it's you can't like completely disregard a threat from a nuclear armed nation to launch missiles at the Hague. But it's also just, you know, threats like these are not completely. And in fact, there's a provision in,

what is it called? Let me let me double check on the name here. I'm so bad at remembering the names of laws. The American Service Members Protection Act that does theoretically allow the use of military force by the US if American citizens are extradited. So like this is, this is like a much cruder version of that. Like if you arrest us, we'll nuke the Hague. But it does, like it's one of those things we're laughing about it. But if you were to go back 10 years and imagine that threat being leveled, like even by Putin, it would seem like farcical. I guess it is farcical, but we're here. Yeah, it's completely insane, isn't it? I mean, like, how do you respond to that? Like, I'm gonna hypersonic the Hague. The Hague response. No. It's just like, I know it's mad.

Like, when if you go to the Hague, like the ICC, you know, you'll have like the security guard sat there with their little kind of 9mm pistol and they're kind of buzzing through that kind of stuff. And like, the idea of them kind of, you know, trying to fight off like a Delta Force assault on the ICC, in the case where like an American soldier is like, it's farcical. But then the idea that they could do anything because like a hypersonic missile is like 30 seconds away from like obliterating the entire ICC. I mean, the only kind of benefit, I suppose, is that like, the ICC is on the outskirts of the Hague. So they would irradiate actually quite a bit of residential area and then a lot of sand dunes. Yeah. I mean, one of the upsides is that if Russia

does nuke the Hague, we will have deeper concerns than what to do about international criminal law in the wake of that, including taking sufficient iodine pills, which I'm not by, I mean, people, everyone gets is antsy about enough today. I don't think this is like a realistic threat. I don't think it's likely that the Russian state is going to nuke the ICC. Unfortunately, part of why it's unlikely is that it's unlikely that Putin is going to face direct justice for his actions unless he is somehow overthrown, right? Like that is realistically the only case by which he winds up in front of the ICC is if he is forced out of power. Yeah, I mean, like when I when this, you know, news first broke, there were some people who

saying, Hey, is this a big deal at all? Like, we'll never, you know, put on emcee justice. And like, yeah, he might he probably won't. But on the off chance, it's always good to have that there. Yeah, you know, I went slobber down Nosevich, you know, stepped down as president, he's president of Serbia. You know, there was I think there was a law which meant that he couldn't actually be extradited to the ICC. So everyone said the same thing, you know, he's never going to face justice. And then he ended up at the ICC. Yeah. And if there is some kind of cool or something, you know, not now, maybe in the years time, two years time, 15 years time, you know, Putin is a very valuable bargaining chip. And being able to send him to the Hague

would be an extremely powerful message of, Hey, guys, we're entering a new era, like Russia, the Russian state doesn't want to be associated with what happened under Putin's rule. Here you go, have Mr. Putin put him on trial. And, you know, he becomes like quite an important bargaining chip. And so, yeah, the chance of it happening is like pretty small, but it's still there. It's still worth doing this. And that's I think where I land is I've just been again, reading about in this winter of 1944, there was a rebellion in Auschwitz by a number of members of the Sonderkommando, which was a group of prisoners who were tasked with the actual like job of making the camp function. And these guys rebelled, they blew up a bunch of stuff.

And the whole attempt, this whole like attack that cost hundreds of them their lives was in the hope that one of them would get out and tell the story of what had been happening inside. And when you think about it that way, what historically and not just going back to the Holocaust, but the entire long history of war, like human war crimes, which go back as far as war, the desire of victims to have someone be aware of what has happened to them, I think makes this a positive move in the middle of an incredibly dark chapter in human history in an incredibly awful war. The fact that this is happening at all, as flawed, as imperfect as the whole. And it's, you know, people keep bringing up things like the inequities of the prosecution of

like the United States and Israel for a number of different acts of their states and militaries. But like even given all that, the fact that this is happening at all is, I think meaningful. I do think it matters. It's definitely meaningful. Like it's very much like a statement of intent from the ICC and especially from the new prosecutor, the ICC, Karim Khan, who came in last year. And he's kind of like, as far as I can tell, coming and shaking a few cages. And it's a very clear statement of intent from both himself and from the court as well. Yeah. Well, I think that's as good a note as any to end on. Nick, do you want to direct anybody towards a place they can donate or something they can or a place they can go to to read up more on on this or other issues of

international criminal justice? I mean, yeah, I direct people to bellincat.com, which is who I work for. My Twitter is n underscore waters 89. I don't really go on Twitter that much anymore. Something happened there. I don't know me. Yeah, but I post there occasionally every so often. But yeah, bellincat.com would be a word recommend. That's where like our work is anyway. Yeah. Well, Nick Waters, thank you so much for coming on for lending your expertise here. That's going to do it for us here. It could happen here. Sorry for using the word here so many times. I have a lovely day, everybody. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called inner cosmos on I heart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University. And I've spent my career

exploring the three pound universe in our heads on my new podcast. I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities. Like does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or can we create new senses for humans? Or what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception and your reality. Listen to inner cosmos with David Eagleman on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This case has all the markings of a ritualistic occult murder. The Manowoc caves. I say the Lord works in mysterious ways. A brand

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Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, I'm Rosie O'Donnell and I've got a new podcast called Onward with me, Rosie O'Donnell on I heart. I'm 60 years old now, believe that? Yes, it's the truth. So I figure two thirds of my life are done, zero to 30, 30 to 60 and now I'm in the 60 to 90 if I'm lucky. Mostly this part of my life is just about moving forward and I thought what a wonderful way to do it. With the podcast that I can sit down here in my home, with people I love and admire, people I've worked with, people I've gotten to be friends with and some family friends that feel like the real deal. Like who you might ask? Natasha Leon, Jennifer Lewis, Ricky Lake, Fran Drescher, Sharon Glass, Kathy Griffin, Cameron Mannheim,

the list goes on and on. Listen to Onward with Rosie O'Donnell, a proud part of the outspoken podcast network on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everyone, this is it could happen here, a podcast about things falling apart, sometimes about putting things back together. This is one of the former episodes because we are recording this in the immediate wake within a couple of hours of America's, the United States of America's most recent mass shooting in Tennessee at a Christian school called Covenant. You know, obviously there are way too many mass shootings in the United States for us to cover each one. We are talking about this now in a timely manner, because there's a bunch of very specific disinformation

coming out about it. And particularly disinformation that is part of the broader targeting by the right wing of transgender people. So I'm going to, for the first part of this, I'm going to turn things over to garrison who has been doing specific research on the shooter and what we can actually verify at this moment about their identity. Up front, I'll say that the police have identified this person as Audrey Hale, 28 of Nashville. NBC News notes, quote, who said she identifies as transgender. Again, this is not quite right. We'll talk about it. But the right wing is obviously running with the idea that this is a transgender shooter and part of a trans and a series they will argue of transgender attacks on Christians. We're going to talk about the right wing sort of

analysis of this later. But first, I'm going to again push to garrison who will talk about what we actually can verify about this person and about this shooting at this point. Yeah. Just as a note here throughout this episode, there will be some what is probably misgendering, because we're going to be quoting from a lot of other people's statements. And also, there'll be a mentions of like a few slurs against trans people, just because we are quoting from a whole bunch of stuff. And some of the details regarding the gender of the person in question is relatively unknown at the time. So just as a heads up. Okay, so yeah, I'm going to just going to go over a few things regarding what we know happened, what the what the school was, because I think

that kind of that might play into it, but that will kind of veer on speculation. So we're just going to limit it towards what we actually know. And then to attempt to avoid speculation on this episode. Yeah. Yes. So someone carrying multiple firearms entered a private Christian school in Nashville this Monday morning and shot and killed three nine year old students and three adult staff members in their sixties, including the head of the school, Dr. Catherine Kahnns. Police initially claimed the shooter was a teenager, but minutes later changed course and described them as a 28 year old woman from Nashville. It was then reported pretty quickly in NBC News that the shooter was identified as Audrey Hale, 28 of Nashville, and the police chief said she identifies

as transgender. NBC has another article out there that says Audrey Hale, 28, who police say was a transgender woman, quote unquote. So we will get into that here in a sec, but the shooter entered the Covenant school via a side door, according to the Metro Nashville police spokesperson, Don Aaron, and was armed with at least two, quote unquote assault style rifles and a handgun, unquote. It looks like it's a air rifle and an air pistol and then also a handgun. Nashville police chief, John Drake has said, quote, at one point, she was a student at that school, but we are unsure of what year, unquote, and that Hale shot through the door to gain entry into the school. The shooter made their way through the first and second floors of the school firing

multiple shots before Hale was killed by police on the school's second floor. So it's assumed by the police at this point, and they may have evidence that it's not been made public yet, that the shooter did attend the school, but they are unsure for exactly how long and what years specifically. I think it's important to mention a few things about the school just because this is a very unique mass shooting in a lot of ways. Mass shootings at private schools, let alone private Christian schools, is very rare. And this is also a preschool through sixth grade school. So the Covenant School is a preschool through sixth grade private Christian school founded in 2001, and it shares the same location as Covenant Presbyterian Church. The website states it has

33 teaching faculty and around 200 enrolled students per year with tuition at around $16,000 a year. According to the school's website, quote, the Covenant School is a ministry of Covenant Presbyterian Church created to assist Christian parents and the church by providing an exceptional academic experience founded upon and informed by the word of God. So, I mean, honestly, this is something that's pretty similar to the type of Christian school that I grew up in. It's the school that's attached to this church. I also had around 200 fellow students. So this seems to be relatively pretty similar and not super uncommon for this type of private Christian school. That's kind of all I'm going to get into that here. I mean, I've looked around

the school's website a lot, and it seems pretty, pretty basic in terms of these types of Presbyterian private Christian schools. But now we're going to start getting into some of this stuff regarding the identity of the shooter and a lot of this because there's a lot of information going around NBC News is now claiming that the shooter is a transgender woman. I don't think that's fully accurate. But we're going to quote directly from the call. Yeah, this is to be true. This is to be fair. I mean, partly NBC's fault because they should have done as much research as you did, Garrison. Yes. But they are quoting the police. Yeah. Yes. The gist is that the police identified this as a transgender woman. They have a manifesto. We don't know what's in

the manifesto. But yeah, please continue, Garr. Yeah, I guess one other thing that's reported is after police said this was a transgender woman, they also talked about how Hale had conducted surveillance and prepared for the attack with detailed maps and then also the aforementioned to manifesto. But yes, we're going to move on to some of the stuff that we do know using just basic open source research stuff. So there is a LinkedIn page for someone named Audrey Hale in the Nashville area. They list a lot of various illustration jobs they've had for the past few years. And they do have a little pronoun marker next to their name that says he, him. Hale appears to have had a website for their graphic design portfolio called A H illustrations. So just

their initials A H they have posts in there being tagged from 2023 from 2022. So it's been at least up for two years. I tried to do like metadata stuff on some of their artwork. I did not really get much in terms of what year they were posted. But we may be able to learn more about that later. The website has an about page that introduces the person as Audrey Hale, but it also directs you to a now vanished Instagram page called at creative period Aiden. So we're going to go through some of the rights initial stuff a bit later because they were already calling us a transgender shooting before any information came out at all as a part of like the Sam Hyde joke. Yeah, for reference, Sam Hyde is kind of a right wing comedian who had a show on Adult Swim for the last several

years. It has been a meme to every time there's a shooting, there's a specific picture of Sam Hyde holding a rifle that people will post and say, I'm getting this picture that, you know, this was the shooter at whatever it's been at Parkland, it's been at El Paso, it's been at Uvaldi, every single shooting this happens. And with this shooting, someone photoshopped some ladies head on the Sam Hyde and claimed immediately that it was a transgender person. This also ties into the Highland Park shooting where the shooter wore women's clothing at some point to try to escape and the right continually tries to claim that that makes it a transgender shooting. Anyway, please continue care. Yes. So by going through their online portfolio dated

as far back as 2022, I found a self portrait that has a that has a different social media username titled at Cree Dot Tiv Dre. I think Dre is for like Audrey. And this also appears to be an old Instagram handle before they changed it to at creative Aiden. Hale's website also has another self portrait just tagged with the name Aiden and Aiden creates that one appears to be from maybe slightly after but it's kind of unclear with how the website is laid out. So although the Instagram page for this person appears to be taken down, it's unknown if they took it down or if Instagram took it down, but it is gone and there's no archive of it. It appears that Hale did have other social media accounts that are still online besides the aforementioned LinkedIn.

A TikTok account by the name of I am underscore Aiden 10 shares a profile picture with Hale's own website, and it also links to Hale's Instagram page, which is mentioned on Hale's website. The TikTok was seldom active, but their their first visible post is from March 15, 2022. There are two other posts from that month. And all three of these posts are like about late 90s, early 2000s video game nostalgia. And thanks to TikTok's username embedding feature, we can see that the account used to be called Audrey video game nerd underscore 10 before being changed to I am Aiden 10 sometime between March 16 and April 15 of last year. Hale's last visible post is just from over a month ago, February 9, 2023.

And yeah, just as a note, I've gone over less of this than you, but I've combed over what's available. I don't notice any of the normal red flags. There's not even pictures of this person posing with firearms. There's not threats. There's one video where they seem to be mourning a friend or a relative, but it's a pretty normal in memoriam style video. None of their art strikes me as disturbing in any way. No, it's one red rum one. They have they have one piece of shining fan art that the rights been using. It sticks out, but also like the shining is one of the most popular movies of all time. Yeah, no, nothing, nothing. As someone who's looked through the social media accounts of a lot of shooters, this this account is relatively normal. Like they there's nothing

in here that would be immediately red flags. They did a lot of like corporate work. I think I think they did artwork for the city of Denver. Yeah, it looks like it. They were being commissioned to do graphic design for a lot of businesses, a lot of like local events in Nashville. There is one other thing from their website that I will mention. Part of their bio, they have this sentence that says, there is a child like part of me that loves to go and run around on the playground. And the rights using this and like a like a weird like a groomer way being like, oh, God, this this kid wants this this adult wants to go around with to playgrounds in their child like this is this is a completely normal thing to say. This is like, this is not a red flag. This is

I also enjoy going on the playground. This is not a red flag either. This is just part of weird culture or stuff. Yeah, yeah, I have another thing about being a kid forever and ever as well. It just seems that they, you know, connected with childhood things and yeah, those kind of things. Yeah. And like psychologically, maybe being kind of stuck in the past or whatever is a part of how they describe or justify this in their manifesto. We just don't know. But the point of the matter is if you had looked at this person's social media prior, and this is very different from most shooters, you would not have thought, oh, this is a person who is of danger to people. There's there's just not signs in it. I mean, the one thing that is the kind of last thing I'll mention is

the the I think the two other adults that were shot. One was a custodian. There was a was a I think it was like a substitute teacher. Yeah, they were all in their 60s. It's unclear how long those two other people have been with the school. The head of the school has been been there for a while. But I mean, because because it is a preschool through sixth grade school, Hale would not have been at the school relatively recently. I can try to I'm trying to do like quick math here to be like, if you would, if you'd be in sixth grade, and you're now 28 17 years ago. Yeah, 11 years old, right? American is five. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. So it's it's it's certainly it's it's started in 2001. So yeah, that's that is that is that is possible. Yeah. I do want to

note a couple of things before we move on to the right ring wing reaction, one of them just kind of again, took to sort of boil it down based on what is available publicly. We know this person seems to have been born and raised as Audrey Hale started going by Aiden at the latest sometime last year. Their LinkedIn shows them at that point as using he him pronouns. But still but but still with the name Audrey, but still with the name Audrey, it is actually very much at this point still unclear how they exact precisely identified what pronouns they used. We certainly don't know whether or not they were on any kind of like hormones, not that that would have an impact on any of this. But we have very little actual information. The police are saying that

they identify themselves as transgender in the manifesto. At some point, we might learn more as a result of that. But but it is it is a lot of what's being put out as either unclear or, you know, wrong in one way or the other. There's just a lot of information that is kind of missing about this person. People are jumping to conclusions on stuff. So we will probably learn more there later. One more note on this. The police are the ones that initiated the use of the term manifesto. Now, there was no manifesto published by the shooter. We do not know if this is a quote unquote manifesto like at all. The police have claimed that they found writing when they raided this person's house. So this writing discussing things around their

gender or what they were doing, this this could be anything from like a suicide note to just like a diary or a journal. So by using the word manifesto, they're kind of trying to tie it into that. We simply at this point do not know if this was a manifesto at all. Like we just that is that is a very loaded term in this context. I think it's notable that the shooter did not publish anything. Whereas usually when there's like manifestos, they are they're published online, right? The shooter, the shooter themselves will publish it online. And that is kind of part of their entire attack. That is not the case here. The shooter did not publish anything about this attack online that we've or that we've found or that anyone's found. So I think that's an

important thing to note when we're talking about the use of the word manifesto here. In terms of like the importance of a manifesto, you know, speaking of someone who has written professionally about a number of them, manifestos are obviously useful, especially when trying to analyze why someone did something, what their political goal may have been if there indeed there's a political goal, what their radicalization pathway has been. But a crucial thing is to never ever take a manifesto purely at face value. Manifestos are political writings by terrorists, right? That is what a manifesto is. And they are writings that are kind of calculated to achieve a goal. And I don't know what this person put in their manifesto. Their

manifesto may just have been a perfectly like accurate summation of their feelings of why they did this terrible thing. That's possible. We sit, we don't know at this point. But manifestos are a part of understanding a shooting and what the goal was of the shooting and what the individual hope to accomplish. But they cannot and never should be taken at face value. And that's what a lot of media are going to do if this ever does get public. So please always show care and skepticism of directly reading from a manifesto. Like even in the case, you know, there's just a lot like in the Christchurch manifesto of like bullshit shitposting jokes and stuff thrown in there with the real stuff. It's generally possible to get to gather and understand motive from a

manifesto. And I am, you know, I will read it if it becomes available, but be very careful with such things. Yeah, speaking of not being careful, let's talk about the right wing response to this. Because I think broadly speaking, it's fair to characterize it as they are claiming this as part of a line of terror attacks by transgender people. There's a lot of folks saying that this is reason to ban gender affirming care, to ban hormone therapy, to ban trans people from purchasing firearms. This is a pretty rampant on the right already. It became very quickly. So I actually want to go over one thing I just came up and saw while Gare was talking that I think is interesting is Candace Owens. Candace Owens is a right wing commentator, unfortunately quite influential

and has a sizable platform. I want to quote from her response, her initial response. This was the immediate response when all the information was out was that there had been a shooting at this school. I live in Green Hills and I'm positively devastated for the families impacted by this tragedy. Please suspend your politics and instead do what these families at this Christian school would want, pray. That's a perfectly reasonable response, at least for somebody who believes in prayer. Within a matter of like an hour or so, it became clear that or information began to come out that the shooter was likely transgender, at which point Candace suspended her statement about not making it politics. She posted shortly after transgenderism is a mental illness. Keep your

children away from transgendered individuals and their parents, people that support and encourage this are monsters and should be kept away from children. They yelled at, Matt Walsh made a statement. Why haven't we be given the name of the mass shooter yet? And Candace responded because they're wiping the socials so they can make things up about the person. She noted as to a post by Matt Walsh being like, the question is why this culture is producing so many people who want to carry out attacks like this, take the guns and you'll still have a country infested by homicidal sociopaths. Where are they coming from? What is creating them? Candace responded, I would start with the fact that we now celebrate clinical insanity while we admonish normalcy. People are

aspiring to mental illness because they receive attention and off times are awarded for perversity. She is essentially taking the stance of like, we have to blame this on the fact that this person was transgender and trans being transgender is a mental illness, right? That's the stance Candace is taking. That's the stance a lot of folks are taking. One of the most widely shared posts from a right winger on this was by a guy named DC underscore Drano. He's notes himself as a husband, patriot, lawyer, constitutionalist and anti-woke. He has 686,000 followers on Twitter. He has been relentless in posting about this as an act of transgender terror. He has spread some of the information that Garrison added on this podcast about this person's social media posts. And his

posts are some of the most widely read and liked that I've seen. One of them reads, unconfirmed reports identify the Nashville shooter is Audrey Hale, a biological female that identified as he, him on their LinkedIn. Authorities believe the transgender shooter previously attended the Christian school. He then follows, we will not let this story be swept under the rug. Trans terrorism must be confronted head on and stopped. Tennessee just passed laws restricting actualized drag shows for children and banning the genital mutilation of children. Was today's mass shooting at a Christian school by a transgender killer and active domestic terror? And when will we start talking about transgender mass murderers targeting innocent school children in our schools enough as

enough? And in this, they posted a link to a Reuters story about a shooting from last year. I think it was in Colorado in Denver. This was a shooting where two people, one of whom was transgender, walked into a school in Denver and shot at several classmates killing one. They claimed it was revenge on classmates over bullying. The McKinney, the transgender shooter has been sentenced recently. So it's been in the news. This is being billed as like a transgender terrorist attack because spoiler, there's very few cases of trans people carrying out acts of violence. So they're kind of grabbing what they can in order to try and make an argument that this is part of a trend. In the absence of any kind of manifesto, people are claiming that trans identity

motivated the killings. The police seem to have helped to jump-start the crime. Police seem to have helped to jump-start this. All right. So first off, we're going to play, before we continue, we're going to play a clip of the police press conference where the police chief of Nashville talks about what has happened and talks about the information that they have about the shooter based on the apparently the manifesto that they have and the maps that they have. So we're going to play that now. Our investigations tell us that she was a former student at the school. I don't know what grade she's attended or grades, but we do firmly believe she was the student there. She identifies as transgender. She does identify as transgender.

Yes. Does the shooter have any criminal history at all? No history at all. And no motive at this point? Anything discovered in the apartment or house? No, we have a manifesto. We have some writings that we're going over that pertain to this date, the actual incident. We have a map drawn out of how this was all going to take place. There's right now a theory of that's that we may be able to talk about later, but it's not confirmed. And so we'll we'll put that out as soon as we can. Is there any reason to believe that how she identifies is has any motive for targeting school? We can give you that at a later time. There is some theory to that. We're investigating all the leads. And once we know exactly, we'll let you know. So what's the targeted

attack? It was. You know about a transgender man or woman? Don't know any history of mental illness at this time, but we are looking at that as the investigation is ongoing. And I'm sorry. She identifies as transgender man or woman? Woman. All right. So yeah, Garrison, you want to start off here? Yeah, I think giving like the most charitable reading of that, I think it's possible that this police chief just not have as a as a full art. I don't think this police chief has as an as an in depth understanding of gender theory as some of us or the listeners do. So it's just confused by that question. Is it a trans man or a trans woman? And he answers by saying, yeah, they're trans, but they are a woman. So I think that that could be what's going on. And

then we have outlets like NBC News saying that the person's a transgender woman because they also are for one, not doing like very basic digging online and are also just making I just usually enjoy repeating the police's talking points when stuff like this happens because it's just easier. Hey, everybody, Robert here. Shortly after we finished this, the police chief of Nashville, John Drake, went on Lester Holt's NBC show and gave another statement that was much more accurate than the previous statement that we just played you, which the right wing is making a lot of hay out of. In the statement, they note that the shooter attended the school as a child and was resentful of the school and of being forced to attend it, that the school was the target and not

any specific individual and that the victims were random. They also in this statement to Lester Holt, the police chief makes a lot less of a deal about the fact that the shooter was trans. It seems like the first statement that they made was based on either incomplete information or in the heat of the moment. But I'm going to play you this statement and then we will continue the episode. It sounds like things are moving very quickly. You described this as a targeted attack. Can you elaborate? Absolutely. So the person we know as Audrey Hale, she's a 28-year-old Nashvilleian, we have belief or we feel that it's very strongly that she went to school here in the Nashville area and she went to that actual school. And so there's some belief that there

was some resentment for having to go to that school. I don't have all the details to that just yet and that's why this incident occurred. Did Hale target in your mind, did Hale target the school or someone in the school? She targeted random students in the school just whoever and persons, whoever she came in contact with, she fired rounds. You recovered what you described as a manifesto. You've also said that Hale identified as trans. Do you believe there is a connection to that? We feel that she identifies as trans but we're still in the initial investigation into all of that and if it actually played a role into this incident. As we know more we'll definitely make that known but right now we're unsure if that actually played a role. But does the manifesto

point you in a particular direction that you can reveal? It does. It has in the initial investigation we've turned it over to the FBI. We've looked over it as well and it indicates that there was going to be shootings at multiple locations and the school was one of them. There was actually a map of the school detail and surveillance entry points and how this was going to be carried out on this day. Yeah. I think a big part of this is that after a mass shooting in any national paper or other media outlet you're always trying to be first with something and that creates a situation where you don't fact check, you don't do the basic OSINT looking up. You just cop to something, get it out, get a ton of clicks and then that leads

to this disappointing sort of repetition of half truth or like in falsehoods that we're seeing. Yeah. And it leads to, it provides a lot of, so one thing that the right has always understood is that the immediate aftermath of a story that breaks into the news is, you call it the wet cement period where if people are talking about it, if you can lasso a narrative and drag it out in front of everybody and get momentum behind it, then that effectively becomes reality for an awful lot of people. And it's very important, which is why they're all immediately falling into line on this. One of the posts that I just ran across is from Benny Johnson, who's a right-wing media guy. So Benny Johnson says, the Colorado Springs shooter identified as non-binary, the

Denver shooter identified as trans, the Aberdeen shooter identified as trans, the Nashville shooter identified as trans. One thing is very clear, the modern trans movement is radicalizing activists into terrorists. Elon Musk responded to this with an exclamation point, which is great. The Colorado Springs shooter was not non-binary, the Colorado Springs shooters lawyers made that claim briefly while they were trying to cobble together a defense after this person killed two trans people and shot up an LGBT nightclub. The Denver shooter is the person we just talked about. Well, they also could be referring to that. Yes, probably. Yeah, it's frustrating what they're doing with this stuff here. It's very obvious,

especially in trying to wrap in the attack of a right-wing terrorist on an LGBT club to part, like claiming that it's an act of transgender terrorism. A lot of this is spreading particularly among people who paid for blue checkmarks on the new Twitter because that's like, yeah, this is kind of the first mass shooting we have had in the new, Elon's kind of new checkmark thing where people are able to kind of verify themselves from money and we're about to see all of the old verified accounts lose verification. We'll talk a little bit more about how well that's actually working for them later, which is actually less clear. So that's possibly a positive thing. But yeah, I mean,

it's pretty obvious. Andy knows posted about this. He's another, he works for a place called the Post Millennial. He's a right-wing ghoul. He says the shooting comes amid a surge of far left death threats in Tennessee over the states, anti-trans laws. He provides no evidence of this. He does quote or cite an Eminem's ad that Audrey Hale made that is like a pride ad that says, born this way. It's like a rainbow of Eminem's that says, born this way appears to be something that they may have done for money. I don't know, isn't really relevant to the situation. One of the uglier posts that I found on the right comes from a guy who identifies himself as an American dissident, Stu Peters. He's the executive producer of died suddenly, which is one of these

right-wing attempts to connect every single death of a person who got vaccinated to the vaccination, which is a ghoulish thing to do anyway. And yeah, they initially leapt into, there's a lot of like ugliness in here. Stu is one of the more open folks calling them a tranny named Audrey Hale, who is a former student of Covenant school. They kind of interpret the police statement, which is at least very warbly as the police saying this was a direct attack on Christians, which the cops have not yet said. Stu posts, police admit this was a targeted attack on Christians by a demonic tranny. For some context, another one of his posts is arguing that Zelinski is waging war on Christians. So, you know, this is, this is, should be seen with guys like this,

in addition to being the troubling thing that it is, part of kind of the broader like echo chamber that the right has set up for itself. Like this is troubling and problematic, and to a degree frightening, and they're going to continue to try to push for disarming trans people as a result of this, I suspect we'll see states introduce bills that are red flag laws just for trans people. This is the kind of thing that I am worried about. But it also is kind of worth seeing this as this is very much in line with the other kind of right wing echo chamber panic stuff that is that is everywhere. And so far, while this is deeply concerning, I'm not seeing evidence that it's breaking out of the right. And like, that doesn't mean it's not

a problem. But it is kind of worth noting, the actual trending tags right now on Twitter are not what you'd expect. The Tennessee shooting is not trending on its own in a particularly high position. It's substantially lower than the Uvaldi and Highland Park shootings, both of which are trending right now. This is based on a Twitter account I use that is not my Twitter account, it's just a blank account. So I'm hoping to get a little bit less of a bias thing. When I looked at my own accounts trending, it was Uvaldi and Highland Park as well as Columbine was trending, Sam Hyde is trending, you know, because he always does after a shooting as a result of this stuff. Guns is trending. I think AR 15 was trending on one of my accounts. But the I'm not yet seeing

evidence that this is anywhere like that the anti trans stuff has made it outside of the right wing fever swamps. Yeah, you are getting like in and again, that does not mean it's not troubling. It is deeply troubling. But it's also not when I'm looking at sort of liberal and centrist responses to this, it's noteworthy that what is trending is Uvaldi and Highland Park and Columbine. Because what's common is people sort of putting this within the continuum of America's nightmarish problem with mass shootings, particularly at schools, which is the right way to see this. This is part of a an ongoing series of island acts and a mass shooter culture that exists within this country. And obviously, it's tied to the availability of guns, it's tied to a number

of things. But it is kind of worth noting that when it comes to what most people are seeing as a result of this, it is another mass shooting in America and not trans people are carrying out terrorist attacks. That is so far at least, just like a thing I'm seeing in the right wing fever swamps. Yeah, I think I think Marjorie Taylor Green is one of the first like sitting politicians to make a statement focused on the shooter's gender identity, saying how much hormones like testosterone and medications for mental illness was the transgender Nashville shooter taking. Everyone can stop blaming guns now. And like the style of messaging is just blaming the shooting on like HRT and medical health medication. But there's no indication at this point that the

shooter was taking testosterone or was on any medication. But this is just a clear attempt to like tie this shooting into the campaign against trans health care that that that green has been doing for years now. And to make trans health care seem like the reason that this shooting took place. Yeah, this person has kind of already become like like Schrodinger's like gender affirming care right where like, and you know, suggesting they're doing attacks because they can't access gender affirming care. Marjorie Taylor Green is acting that the gender affirming care they did access made them become more violent. Like same thing with Jack Sobiec, who was saying that testosterone increases aggression. Yeah, Jack Sobiec is an influential Republican advisor and

commentator. He's a fascist. Like he's a terrible person. He's the guy who initially spread the Pizza Gate conspiracy theory. But he is influential on the right because of his ability to get stuff to go viral on the base. I guess one thing we should mention that that kind of ties into is that Sobiec's been repeating some talking points that Tucker Carlson focused on a few nights ago during his show. There was an NPR segment about trans people who are purchasing firearms to defend themselves that interviewed somebody on a number of folks. One of the people they interviewed is a person who goes by queer armor on Twitter about why they've chosen to be armed and advocate other trans people, armed themselves for self-defense. Tucker took quotes from that

person and made a very fear mongering piece about how NPR and the liberals want to create an army of trans stormtroopers and disarm regular Americans, right? That's the piece. Yeah, talking of like, I guess armed Americans, one thing that's also twending is just like incredibly crass photo that the representative for that Tennessee's Fifth District, which is the district the school was in who's called Andy Ogles. Ogles maybe posted for his Christmas photo, I guess, which is him. It's like classic Republican politician photo, right? Entire family, everyone holding a different variant of an AR-15. And it's, yeah, like, I think regardless of what you think about guns, this is kind of crass to be parading them as like culture war tokens like this. And I've noticed

that's been trending across a lot of the east of timeline I'm seeing. Yeah, this is at the nexus of a number of things that are like fucked up about this country. I'm just enjoying Ian Miles Chong's timeline, unfortunately. Who is Ian Miles Chong? Right wing agent provocateur. Yeah, he lives in Thailand, right? Malaysia, I believe. Malaysia. He has like half a million Twitter followers, relatively influential on the online sphere. His telegram is culture war room, which is, you know, giving you what you need to get, I think. So I'm just going to read this tweet and obviously like all the, all the sort of content warnings you'd expect. Today, a mass shooter murdered three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The murderer pronouns was

were, was transgender and had written a manifesto detailing their intentions, which come days after Tennessee passed child protection laws intended to curb children from being subjected to trans surgeries and other irreversible procedures. Their heinous actions follow a month of media driven rhetoric about a trans genocide and calls for a so called trans day of retribution in the United States. It is conceivable that much of the conservative public derided as cis is now open season for gender extremists who have been terrorizing women who dare to speak out against a woke ideology when they tell you what they intend to do, believe them. So Hale has posted nothing about a trans day of retribution has posted nothing publicly about being trans,

really. There's not a single post discussing their gender identity online. This is just, they're just trying to weird political points by purposely like making it sound like this person was writing about this stuff online. And there's no evidence that they had writing about this stuff, nor is there any of it online that we can find. And yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's, it's, it's basic stuff that people like him do in the aftermath of like any type of event like this. Yeah, you know, we're going to end now because anything pretty much anymore we said would be getting into speculation or just belaboring the point about these fucking right wing ghouls. But I do want to end on a post from a follower, a Twitter personality, who I consider to be pretty,

pretty savvy. They go by Juniper on Twitter. They noted this 15 years ago, anytime there was a shooting, they would blame it on Muslims. And if it were a Muslim, they would go hog while trying to indict all Muslims. They're doing that right now with the Nashville school shooting, and we'll try to indict all trans people. Just don't engage. See a Matt Walsh take that is incredibly aggravating. Ignore it. See a politician tweet misgendering the shooter while simultaneously trying to blame all trans people. Ignore it. Anyone with a brain and a shred of empathy will see right wingers as the psychopaths they are. A lot of trans people are rightfully scared in the world right now. People hate us without even knowing us and how amazing we are. Just know that

you are loved and we will win. The world cannot hate us forever. Hey everybody, Garrison and I are going to put together a post, a sub-stack post, sort of synthesizing their research and what I've got so far in the right wing response. And we'll be posting that up. It'll be at shatterzone.substack.com if you want an easier text version that you can kind of share with people. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities.

Like, does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or can we create new senses for humans? Or what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This case has all the markings of a ritualistic, occult murder. Starring Westworld's Jonathan Tucker and Eddie Cthigge from Twilight. The Manta Wall Caves, M-A-N-T-A-W-A-U-K, a production of iHeart radio, Blumhouse television, and psychopia pictures.

Every minute I remain in Manta Wall County, the thicker the fog gets. Listen to the Manta Wall Caves now on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, I'm Rosie O'Donnell, and I've got a new podcast called Onward with me, Rosie O'Donnell, on iHeart. I'm 60 years old now, believe that? Yes, it's the truth. So I figure two-thirds of my life are done, zero to 30, 30 to 60, and now I'm in the 60 to 90 if I'm lucky. Mostly this part of my life is just about moving forward, and I thought, what a wonderful way to do it. With the podcast that I can sit down here in my home, with people I love and admire, people I've worked with, people I've gotten to be friends with, and some family friends that feel like the real deal.

Like who, you might ask? Natasha Leon, Jennifer Lewis, Ricky Lake, Fran Drescher, Sharon Glass, Kathy Griffin, Cameron Mannheim, the list goes on and on. Listen to Onward with Rosie O'Donnell, a proud part of the outspoken podcast network on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Nick It Could Happen Here, a podcast for the thing is not, well, we're here, has temporarily been relocated to the UK once again. Oh, what a wonderful place to relocate. Yeah, I'm your host, Mia Wong, and today with me to talk about things in the kingdom that is united for some reason is Nick, who is a resident nurse there. Nick, how are you doing? I'm doing all right. A lot better for being on holiday right now.

Yeah. Getting to escape the sort of dismal swamp of... Rainy turf island. So, on the other hand, there are things that are in motion on turf island, which are interesting and cool. And that is... Okay, so I have no idea once again, when this is going to come out, like this could be coming out like four weeks from now, like there could be six more prime ministers, like who knows what's going to happen. Yeah, six could be. Richie's outlasted the letters on like our last one, but you know, sorry to anyone who's not up to British political memes that's going to be arcane and inscrutable and I'm not correcting that. We ran them through a like two hour British politics

camp a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully they still remember. Yeah, but so the reason is, so on the day we are recording, there are a bunch of strikes going on in the UK. There have been a bunch of strikes going on in the UK for a while. They keep doing this weird... Okay, this is my... I'm going to do my one bit of what are you guys doing strategically thing, which is... Okay, so they keep having these strikes and then they'll like go off strike for like three weeks as like a quote, side of good faith for their negotiations and then nothing happens and they go back on strike and it's like, well, okay, like you could just not do this. Yeah, so strikes have been continuing and yeah, I wanted to talk to you about some of the nurse's strikes that's been

happening and about the sort of organizing that's been going on because that's what's been really cool and not reported on enough. I guess the place that I want to start with this is with the last sort of deck. Well, I mean, I guess there's been a lot of austerity in the UK, but I want to kind of start with the last sort of decade of austerity and the damage that's been doing to the healthcare system and what that's looked like on your end. So there's a couple of ways this manifests. One is like there's been a centralization of healthcare services, a closing down of hospitals and making larger hospitals that contain more and more specialties. So for instance, my hospital that I work in, it was the result came about the clothing downs about, I think, three smaller

hospitals and each hospital that was lost, we lost about at least 100 beds for each one that was created. They're centralized into R1. There's been massive cutback in lack of funding and preventive healthcare and community healthcare. One interesting example of how that manifests is like they shifted the provision of community healthcare and social care for new mothers to being run by the local council. That's like local, either county or city, even larger cities level government. And then they would put out the process where rather than just it goes automatically to the NHS, it needs to be put out to tender and give charities or non-profits or even private healthcare providers an opportunity to bid on providing the service. That's a terrible way to

run the system. Oh, no, it's absolutely insane. It's absolutely insane. And then the end result of this is the NHS service gets it because they're the only one that can actually credibly provide the service, but they have to essentially massively underestimate how much it will cost to run it all to run the service. Oh, because they have to underbid the other services that are not going to do it. Wow, that's a terribly designed system. Yeah. And then there's also like the introduction of trying to in order to cut back on the backlogs that like the cutting down and services have created via outsourcing some health care, some surgeries and stuff to private healthcare, private hospitals, but then they're able to just pick and choose the easiest, least risky and most profitable ones

and of course any any complications that result of the problems with surgery, issues with treatment, adverse reactions, the surgeons fucking it up because they were working overnight in order to get extra in order to get some extra money after doing a shift in the NHS hospital, which is often the case, then falls back on the NHS proper. And then in terms of workforce, the average on average, which this isn't just nurses, there's a universal pay scale using the NHS for everyone called Agenda for Change. There's a history prime that confusing name, but yeah. The reason for that is it was a very much it was a less unified system before like the early 2000s. Everyone knew it was messed up. There was a big like pushed by unions and also by government who wanted to rationalize

the whole thing to make it make more sense in theory, tie people's wage to what they were actually doing more directly in a more consistent way, hence Agenda for Change because there's an agenda for changing of what's happening, but it's been in place for over 20 years now, so the name doesn't make sense. But basically, everyone on Agenda for Change has on average in the last 10 years had a 20% pay cut in real terms. Then doctors and dentists because they're special boys, love them, but you know, have on a different pay scale and junior doctors on average have had an even worse pay cut of about 28%. Yeah, they're on strike. They're on strike like right now. Yeah, they're on strike right now. And unlike my union, they haven't pissed about the

government. They've gone straight to a full three days. No derogations the term for agreeing to not provide services for life in order to protect patient safety, which the RCN went in for in a big way. In some ways, they've got it a bit easier in that they can just say, oh, the consultants will do all of this. Like that is to translate into American healthcare, that would be an attending. And so this strike of junior doctors includes everyone from like their first two years post medical school, what we call foundation years, possibly that'd be equivalent to internship in America, and then our registrar's so people are residing specialty training equivalent of a like a resident, I believe. The government tried to persuade them to call off in order to go into

talks, but they hadn't made a big show in promise of like, we will in good faith, we will call off strikes and go into negotiations if the government agrees to have serious formal talks. So they were able to just say to the government, no, you're putting too many preconditions on these talks, we're not doing it until you make until you stop messing us about. Whereas unfortunately, my union, the RCN is addicted to protecting the image of nursing and like acting in good faith, even when they're dealing with someone who have no intention of dealing in good faith. Yeah, which, yeah, that, that, I don't know, as a strategy, it's really frustrating because you just can get and like, you can just get locked in endless negotiations, which is nothing is

happening. And yeah, it's really frustrating. So provides some historical context to this. The RCN in England, Wales, and Scotland, Northern Ireland's a slightly different story, had never had a strike until last year. Historically, the RCN was an anti-strike union. Wait, what? Yeah. Yes. That's a thing in the UK. Man, like, I know, I know, like the US has a lot of weird, not very good unions, but like, I don't know, I've not sure I've ever heard of it. Really? That's, wow. So that changed either in the 90s or the early 2000s. I honestly can't remember when. I tried to look it up, but whenever you try to search this stuff, just your search results are like flooded by stuff around the latest round.

What you got to understand is the RCN is 106 years old. It only became a union, though, about 50 years ago. So the RCN is both a union and a professional body in that it also does stuff around developing nursing best practice research and that kind of thing. And that's what it existed as originally. So yeah. So like a professional association. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. And so it still has a dual structure of its union side, its professional body side that like, develops nursing practice and stuff like that. Yeah. Well, I guess that raises the sort of question of like, what was so unbelievably like, what happened like, such that for the first time in like 100 and whatever years they finally won on strike. So it's partially a matter of breaking

points. The nursing turnover in the UK is absolute dog shit. Thousands of people leave the profession every year. There's this massive pay cut that's happened over the last 10 years. And nursing was always underpaid in the UK, to be frank. There's also then there was the cut in the nursing bursary about five years ago. So it used to be the government would pay you to train as a nurse. It would also give you not enough to be equivalent of the way to the work you were doing. Nursing in the UK has a far higher amount of practice hours than it does in the US, I believe it's part of the degree. And like a lot of that time, you're essentially working as a as a HCA or a CNA, as you'd say, in America. Can you explain what that is for people who don't

know like medical stuff? So HCA healthcare assistant or was it CNA certified nursing assistant, I think is what it stands for, is essentially a healthcare worker who does a range of like, what you describe as nursing tasks, but not the role of a registered nurse. So they would assist with mobilizing patients, monitoring observations, hygiene, potentially taking bloods and some investigations such as setting up an ECG, but they wouldn't do more advanced investigations, risk management, care planning, medication management, assessing of patients and that kind of stuff. So yeah, like about five years ago, the nursing bursary was cut. So then it became, as with every other degree, having to take out a student loan in order to pursue it.

And then in 2018, there was a particularly disastrous pay deal where the RCN in a number of ways, just absolutely fun, not just the RCN, the other healthcare unions representing health care workers also messed up hugely. But like, they really fumbled the ball. It resulted, arguably, some people describe as the leadership selling out the membership. And then after that, there was a general, an emergency general meeting called the RCN, which resulted in the entire executive being booted. Wow. Around this leading up to that, there'd been like increasing like grassroots militancy around nurses, we're recognizing that this was an awful situation we were in.

There, this also then resulted in, there were various grassroots campaigns started such as like nurses United UK, we started employing, organizing the UK to like, agitate nurses, there was a concerted effort to put pressure on the RCN by like, I'd say a radical minority, but one that represented like a genuine, genuine feeling among nurses on the, on the front line to push for the RCN to take a more radical stance. Then at the same time, I don't know if this was covered in your talk in about English politics, you'll like to our deep dive, but Northern Ireland didn't have a government at this point, because as they are now, the DUP and Sinn Féin had fallen out. And legally, it has to be both of

them together as the largest Republican and largest unionist party unionists in pro the United Kingdom party after former government, which meant it was impossible legally for any, for any pay rise in the NHS in Northern Ireland at that time. So it was not a government that could legally enact one. Great. Amazing. And this was, and this resulted in the, in 2019, the first strikes by the RCN ever, and also like the first nursing strikes in the NHS in a very long time. I might be wrong about this. I think the last ones were like in the 80s or the 70s. I might, I might be wrong about this, though. And this was both called by the RCN and one of the other biggest trade unions in the, probably the biggest trade union as it's a generalist trade

union in the NHS unison. They both called strikes at this time and they were significant factor in getting the Northern Ireland government back meeting alongside other things. I'm not going to give ourselves all the credit, but it was a significant factor that often gets overlooked and actually having any pay rise enacted at all on the, in Northern Ireland. Just to clarify for a second, this, this strike was a specifically, like a strike that was happening for nurses in Northern Ireland. Yeah. In 2019, I think it's very important. I think that triggered something of a sea change in the RCN and that was kind of the culminating point of like trying to push for a more militant attitude on the RCN. And it really like broke

the fog gates open and made what's happening now possible, even though a lot of nurses in England, particularly I can't comment on the situation in Wales and Northern Ireland, like how much people know about you, about what was going on. But like a lot of nurses in England didn't even know about it. And when I was going around the wards, pushing for people to vote in favour of the strike action, a lot of people didn't weren't aware of that. That had been a thing that had happened until I told them about it. Because people in England, as much as England is determined to keep Northern Ireland, don't know what's going on in Northern Ireland to any degree. To a terrifying degree sometimes, I would say. Yeah, that, that sounds like it sounds like

thing that happens when you're a colonial power, et cetera, et cetera. Well, like, I mean, like there was, I feel like, well, our equivalent isn't the right term, but like around the same time, like people in Puerto Rico, like ran out their government and almost no one in the US, like, like in the continental US has like ever heard of it. So. Yeah. Yeah, I would say if that, yeah, if there's not forms going off in Northern Ireland, people in England are paying attention, I would say. Yeah, that makes sense. And it's also really depressing. Yeah, which like I would say Northern Ireland's in the sub in maybe in some ways,

in a better position in Puerto Rico, in that it actually has a degree of political representation in the main in the Westminster and such, even though it obviously should have its independence in my, but yeah, Puerto Rico doesn't even have that as my understanding. Yeah. And I mean, there's a whole, there's a, there's a whole thing there, like the Puerto Rican statehood people are like weird reactionaries. The independence people are cooler, but also there's this whole sort of, I don't know, there's, there's a kind of like, there's a kind of paralysis anywhere. It's like that and it, it like DC is kind of similar, where there's this whole sort of, there's this kind of paralysis where like nothing's ever

going to be done about it other than the US just like basically imposing whatever random colonial governor that they've decided to bring in as an emergency manager or whatever. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. But we are getting, we are getting far afield from Yeah. And also I want to stop before I put my foot in it and say something about Northern Ireland that will piss off everyone. Yeah. And like, I don't even know even less about what's got about Puerto Rico, the average person in Britain. But yeah, I would also say, okay, like, so, so, so people don't get mad at me. The, like all of the US is a colony. It's the, like the, the, the, the, the substantive difference between New York and Hawaii and Puerto Rico was when,

like, when, when we took it over. But yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we're, we're, we're turning, we're turning actually, well, you know, okay. All right. I will, I will, I will take this complete interruption of the flow as a point to do an ad break. So do you know what else is an extensive colonial power that who's might cannot be checked? It's, it's the products and services that support this podcast. Yay. All right. And we are back. Yeah. So I wanted to move from the Northern Ireland Shrek to talk about the sort of broader strikes that have been happening in the last, my understanding about year or so. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Is it, is it, has it been going on longer than that? Yeah. I guess we should talk about, like, what, what,

what happens to move from the Northern Ireland strikes to the current situation? So do you mean with specifically NHS strikes or, like, us? Wall to us, specifically with the NHS strikes, but I guess we can talk about the broader way if you want to too. Okay. So obviously all the shit with COVID happened. Yeah. And then we came to the payoff of last year. And at this point, they've been general building of an attitude that we don't just need a decent pay rise that keeps up inflation. We need one that goes towards restoring lost pay. And the RCM leadership after the kicking out of the entire

executive in 2018, kind of on the back foot, kind of like wanting to appease the membership, go along with it a bit more. Also, we had new general secretary, Pat Cullen, who was the secretary of the Northern Ireland section of the RCM during this Northern Ireland strikes, took a more militant position in the pay negotiation, in the joint union pay negotiations with the government towards the end, towards the beginning of last year, where the RCM took a position of we need inflation plus 5%. Now, this is a bit of inside baseball, which like, I don't think I've ever seen like put out officially, but what I know from various people involved in these things and like statements by different unions, what my

understanding of it is the biggest of the trade unions in the NHS in general, the unison put forward line, it was only willing to go for a generic, significantly better than inflation pay ballot, like pay demand from the government, which the RCM was due to like changing attitude of its membership, what happened when it accepted a bad deal last time was not willing to go for and result of the RCM splitting from the joint union like pay council, like joint union council over this issue, which then the government's pay thing came in, it said we will do a flat 1,400 for everyone, like on all bands, so not percentage like it normally does, and you know, to be honest, if it was a significantly higher amount that was better than inflation for the lower bands,

like the lower paid works in the NHS, wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but this 1,400 isn't good enough for anyone, and when I'm talking about this, I'm talking about specifically in England, it was slightly different in Wales and Scotland, I think generally slightly better, but still far lower than it should have been, than it needs to be, and so the RCM was the first of the unions in the NHS to say it was doing the pay ballot, and this kind of sprung on the other unions like a week, two weeks, three weeks later, all said that they were doing it as well, the RCM also at the same time hired a load of organised, like paid organisers to support the pay ballot effort, and what I'll say is obviously paid organisers, they're no substitute for what

rank and file, militancy, but it was very helpful to be honest, because I think there was a lot of like militant sentiment to the RCM, but although there were some like rank and file initiatives, which had a massive impact on like pushing the RCM to a stronger position, I don't think that could have materialised, and there wasn't enough people like Assie who had an idea about organising about what it meant to go out and push for this kind of thing, to get what we needed in that time frame sadly, I wish that wasn't the case, but I do think these paid organisers as much as not what I think the credit model for workplace organising is, did help a lot, and this then resulted in the RCM strike ballot passing in 176 NHS trusts across the UK, let me just

yeah, check that I've got that right, yeah, which is huge, it's not all, but it is, it's over 50%, it's pretty much all trusts in Scotland, all trusts in Scotland, all trusts in Northern Ireland, I think all by one or two in Wales, and the majority in England, it's also worth pointing out the ones that didn't pass it, they didn't pass by less than a percentage, wow, they didn't pass by like 10 votes in all cases, I think the one in Wales that didn't pass, it was literally by three votes, and it's also worth noting that I think in 2016 or 2015, anti-union legislation was passed by the Conservative government, which raised the bar you need in order to have legal strike industrial action, and under the law as it

existed a decade ago, every NHS trust that the RCM balloted in would have passed the ballot. Also, unfortunate timing, it was happening at the same time as postal strikes were happening, and in the UK industrial ballots for industrial actions to be legal have to happen by post. A little bit of sad eye, I believe that. It's like it's bad timing guys, like full power to you, and of all the trust, of all the unions in the NHS that were passing ballots, the RCM was the most successful, we passed it in significantly more places than other unions did, to my shock to be honest, because when I was going around balloting or talking to people on my days off, going on the wards, talking to people while I was at work, everyone was like, yes, it was in other

unions, like yes, I'm voting for it, I'm waiting on 10 to 10 to have my ballot, when's my ballot arriving, why is my union not open their ballot yet, and so like when particularly like other unions didn't pass in my trust, I was really shocked, I was really confused, and it seems like a lot of them didn't actually want to fight to a degree, in that like they were opening it because the RCM had opened it, I'm certain people in those unions might disagree with me, but that's really, I find it really hard to understand how these unions that have historically, they're all, none of them are that militant, you know, but they all have a history of strikes in other sectors, of organizing for this, they've never had been anti-strike unions, unison in particular,

it was there, came about like several unions being collaborated, like joining together, including unions that had been founded by nurses in the 70s, in reaction to like the RCM being anti-strike, and going on like that was the last big wave of nursing strikes at that time, so that really shocked me. This has been it could happen here, join us tomorrow for part two of the interview, and in the meantime, you can find us on Twitter and Instagram, that happened here, pod, and you can find us Twitter and Instagram, that goes on media. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on iHeart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University, and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe

in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions, so we can better understand our lives and our realities, like does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident, or can we create new senses for humans, or what does dreaming have to do with the rotation of the planet? So join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception, and your reality. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Tune in to uncover what happened when three boys entered a Tennessee cave, but only one returned.

Listen to the mental arc caves now on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts Hi, I'm Rosie O'Donnell, and I've got a new podcast called onward with me Rosie O'Donnell on I heart I'm 60 years old now believe that yes, it's the truth So I figure two-thirds of my life are done Zero to 30 30 to 60 and now I'm in the 60 to 90 if I'm lucky mostly this part of my life is just about moving forward and I thought What a wonderful way to do it with the podcast that I can sit down here in my home with people I love it in my air people

I've worked with people I've gotten to be friends with and some family friends that feel like the real deal like who you might ask Natasha Leone Jennifer Lewis Ricky Lake Fran Drescher Sharon bless Kathy Griffin Cameron Mannheim the list goes on and on Listen to onward with Rosie O'Donnell a proud part of the outspoken podcast network on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Welcome to it could happen here a podcast increasingly about nurses strikes and And yeah, this is part two of our interview with Nick a nurse in the UK. Enjoy

We've entered the topsy-turvy land where the RCN seems to be the people who are like leading on the militancy in this in this French where yeah, yeah And I think part of it comes down to is because the RCN was historically The SNCC was not a union became a union late in the day for then a was for ages anti-strike a lot of unions because like we can talk about the John Catech of unions and particularly like Institutional unions how the service providers how they build up like a protective bureaucracy against Merton struggle or against like grassroots militancy the RCN It's not a particularly democratic as these things go

But it doesn't have that kind of built up institutional inertia in the trade union side because historically it hasn't needed it And that meant I think it was actually far more susceptible to grassroots pressure and militancy Then some of the other more established unions were And yeah, oh sorry No, and that kind of like was the thin end of the wedge for the RCM to take as very strong stance over the pay rising response to like Grassroot organizing and like a demand from the grassroots to do that which then resulted in them like bad infrastructure action first Which then meant other unions had to

And then we got the and then the cascade of like strikes in the NHS Ever occurred since then So this this is a very very broad question to be asking, but how have the strikes been going? That's kind of a difficult one to say so Scotland for instance has not been called out has not actually had any strike days because the Scottish government went into negotiations Begin with and then made an offer. It was rejected strikes were announced. They made another agreed to come back negotiations So like it's been effective in getting something moving in Scotland They're current offer of 15% over two years. So six something this year five something next year is

Currently being voted on by the RCM membership. It's not it's not a good, but it's a significant move in what came before Mm-hmm Wales the Welsh government after saying no, we can't have any more money We can't we literally can't because Westminster controls our budget Westminster won't give us any more budget to for this has now made it an improved improved an improved offer It's crap, but it's like something it's forced them to shift when they were claiming it was physically impossible for them to do it Which every single time like I I can think of exactly one time ever where I've seen an employer make that demand And it was actually true, but this is not like that that was that was like what Norfolk Southern in like Like the 1970s and it's it was only true once and it's never been true ever since then like

Hear this from every fucking employer who you attempt to go on track against and they're always lying Like every single time What I will say is like in the case of Wales. It is very true. The Welsh government's budget is set by Westminster by the central government. So it's a lie, but it's a plausible lie. Yeah, and Wales is generally massively Wales has like some of the highest rates of child poverty outside of Eastern Europe in Europe The reasons part of the reasons for this is because the Welsh government is chronically underfunded. Yeah. Yeah due to political decisions made in England but it's still

Not true and then in England like It's got to the point where a government who are categorically opposed to any negotiations with trade unions have actually Come to the negotiating table. So from that, although I suspect loads of preconditions that haven't been publicly talked about They're gonna not make a credible offer in my view and as a stalling tactic But the fact they even chose to come to the table at all. I hate saying this because it's the kind of thing that makes people complacent But that is actually quite big That the Conservative government actually agreed to do it to come to negotiating table stopped hiding behind

Oh, there's an independent pay body that decides these things Stop saying it's if we can't afford to fund the NHS anymore I see just coming and sitting at the table at all to negotiate It's like a big movement of itself. Now if we talk about Numbers of participation in strikes There's been a lot of difficulties a lot of No one near as many people participated in the strikes as should have been I will be frank and say

So now we're going to talk about the derogations the situation derogations Which is like the RCN voluntarily saying we will allow this many people to continue working day these days and these areas In order to maintain patient safety, which is on one hand We don't want any patients to die obviously on the other hand It's a very easily abused stance to take and there are just nurses who in other trade unions who are Inter-trade unions as well and Ultimately if they want that not to happen they need to just come to the table earlier And so this was also in a process where

so ITU and like key time sensitive chemo and Pediatric A&Es were derogated by default and Then there was an agreement of if the wards Had less than like night time numbers. We would agree for a small amount of our Of our membership to go in to work on those wards to maintain night time numbers for the sake of patient safety But that have to be applied for on a case-by-case basis Which

There's a couple of problems with this one trust just not taking it seriously lying of not trying to establish these things to make accurate requests Leaving it to the last minute and then asking for blanket derogations. Ah, we don't know if it's going to be safe or not Managers like ward managers not actually knowing what was agreed and to giving incorrect information to their staff people not understanding What was or wasn't derogated and Just generally it was a system that was very open to abuse and so like a lot of A lot of things were just left open in general or like that shouldn't have been But at the same time, I know that

It didn't happen in every case, but like There was a lot of success in like go members of the strike committee going around wards and saying no your over number You need to come out and people doing it Of like surgeries being cancelled like elective surgeries Non-time sensitive surgeries being cancelled due to it of like really making hospital managers sweat over like proving each thing needed to happen They wanted needed to happen those days all of which built up even if we didn't get the full amount of people We should have had out on strike on strike Really built up the pressure

Significant degrees on them to them put the pressure up The chain of the NHS to the government's like we can't keep on going on like this and at the same time It's It's set of strikes the number of people participating did increase So like for instance, I've just got the government statistics from That the 15th of December, I think it is. So this was the first strike day that was called It was

9999 absences due to industrial action Then on the 20th, it was 11,509 Then on the 18th and 19th of January And just one important factor. They didn't call all hospitals out at once Again, I think a mistake a strategic mistake should have gone hard gone hard fast But the the argument was we just we don't have the facilities to organise all of this effectively Every on all of these massive amounts because like it was a huge amount of trusts they needed to do that with But then on those days it was then

11,363 and 11,219 across those two days then in February It was 15,998 and then 14 on the second day 14,000 and then 58 people which is far lower than it should have been. I can't remember how many people there are nurses on the NHS So I should have had that statistic ready, but it's not an inconsiderate amount. It meant lots of outpatients appointments being cancelled or what surgeries being cancelled A lot of chaos and stress For managers of the NHS and therefore for the government are looking really bad for them and it's a clear upward trajectory which meant that when they are seen announced, we're going to do two days consecutive

We're not we're going to keep it going through the night with the hand on the door Previously and we're not doing derogations ITU will be staffed. Nothing. We're not doing anything else I think no even ITU wasn't staffed. We'd consider on a case-by-case basis. We won't be considered. What's ITU sorry intensive care ICU for America. Oh, I see. Okay. Okay. Yeah So that meant that at that point the government probably like, okay We need to move to a new delaying time. We need to move to a new delaying time They're not just going to give up And I think with that as it went on like

People were itching and itching to go further And so for instance like A&E was derogated So which is the area I work in But like a lot of people And this is reflective of like most areas that were derogated when I spoke to people who weren't like, no, we need to be out We need to be out the picket line and like after the first two rounds There was also a growing effort to like try and find out from the membership what the actual situation was

So that I'm like staffing on the wards because all wards are chronically understaffed So when they said, oh, well these this amount people say no, we know that's a lie We know on nights. There's actually only three registered nurses. There's not the four you're claiming and stuff like that It's again. I think was a really positive move in like Embedding a kind of like Workers inquiry and workers knowledge about their workplace into the organizing of the strike That had been quite a top-down process But yeah

And I'm kind of worried about how this delay and break in the strike action Will affect that momentum that had been building up I think like to a large degree people are like itching to go further To a large degree people are like itching to go again And I think that desire to go again is building as it goes like when it initially happened When this starts initially called off. There was a lot of like Trust like in like the big WhatsApp groups and stuff and told people there was a lot of like people thinking Oh, at least I don't know if this was reps into general opinion, but people being quite open to be saying no

We need to trust like Pat knows what she's doing They wouldn't have called it off of this things like it's getting more and more those people being like no we need to We need to go we need to we need to get back on the picket line And there's been a petition that's been going around that's been getting quite a bit of news Like setting out some hard lines like four to the end and see leadership about What kind of stuff they should accept like saying no we need to stick to the above of inflation busting We need to not compromise on this we need to not compromise on this which is I think got 880 signatures At the moment, which doesn't sound like a huge amount but like again

You're going through quite a lot of inertia of like attitude of like you've got to leave it to the leadership among the membership even when they were unhappy with it And it's only a thousand signatures that are necessary in the RCNs Where the RCN works to call an extraordinary general meeting which they can do pretty much whatever it wants and that's how the leadership in 2018 was kicked out after the bad pay deal then Well, that's really interesting Yeah, so like the RCN very undemocratic except for this one particular thing Yeah, is that a normal thing that is it like a normal thing for unions in the UK or is that just like a weird Most I think all unions have a amount of people A set amount where if like memberships calling for an extraordinary general meeting they have to do it the RCNs one is really low

Interesting Essentially and like there were some moves were like people in the RCNs saying oh we need to change it we need to go into that And we need we need to raise it to be more in line with other unions But that again is something that will have to go that if that does happen that kind of change we have to go through like a membership wide vote It's not something the executive leadership could just impose That's good Yeah So like there is a process of like these strikes were like a result of like increasing general level of militancy with among nurses in general and among NHS workers and I think

Particularly because everyone knows it's awful the situation and then with like a slightly more organized and spear in it that resulted in that in that petition in 2018 arguing for stuff at like congress and things and then That's what active strike has like got the membership feeling like they should have a more active role and I think it's pushing things in a positive direction even though I think the RCN leadership has got into a point where by mistake it ended up way ahead of the other unions and it's now trying to back panel But I don't I think there's a lot potential for like more grassroots organized by the membership to prevent that happening Yeah We are in a difficult position though in that the time is running out strike mandates in the UK only last for six months We are When the government agreed to negotiations were at two and a half months left of the mandate it's now two months left of the mandate you have to give two weeks notice before strike action Oh, so that's that that that's that's what the sort of like run out the clock strategies on their side. Okay, that makes sense

Exactly now nothing's to stop us from reballoting. Yeah, but it will be a whole process. It has to be a month. You have it has to go through the mail Yeah, it'll be drawn out. We'll buy them a lot more time Yeah Also post workers I think are on strike again today to I think maybe I think so let me I've got the strike counter up on my computer. Let's see who's on strike like an absolute fraud I have it on my other computer, but I don't have it on this one. Yeah, so phase the 15 Today Amazon's on striking Coventry The BBC's regional services the civil service

Which they would kind of be equivalent to like a federal stuff in America So like for instance, my dad who's a health and safety inspector is on strike today HMRC, which is the tax office is on strike junior docs on strike Offset the school of structures on spy strike the rail the two main rail unions on strike Teachers on strike and university staff on strike not the postal service today. Yeah Yeah, well, I guess I guess I wanted to ask a bit about that too about sort of just what's been happening I don't know what you see is sort of the potential of the broader strikes have been happening because this is this is a I don't know. I mean, it's not it's not like a like

It's not like a 1970s style like strike wave, but it's it's a lot of strikes for the UK in the last decade It's It's big like there isn't the level of cross-union Cooperation and talks that you would want. There's a lot of like people turning up to each other's picket lines. There's a lot of like Solidarity present, but it's not coalescing into like a Into like a unified Unified movement which it hoping to be although I do think if something doesn't change It is moving in that direction. I'm like the conservative government is out like an all-time loan its popularity ratings. Yeah, I think

I don't know if you're aware from this Quote from Margaret Thatcher about how she her main political goal was remaking the soul of Britain Away because like up until that period there was a very strong trade union movement in the UK Though it had like one of the best social democracies in the world like comparable to Scandinavia today It was there was far more like a collective attitude in the UK and like Margaret Thatcher is explicit I can't remember the exact quote but explicit project in the project of the Conservative Party at the time Let's not put it all on her great woman team History is as bad as great man's history to move the soul of the like general social attitude in person out of like people in Britain away from that like

Orientations like community and collective struggle and action and there is A part of me That the feels like this is a move away from that Because like everyone you go to there's whinging about like an inconvenience caused by a strike but pretty much everyone is like yeah those they have it It's awful for them. It's all the strike drivers. Good on them for standing up for themselves Good on the teachers for standing up for themselves. Good on postal workers for standing up for themselves Good on nurses for standing up for themselves like the amount of like stuff I've been brought by people on the picket lines Has been incredible. It's like I've each day. I've just been like rolling down the hill from my hospital to my house

Like with a bloated stomach from like stuff members of the public and brought and dropped off at the picket line It's It makes me feel like it's There is the optimist part of me. It does feel like there is a reorientation In general of British public to like the idea that we don't have to put up with this Yeah You don't have to struggle and try and get it on your own and like it's early days yet, but I do see something positive Moving in that direction in the UK as well to this strike wave

Yeah, that's a that is I don't know that is great news from a place that does not usually generate great news This is like the this is the deeply optimistic part of me on the other hand you have like bad news A lot of bad news coming out of the UK at the moment Yeah Like this strike wave is good news It is the fact that it's happening in the NHS in particular, which has been so resistant to industrial action historically And also just because of how what a significant part of the economy is as well Because like it you know the NHS is the eighth biggest employer in the world

Wow, I know isn't the world that's that's wild Yeah, like it used to be like the fifth biggest in the world. Wow It's it used to only be that the American Army the Chinese Army but dawns of Walmart would be imposed in the NHS We've been overtaken by Amazon and such now, but yeah Yeah Like like strike action so like From like a worker's perspective like strike action all like the larger section of the workforce nurses in the NHS With a biggest implow in the world

Leaving aside the situation for everything else in the UK leaving aside The history of the opposition like the active opposition to the idea of striking within nursing historically in the UK is Huge news and something to be hopeful about and then put in the context of the more broader strike wave in the UK and within the NHS in general This is huge and it is a sign. I think or positive change and like reorientation towards Workplace struggle occurring I think So I've now heard two different places Do this which was I heard this in Chile in 2019 and I heard this also on my picket line at the University of Chicago in 2019 Which is I I'd like I

This this is the place dear liberalism was born and we will kill it here and I mean those are the three places Yeah, Chicago and the UK. Yeah, I think I think also arguably Germany. Although that has a whole other The door to Libs or I don't know Although lives from my understanding of it from listening to some things about years ago It's it's more of a family resemblance than the exact same thing as neoliberalism. Yeah, I mean, I think I I if we're going I I think they got absorbed into the neoliberal bubble Yeah, so far as like they're they're the order lives are where the neoliberals got this sort of like we need to have like an international bureaucracy

Like to legal bureaucracy from like Hayek is also like have involved. Yeah, that's that's that's a whole other story But yeah, like it is it is encouraging to me that it's like I don't know Like the like the it really does seem like in the places where neoliberalism was born It's like it's starting to come apart. Yeah, and you know, I know people people have been predicting the death of neoliberalism for like Long well Almost as long as I've been alive But I don't know this this like the fact that it's happening in these places seems different than I think it is significant. I think I

Make I am cautiously excited every time I hope something bad happens, but I am hopeful now and you know It yeah, my brain is a magic. Sorry. There can't be a cause of effect there. Yeah But I don't know. I mean like you are the second person I've interviewed from the UK who actually seemed to be like Someone optimistic above the direction it could possibly be going which is the first time I've heard that in like I mean I guess there are people who are optimistic about Corbyn, but yeah, I don't know This is this is the first sort of like signs of that sense. I Don't know a long time and I think yeah look like if I was in the American list

You're like if turf Island isn't doomed then we're not doomed either Yeah, we have yeah, I yeah, I don't know when I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest man Like there's a lot of ways the UK is better than America. Oh, yeah us like is it's a it's a real disaster like it's Yeah I mean, I think we're both equally bad a lot of ways Yeah, I think the things the things that like people in the US look at em England say this is awful and the things people in the UK Look at the US and say this is awful. It's it's kind of a A child looking at their parent and being

Pissed off of them and a child and a child and a parent looking at their child and being disappointed in them No, no, you both suck. It's just family resemblance. It's a we hate us for it's a narcissism of small differences like yeah Between the US and the UK a lot of the time. Yeah Yeah, yeah, um, I guess do you have anything else do you want to say about the strikes? I? Think the fact it got this far is incredible. Mm-hmm. There's so much further that needs to go I'm really excited and I'm really scared. I Think this is the potential for like a turning point round both for the NHS but for my profession for nursing and

Also, like in general in the context of wise track race for the UK But you know the higher the stakes the higher the perils like This is off and I think this is our fight to lose essentially right I Think if we do it if we go seriously and like the membership takes controls of it from like the lead from the union leadership, which is very cautious which has been put put into position of being more Milleth of like unprecedented millions to see almost by accident with will trying to appease the membership We can achieve something incredible, but it's really

The books open it can go either way and like I'm excited and I'm terrified by it Yeah, if people want to support the strikes I where can they go is there a strike fund they can donate to? Yeah, the RCM has an open strike fund. I would invite anyone listening to donate to I would also like Find the articles about the petition they've been going around like the money the RCM leadership takes a Strongest stance and like just share that around generally create more visibility on that Yeah, we'll put links to both of those in the description Yeah

Those are the main things I would suggest again The national nature of this struggle and the fact that it's not even really against our direct employers It makes it harder to talk specifically about this thing or that thing in some ways But yeah, those are the two things I would ask like the big a strike pot the easier it is to like argue for more aggressive action and the more visibility there is in that petition the more it'll take a lot more than a petition to like Shift things to the good routes to being in

In the forefront and the leadership position of this, but it's something that will make people feel more empowered put more pressure on the leadership It's like a small stepping point towards what we need I'd also like to recommend a book to anyone who wants to Find out more about the history of the NHS in the current situation it some comrades of mine like from a group called the angry workers and also Revolution I've always forget the other group. They did it with name. Oh, this is embarrassing Yeah, anarchist communist group wrote and Healthcare workers united which is like a network I'm involved in

Like put together a book called sick of it Which is like a collection of workers inquiries and reflections on the NHS its history its potentials and what and it and stuff That's really a great book sadly not available as an ebook But it's it's an excellent read and like it will tell you will give you a real insight into what the NHS has been historically and what it Is now for anyone who's interested in that That's awesome. Yeah, the angry workers are really cool. By the way, they're on Twitter. I probably should have It's probably just angry workers Yeah

Yeah, it is. Oh wait. No, I'm wrong. It's it's workers at workers angry I think wait, no, it's just the right one. No, it's yeah, it's that work is angry. It is. Yeah. Yeah I'm not on Twitter. I don't I don't know about these things It is it is a cursed place. Um, yeah getting more cursed. Oh god. Yeah If you want to find us at Twitter we are at Coulson media Yeah, we're also on Instagram. I I'm told run Instagram. I don't have one so I don't know I this is what I've been being told for many years if we don't I don't tell me

Yeah, and thank you all for listening and yeah, go do your own strikes. I'd make bosses lives miserable Please the more strikes are going on the more people want to go and strike. Hey Hey, hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called inner cosmos on I heart I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads on my new podcast I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling Unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities like does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident or

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So I figure two-thirds of my life are done Zero to 30 30 to 60 and now I'm in the 60 to 90 if I'm lucky mostly this part of my life is just about moving forward And I thought what a wonderful way to do it with the podcast that I can sit down here in my home with people I love it in my air people. I've worked with people I've gotten to be friends with and some family friends that feel like the real deal like who you might ask Natasha Leon Jennifer Lewis Ricky Lake Fran Drescher Sharon glass

Kathy Griffin Cameron Mannheim the list goes on and on Listen to onward with Rosie O'Donnell a proud part of the outspoken podcast network on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Okay, hello, and welcome to it could happen here a podcast. It is about today about labor organizing and about what happens after a strike In a labor organization. I'm joined. I'm James if you hadn't guessed and I'm joined by several people from the UCSD dollar lunch club We're going to talk about the UC strike and we're going to talk about mutual aid organizing in the wake of the strike If you all would like to introduce yourselves, that would be great. I'm Alex. I use she they pronouns I'm Matt and I use he him

Hi everyone, my name is Maria. I am a PhD student at UCSD and I use she her pronouns I'm Anna and I use she they pronouns Amazing. Thank you very much guys. So I think people probably haven't heard much from us about the UC strike since we last sort of had some episodes around December and January and obviously it's been a couple of months since then. So The resolution of that strike was kind of contentious, right? And a lot of the organizing that that you guys have been doing came out of the campaign to vote no on the I guess the ballot after the strike right and to vote no on the tentative agreement, which ultimately didn't succeed right the tentative agreement with there was a yes vote and I wonder if you could all explain kind of a look it's obvious how the yes vote was organized right with within the structure of a union which which exists to which I had obviously made disagreement with the UC in this case and then it's a job of the people who made that agreement to then get a yes vote on that agreement. But can you explain a little bit about how the no vote campaign came together and maybe if someone could also explain some of the

substantive issues that you felt weren't satisfactorily resolved in that tentative agreement? Yeah, the no vote was the end of a very long process of us feeling like the bargaining team was making progress on that, and I think that's a good point. Yeah, the no vote was the end of a very long process of us feeling like the bargaining team was making progressively worse and worse decisions and basically using submission as a tactic to improve gains in bargaining. We felt like that was not a great tactic. So the upshot of the no vote campaign was that fundamentally we felt that the bargaining team had not fought hard enough. They have made repeated sacrifices of our core demands drastically cutting our 54,000 wage demands, our COLA and that we felt particularly since it was during the winter break and we had some time to, you know, stretch it out a little bit further that if we had gone back to the bargaining table at that point that we would have been able to recoup some of those demands. I don't think there was like a consensus that it was like obvious that like union resources would exclusively be used for yes vote stuff either, maybe partially, but that was one part of like the major conflict was that like when some of us were trying to do like a tax banking campaign for like no vote stuff. I know of at least one person who like feared for their career, because like their colleague was like you're misusing like personally I personal information that like this isn't why people like agreed to give it to the union and like you can't just take it and use it for like, you know, campaigning for vote stuff but then we were like this is for a union purpose. Why can't we like contact people on the same topic that all of us are getting a bajillion mass texts about.

So, like, I do think that was also a point of contention within that but like, like, the union does not share resources amongst like amongst people who are campaigning for different sides of like ballot issues. Right. Yeah, yeah, so it wasn't like there wasn't like a like an open channel where like people could have an open discussion or at least using the text banking function at least. Yeah, we had been told that in the event that a bargaining team did not have a unanimous vote in favor of TAing the agreement that both sides would have the opportunity to use union resources or to campaign for their preference and that didn't turn out to be the case. Yeah, that's upsetting. And so how did you organize because it was it wasn't like the no vote campaign is only the four people here right like it was a very substantive campaign that the large number of people supported and voted for it wasn't like this is a kind of 99% yes situation. So how did you all organize for the no vote campaign when you didn't have access to those resources. It was a pretty distributed network of for instance signal chats so a lot of signal what's up discord groups, and it was is very grassroots so if you knew someone in one of those groups they would add you. Yeah, I'm sure Matt and Allison have more to add I think they were in some very large group chats. Yes, and those group chat son were were both on the UC San Diego campus as well as statewide.

So, you know this this wasn't just something that UC San Diego was voting on right this was all of the California campuses. We also had a strike center, which involved in towards the end of our active picketing before winter break, a number of people from all different departments migrated from their pickets to a more central location. And although it was not synonymous with and was unofficially kind of seen as the dissidents side the vast majority of people who participated in the strike center were ended up being no voters when the time came. I think Anna is pretty right in saying that a lot of the organization was like a distributed decentralized thing across signal chats like in my experience there was for example the disability justice coalition. Who've done a lot on you know accommodations and disability rights and things like that and so they were approaching things from different angles than other chats that were like you know doing like Oh, here is a list of emails from you know UCI of grad students in this department. Please feel free to email it and you know like so there was like a diversity of tactics there, if that makes sense so it was like a lot of like petitioning emails talking one on one with people so me personally and several people that I know, like set up meetings with like their lab mates and just be like hey, how are you doing so have you heard of what's going on, things like that which I think are very normal union things to do. I did find that like official. Like, not maybe not official but in my department we had two people kind of take up like union liaison roles and they tended to be more like yes voters rather than no voters and I found that their form of communication to us never had that kind of like reaching out to other people they would say like,

Hey, there's a campus OC happening at 5pm, but they wouldn't reach out to members of the department to get everyone's opinion until like week three week four of the strike so you know I think what no voters did excel at was reaching out to people individually and like actually like going out to different labs to different departments and talking with people like either one on one or within small groups. So me personally as well as another member of the dollar lunch club actually canvassed around graduate housing so we during the ratification vote we were literally like holding stacks of paper and saying like hey, this is kind of the layout of what you'll be paid for each month that the union like the UAW is not showing you. Like, if you're in, you know, in this year, you're going to be getting a barely like $200 raise for these several months, that kind of thing, which is like very, you know, that information just was not made accessible or made clear by the UAW and for me that was purposefully done, at least in my opinion, that was purposefully done. So I think the diversity of tactics there that the no voters incorporated, and it was only after we started canvassing around graduate housing that we started seeing yes voters also canvassing around graduate housing and tearing down the posters that we had put on other people's doors. Yeah, so it got contentious but I think because we didn't have those official resources that the UAW usually or at least our chapter of the UAW usually can depend on such as like oh an official mailing list and then we'll just like send you or basically spam you a bunch of updates. We had to work around that by doing more personal meetings by, for example, in the last week of the strike facilitating group lunches right where multiple departments would come together, bring food cook like 910 Instapods worth of stews for everyone and that would be an opportunity for me to talk to people that I have like never talked to in my life from like completely different departments and tell them like hey, I don't think this is looking really good for us, especially like we have very different conditions, very

different working conditions and just overall, you may be part of the SRU I'm part of 2865. Here's how we should talk. So again, that was because the UAW was not utilizing those avenues of getting people to talk to each other. So I'm not sure I kind of went off topic but I wanted to like really hammer home that because we didn't have all those resources we had to rely on kind of these like how should I say like very distributed piecemeal strategies of like oh well let's do something here this isn't going to work for this department let's do that for this department you know, if that makes sense. It does I think it's really cool because I think that's how there's a lot that people can learn if they're interested in organizing their own workplaces right whether it's organizing for a vote on the tentative agreement or if it's just organizing to form a collective bargaining at the first place or to deal with a particular issue with your bosses whatever it is like those grassroots things work, especially when you don't have the this giant sort of massive union apparatus. I wanted to say, like, just with like what it feels like, like to be in like all of the different chats. Because like at the peak of everything I was like probably sending you like a dozen different Google Docs a day. It was all just like, like, we'll start a different group chat for it was all just we'll start a different group chat for the specific purpose of like, nobody's talking about disability justice and so we want to talk about disability justice

here. And we've decided this this forum is not good and then somebody in the chat goes like well, I'm with people who are also interested in like furthering this topic, and I don't see them any of them doing something like, you know, analyzing, like reanalyzing the like housing market data, and not just like taking the UAW's word for it or like, like doing a little bit of like forensic accounting on the university and then posting the Google Doc and saying like hey, I did some like forensic accounting on the university. This is something that we can use in arguments and also is like evidence of X or Y. So, yeah, just a lot of people it helps also, it helps to be in any union full of grad students. Yeah, you do have a lot of useful skills. It can also be very taxing organizing that way. Like, it can be really, it's a lot of being on your phone. And it's a lot of like your phone vibrating and you're having to switch your focus from some like in depth discussion of disability justice to a discussion of like why the rent is so damn high in Santa Cruz. And so like it can be really like, I guess, I don't know, I'm not a person who does well with that kind of shit. And so like, I wonder if there's anything, because this happened a lot in in 2022, right, when we look at how the George Floyd uprising or the uprising for back lives, whatever you want to call it was organized. It was also a whole lot of signal chats that I know for a lot of people I spoke to look at they just couldn't handle the signal chats. And so I wonder if there's anything that you learn during that organizing process that you would like to pass on to people who are interested in organizing going forward. One thing I'll say is, it became pretty clear that, you know, the people who had created the signal chats or the WhatsApp chats were the ones who were able to

monitor, manipulate, shut it down, which happens to our campus, picket leaders organizing chat. After the no vote had already failed. This was a couple of weeks later, during the joint council meeting of the AW. And, you know, the discourse and the arguments that were happening there while certainly very painful and vociferous were also, you know, very connecting to the campus, lots of different departments were on there. So we still got a lot of ideas about, you know, what other departments were thinking of. And with the locking down of that chat, which was kind of a unilateral action on the part of one of the moderators that just really ended a lot of campus discussion. And in my opinion, further divide between the two sides. And the other thing that I'll say is, you know, it's really hard from a historical perspective, from a communications perspective, to see, like, that people who are typing slower are not getting their opinions out. People who are in multiple chats are getting certain types of information that other people are not getting. And my words of advice to any any mass movement that is attempting to use these kinds of chat applications are one, to be sure that you are monitoring for accountability. I've realized very late in the game that you can actually download WhatsApp transcripts. So I downloaded the entire transcript just in case you've gotten newt screenshots also, you know, people would say well I said this and you know this person said no, you know, somebody took a screenshot of that before you deleted it. And the other thing is, you know, to always have backups, always have back channels, because there were so many instances of, you know, moderator led or UAW sanctions chats that did not permit discussion. And the absence, you know, we were talking about that shit in our back channels. Yeah, I think that's good advice.

Ken has just joined us and I'm just going to allow them to introduce themselves before we go forward with discussing these organizing tactics. Go ahead, Ken. Hi, I'm Ken. I am a graduate student in the Literature Department. So I've been organizing with Dollar Lunch Club from day like week zero before the strike started with with Anna. And yeah, that was from day one. That's true. I wanted to say with respect to the question about like just on my phone fatigue. I think a large like part of like why we are now like this group of us here is Dollar Lunch Club is because we were just like, we all have on my phone fatigue and we want to do something actually like community building and like meaningful for like ourselves and other grad students. And yeah, getting off the phone and making soup together has been very, very good for that. Yeah, Maria, do you want to add to that? Yeah, I was going to say the same, like because I think I think phone chats are vital, right, like I'm thinking about how important Facebook messenger chats were to the teacher strike a couple of years ago. So those were like really important. And they were really important in our strike as well. But I think because of the limitations of like, as Matt mentioned, someone can just unilaterally say none of you can reply only I can post updates. People can like erase their messages, they can nuke the entire chat disable it, all of that. Because of that, it really tells you like, oh, you can't just rely on online organizing a lot of times you're going to have to do in person organizing which again as Alex said, really well,

part of that is just community building. Like, to me what dollar lunch club is. It's like a continuation of that community building so that we maintain contacts, so that we maintain having conversations with people that generally we wouldn't really be meeting every day or maybe wouldn't even be meeting like, like once a quarter that kind of thing, you know, there's people that I talked to in scripts that I never would have talked to if we weren't doing some of these lunches together and finding out their situation so they're in a kind of tough situation that I think would be good to talk about in soon. But I guess what I would say as advice for other people who are trying to unionize their workplace is to get people kind of in engaged, you have to start with some of that community building. And I think food is one of those really good places to start community building it could be also other types of activities so all throughout the strike. There was you know times when people would be like hey, let's do yoga by the beach you know or let's do yoga on this picket or let's do a dance on this picket or let's do like a fashion show on this picket. Those are all like fun activities that I think people who like do not want to be at their workplace all the time people who like just want to catch a break. You can engage those like disengaged people that are just not paying attention to politics by offering activities that are important for community building and forgetting to meet people that you wouldn't have talked to before. So I think that's kind of like vital to a union functioning is building all of these contacts and then when you have talked to someone several times when you have had lunch with them several times then you can really get into the nitty gritty of like well how do you feel about the contract how do you feel about you know unionizing how do you feel about so and so I think that kind of community building is something that like our the UAW 2865 at least really just like neglected so my my example here is

on one of the pickets not the picket that I was on but on one of the pickets I later talked to a guy who was saying like oh yeah our picket is really militant we're supposed to be like shouting at people on the street the entire time and you know our picket leader she's like going all out and she you know has lost her voice because of that and all of that and I was thinking like okay but what do you don't you want to rest you know like what like do you do anything for fun to keep people going to picket because his picket had dropped in numbers so much that they had to combine numbers with another picket right and to me that was like you are making this really really stressful for people that's not to say that you know like preventing people from parking there isn't important it is but most people can only do that for a couple of days and then they're like stressed out and they do not want to contribute to that strike situation anymore they just want to sit at home and not do work right which is kind of what a strike can be but to keep people on the picket lines and to keep in contact with them because they're coming on campus or you know at the workplace every day you have to make it like pleasant to be there and so that that was one of the things that I wanted to say from one of those pickets where like you aren't doing any community building like your community building is a single basketball hoop that you brought and you put on the parking lot and like that's not enough you have to do like food you have to do some kind of art so in one of the other pickets that I participated in there was like chalking everywhere we were playing we were making like you know like a monopoly board but like you would just be losing $200 every time you passed a step and things like that right you have to let people express themselves in this way for them to keep coming back and back and being engaged for you to be able to facilitate conversations and to ask like hey what do you think about the contract hey what do you want to do I think community building is the most

important thing and that can be online but it also should have an in person component to it. Yeah, I think that's really well said fun is a way, like, like intentionally making time and space and energy for having fun as a community and just like doing things that are just like, like, this is because all of us need to eat, and all of us need to break like that is a way to like keep up your stamina and like help people keep up your stamina for something taxing like a strike, and also like to help people find the kind of meaning that helps them like want to come back and continue devoting energy to the thing. And yeah, that I just wanted to echo that like that like it was only through like finding this group that I was able to like find people of of similar minds on this it was not in the like you a w department Organizing Committee meetings that I could find like our our picket I don't think ever like, like died off like other pickets did. And our picket I'm referring to like most of the other people here we were together on one picket. Part of that is because we were allowing like space for so many different activities to do like there is one person in my department who kept coming despite my department being like really politically disengaged, because we had like a button maker and we could make buttons and he was like hey this is fun I'm just going to like continue drawing buttons for people I like doing that. And it was like, go for it you know like as long as you're here as long as we can communicate with you and like hear your opinions and see what you want to out of the contract and you keep on coming like we love that, you know, like, if you allow space for different people to do different things if there's like a diversity of tactics, I think you're going to get people a lot more engaged than if you have this like top down like no we should only be preventing people from parking

here we should only be shouting at students to not go to class like they have to be a diversity of tactics. That will be a good time I think for us to explain exactly what dollar lunch club is, and what does so to someone want to take, take on explaining that a dollar lunch club is very much like I would say, ground up organizing tactics I guess and it's, it's everything is sort of collectively decided in a weekly meeting and in the past quarter it's, it's been lunch, it's we've been providing lunch for it's targeted at grad students but really welcoming all of all community members, regardless of like affiliation with UCSD, although it's mostly UCSD students and grad students that have been attending, but we've been doing lunch for a dollar, two to three times a week in different places on the UCSD campus, sort of like a, and some of it is just lunches sort of like ad hoc catering, I would say of different kinds of organizing efforts or like interdepartmental lunches so it's not, it's not totally fixed in terms of location or affiliation and all of the members are doing this totally voluntarily. And the $1 that we collect for the lunches or, or greater donations if community members want, go straight into just sustaining the lunch project and groceries and, but mostly. Yeah, there's been a lot of efforts to sort of diversify and make the make our lunches as sustainable, cost wise as possible. So, this last quarter, folks have been working with the food recovery network to sort of supply some of the ingredients. It is very much donate what you want. As Ken said, we generally suggest a dollar donation, but it's, I think one of our signs says eat first donate maybe. So it's very much pay what you want pay what you can.

Yeah, and I wanted to say, and like Matt was most directly involved in this transition but what it grew out of was the facts that like the humanities picket started doing daily lunches together and the strike ended because of the ratification vote. Matt and some other folks who had been doing those lunches were just like, we should keep doing this this feels good and right, and more people like me jumped on afterwards. And we all have been making it into this mutual aid thing for like, we need to like, you know, humanize ourselves to each other and like, you know, shore up the like community bonds that we notice we're missing. But maybe in the future, like people will care a little more about like people that maybe they couldn't care less about this time around. I want to just jump in and give credit where credit is due. Ken and Anna actually were the originators of the strike food. And I jumped on in day one because I knew for I was a professional cook for a while I was really into food and I wanted to do that. And so I guess you could say it was the three of us, and then it expanded. Fair fair. I don't I don't have my origin story nailed down. Yeah, you got to get it on par. It's something I miss greatly from like, leftist organizing in in certainly in like Southern Europe, which is, you know, where I spend a lot of my life, like you're always well fed at anything where you're in Spain or Italy or even in France.

And, and like, American labor organizing lacks that so it's cool to see you guys doing it. Yeah, kind of to summarize what Alex was saying for me, the goal is very much to prong one is food justice. So food for everyone. I think everyone should have it. It's great to hear that that's kind of a built in thing in Europe. I didn't know that but it sounds pretty on brand. Disappointingly, that is not the case here. So yeah, everyone needs food. That's, that's one goal. And then for me, the other goal is to get people talking across departments. So I think a big issue in the strike was that some departments were paid much more than others. And I think for that reason, the ones who were paid more were often less radical because they were kind of already slightly more comfortable. Of course, no one has paid a huge amount as a grad student, but they had, I guess, you can say more to lose. And maybe we're less pressed to urgently start earning more. And of course, accessibility needs and there are many other considerations. Basically, if you're already somewhat comfortable with your living situation, you're less likely to be super radical. And so I think just not even being in the same spheres together, people in those more comfortable departments kind of did not really have any reason to interact with people in the less comfortable departments, and they just didn't see them at all. So just like what Alex is saying, food is a way to humanize us all to each other. It's very hard to have everyone in the same room together without, you know, seeing and talking to each other.

Food was a way for us to do that. And I thought that that was a really important continued slow moving goal. So weekly lunches are a way for us to invite people from across the campus and say, Hey, there's free food here and it's also really good. So you should come by and eat some and while you're here, talk to some students from the Humanities Department and recognize that they have real needs and they are people too. And maybe next time you vote, you should keep their thoughts in mind and vote a little bit less selfishly if you can. So that that's what it is for me. I think get in a little deeper dig a little deeper into the origin of like how this all started. My department has been like very suspicious, I guess, of the the UAW previous efforts for fair for fair reasons, you know, and so in terms of getting folks out to strike and then also to be on the picket line. It was definitely a struggle, not just not really so much in that folks didn't believe in the cause but they were like pretty aware that you know, as as literature students, you're not the university or the Union's priority. You know, because you know that trend right and so there was also a lot of the whole strike pay systems scared a lot of folks and it was like, I have to switch from this, you know, like different kind of labor, which is not really about me physically being in a place for 20 hours a week into this labor that is like me walking around for 20 hours a week in order to make sure that I am not going to go broke.

And basically there was not a funded there wasn't funded snacks or lunch by the UAW and I had actually Matt and I or yeah Matt and I had asked at an early meeting I guess about paying a sort of like seed fund of like maybe $50 to just get us rolling on the lunch. And you the UAW staff was like, Nope, lunch is just not included in our budget. I'm sorry about that. Like if you want to do that you'll have to figure out how to get this organizing going on your own. And so part of doing the fundraising from the beginning was about that and actually the strike food funds that I also want to throw some credit to Anna also as like one of the people that was like most focused on building sort of the fundraising materials and actively fundraising in different places and making sure that then ultimately in terms of being able to supply food lunch funds to other pickets. That was something that we started doing about midway through the strike because we had had some fundraising success. And it was kind of crazy because it was I remember just like the last day of the strike itself, just being at another picket where, you know, that had sort of developed more of its own like lunch culture, like using some of that like that fund raised cash and like also using efforts from other folks but just the picket being like somebody at the picket being like, Damn, they got to get on that lunch thing. Next time this was key and I was just like, No. But yeah, like exactly the lunch is key like how are you going to expect to have people building community, you know, and, you know, the cheapest the cheapest like lunch you can I mean outside of basically during the strike people were eating all of the food out of the

the food co-op which is another community group that supplies food on campus. But outside of that pretty much there is not a meal to be had on campus for less than like $13 without tax. So, yeah, that's that's about that. Alex, can I add something like before you just like a tiny thing based on Ken's point. I was going to say at one point I think it was week two or week three of the strike we were making so much food we were feeding like probably 100 people, and then we would have leftovers and we would literally walk the leftovers to the other pickets. And it surprised me so much that the other picket would just be eating like chips and donuts and here I am like dropping off like cooked, you know, like being burritos or like salads or things like that like actual food for them. So like to me this was like, not even a failure on the UAW's part it was like very intentional of like, well, you're a kind of on your own, you know, so that's like the power of food to me is like, well fed people are going to keep coming back. You know, people that don't have to spend like a bunch of money on getting like donuts. I don't I don't think they're going to keep coming back, you know. Yeah, what Ken was saying earlier about props to Anna, nobody moves a secondhand Instapod at San Diego County without Anna knowing about it is one of our groups jokes. Thank you. We love you.

Yeah. But yeah, I wanted to offer some contrast to like how like the other folks's departments have been like have been responsive to things and like what the attitudes are. So I am in the computer science department. We have plenty of money, comparatively, and we are I think steps, what the previous steps were like steps eight and nine. And we organize a lot with like the electrical engineering department, which is like step, like also like step seven, eight, nine. I remember very vividly this town hall we had before the ratification vote got announced, where like, there was some temperature checking about like, how does everybody feel about this. And like, if we if we put this up for vote, and everybody was just like, Oh, you know, it looks all right to me I think I this like, you know, not in not incredible but like I'd be able to handle this. And then I come in and get my turn and go like guys.

Everything I'm hearing from the other side of campus is them panicking and very upset. I don't think we should do this if the rest of the campus is panicking and upset. And I was just like, not heard and kind of ignored. So, yeah, a lot of the community building stuff. Like when we talk about like trying to get people to like humanize like other people that they didn't seem to care about. We're talking about like the departments that didn't need as much help, like some of mine, and like the strike for me personally was like, it definitely transformed a lot of like my friendships. I don't hear that reason, because like, I don't know how to be friends with people that are like, I see and hear that the people that you're talking to, I see and hear that you're talking to people who are absolutely freaking the hell out, because like we'll have struck for six weeks or so, and they'll still be poor but like, I don't know how to be friends after that.

I just wanted to touch a little bit more on the idea of feeding strikers and the massive logistical boom that that was for our movement. Everybody recall offhand how many weeks the strike went on or say six UW rules were in order to qualify for strike pay, we needed to have 20 hours of striking a week. So that boiled down to three shifts. You could do them every, you know, you could do two in one day and one another day, but by and large, at least most of the people on my ticket were there, you know, five days a week. So let's just say you got three shifts lunches we've already established that the UC San Diego campus is around $13 a person right. So that's $39 you're spending just on lunch, not on gas, which for me is quite expensive because they live somewhat far from campus. So $39 times six is $234. And when we struck for for these these high wages, you know, that was worth it we put in our effort and I sweat. But at the end of the day, those of us in the arts and humanities and the ASEs are seeing this year $200 base per month.

So just in our lunch, that would have obviated the raises that we got during the strike. So I think you know that this shows really the necessity for mutual aid in workers movements like this because you know we we if nobody else is going to beat us, we have to beat ourselves. I think that's really it's good to put numbers on it like that because it's a serious expense and it's not getting any cheaper. Another way that I see this is it's not just for workers like the way that I see what Dollar Lunch Club is doing by saying hey, we will provide either free or very cheap a dollar, you know, for lunch on these days of the week. Basically, every week, whoever wants to come can come whoever wants to help can help go for it that to me is basically like a soup kitchen like it is a I the way that I see it is it's like a communist anarchist type project of making like, I'm not sure if I can say it's building power but I feel that it's not just building community but like allowing people to worry less about expenses which means that they can put their energy into a lot of other things like the way that I would want Dollar Lunch Club to continue to evolve is that we would be able to offer lunch for, you know, people who can't afford the like $12 campus lunches every day of the week, all week, like imagining the difference of you know, like, okay, there's 10 weeks and a quarter, five days in a week so like 50 days that like you might be buying lunch at least half of those days the difference of $1 lunch versus like $10 lunch is like hundreds of dollars right so to me if we can provide that, you know, as we grow in time to all five days of the week, you know, on several locations on campus and we provide that for a couple of

hundred students or community members or what have you we will be making a material difference in these people's lives, we will be showing them a different way that like organizing or not even just organizing but like that accessibility to food can be organized if that makes sense that it doesn't, you know, like getting food doesn't have to be this like capitalist project of like, I am ordering this sort of thing and I am getting this back it can be like the more along the terms of like what we're doing which is we are seeing what food has been donated to the pantry that we work a lot with the basic needs hub the food pantry, and so on, to get a bunch of like donated produce out of which we make foods right so we're reducing food waste. We're trying to, you know, contribute to like food justice making food as free as cheap as possible, and allowing people to be like hey actually the cafeterias that you see on campus, you getting lunch doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to, you know, like you pay, you know, like two bucks for an apple or things like that. And then another thing that occasionally we've been doing is also foraging so here in Southern California. There's a lot of edible non native species such as like mustard, curly dog, wild radish, things like that, and so we can like, forage those and even make food out of them along with food from the food pantry so I, you know, not that we're really doing this right now but my dream would be to really kind of revolutionize the way that food culture is in UCSD and show people like, no, it can't be a food kitchen where you don't have to like expressly worry about where you're getting your meal the next day. You don't have to pay $3 for a banana. You don't have to do any of that. You can have like a better future. You can have like a better experience at the university or just like in life in general.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's really, I know like I teach at a community college sometimes. So it's a little different from the UC, but maybe not as different as people might imagine. And like one thing that I've noticed, I get always have food in my office. And a lot of my students are in food precarity and have been for a while and like, certainly around like the time of the fucking travel ban when people's parents was stuck outside the country and they had to fend for themselves. It's a way that like we can move from this moment of alienation, which is like, you know, your interaction with Panda Express, where you give money and you get a box of food you eat by yourself to like a moment of solidarity, which is cool. Yeah, it's great. You're foraging too. I wanted to foraging episode one day, so I have to have you back for that. I want to like finish up maybe by just talking about some logistical stuff. And Anikis have been feeding people communists or leftists or whatever, like for quite a long time, right? Like I can, some of my best food memories are like eating beans with people, you know, like food, not bombs, I do a lot of work with refugees. So like food, not bomb things in 2018 with the migrant caravan or people making pancakes at the G8 protests in the early 2000s. Some of my best memories, not of just food, but like of forming community around food. So like, when you're doing this stuff, like, is there any, someone wants to, someone hears this, they're like, hell yeah, I want to do that on my campus, at my workplace, in my town, whatever. Like, logistically, it sounds like you guys have a corner on the Instant Pot market, but like, aside from that, like, are you cooking vegan food so it's more accessible for more people?

You know, what kind of stuff like that would you advise for people? I can jump in on this. Cooking to scale is an entirely different beast than cooking for yourself at home. And you've already identified beans as beans, legumes, and grains bought in bulk. Shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody who's thought about it for a hot second that when you buy in bulk, it's far cheaper. But it also comes with downsides, like when you're soaking beans, you often, you know, have to soak those beans a long time ahead of time. And what we have been doing, which I think that my comrades have touched on is sourcing from a great variety of local food banks and farms and donations, both during the strike and afterwards. One thing that I would say we struggled with in the initial phases of Dollar Lunch Club when we were still actively striking was that, you know, the absolute best of goodwill in the world, everybody wanted to donate food stuffs. And that meant that our meal planning was significantly harder because, you know, we have half a can of tomato paste and we have 25 cans of pinto beans and, you know, 10 bulbs of fennel and three crackers. Definitely, we found that it was easier to solicit both cash, financially, you know, setting up a, what's it called, a Venmo. And also, you know, for people who can't give money, we put them to work. And that was, you know, because people want to help. And we felt kind of bad after a while turning people away who are, you know, offering to go to the store. And at one point in the strike, I think we got like 25 prepackaged Indian meals, which we ended up giving out to people for lunch.

But as far as feeding people on site, you know, being very specific about what kinds of things you're looking for ahead of time, meal planning in a well in advance, with sort of basic framework of, okay, we got bean and we got a starch. What do we have to throw into the bean pot? The last thing I'll say is, as Anna has rightly been championed for, the actual cooking devices are super important too. And that was one of, that has perpetually been one of our biggest struggles because, you know, we don't have a colander. So we can't drain the beans. And we have four insta pots, but they're different sizes. And the lids for two don't work with wear and tear stuff is, is, you know, breaking right when you need it the most. So, you know, if you are getting money donations, I think it's really important to budget. It's really important to budget for the pots and the pans and can openers and these kinds of things that really make a difference in getting the pot and out on time in large numbers. Yeah, that's very good advice. Maria had something to add. We have a lot of things to add logistics wise because in our meetings, we talk about some some some parts of this. And so one of the big things that we talked about over the strike, but also after the strike when we were like, Hey, let's let's continue this project is how much of our things should be like reusable versus like disposable, right? That was like a big topic of like, Well, okay, we're using disposable forks. And we we don't like that environmentally because we're putting like a bunch of plastic into, you know, the trash, right? And we have to buy plastic each time.

But then like, we don't know, okay, you know, like, should we should we buy like, you know, a bunch of metal spoons, but they're going to be a little bit more expensive than the disposable ones. But, you know, maybe the cost will even out after a while. And like that, that kind of, you know, discussion has to be had about like everything. So, you know, about like bowls about like the pans in which we cook in like mixing bowls, like all kinds of things like that, where we're thinking, you know, like, based on the funds that we have, based on our usage of some of these products, is it worth it getting, you know, like reusable things, which, unfortunately, will have to like clean afterwards. So they add to the labor, but thankfully, they don't, you know, pollute the environment and the way that disposable things do. So for us, because we do care a lot about lowering our usage of plastic, we did pivot to using more reusable things. So I think for a group that may be interested in, you know, like facilitating something like this in their workplace or in their university or something like that. I think that is one important discussion that you want to have. What is the time course that you see of this project continuing, and is it worth it getting, you know, like reusable versus disposable tools for the people that possibly you're going to feed. Another thing that is related to this is when you're first starting to cook, really, you're trying to borrow things from other people. So a lot of the things that like, during the strike, we had just borrowed people's Instapots, like people brought in their Instapots, they labeled them like, oh, this is, you know, Dana's Instapot, and then we use those Instapots. After the strike, we couldn't do that anymore. But there were some people that were willing to be like, Hey, I'm actually like moving out and I'll donate all these Tupperware to you. And so we took the Tupperware, and now we have like a little Tupperware program where if people don't forget to bring their Tupperware to put lunch in, we just like label it UCSD Dollar Lunch Club, UCSD Mutual Aid, and we just give away the Tupperware. And oftentimes, you know, it's brought back to us.

That kind of thing and that again, facilitates food usage. So there's a lot of places where you can find things that you might need in this kind of thing. So can openers, I have found a bunch of jars that people, you know, after they're moving away, they leave for free around graduate housing. So like, there's a lot of things that you can get, which you don't really require funds for. There's also buying nothing groups on Facebook that I think are particularly effective for this. So a lot of people that are just like, Oh, yeah, I'm like updating my kitchen, I'm throwing away a bunch of these utensils that you can just get for free. So that's been really helpful for us as well. And as someone who does a lot of sourcing as well, so we tend to shop from Goodwill and other thrift stores to make sure that, you know, our buying and consumption of some of these tools is as ethical, if you can call it that as possible. And then a third thing that I would like to add for anyone who wants to, you know, start a project like this is, I think you have to make it be fun for you, the person that's cooking and cleaning and organizing, apart from making it fun for everyone else who gets, you know, like free food, cheap food, tasty food, right? So something that I really like about Dollar Lunch Club is that we've been really allowing our members to like run wild with the ideas that they have, right? So for example, we, I mean, Anna and I have been talking about utilizing all the frozen bread that has been donated to us and making French toast, vegan French toast out of that. So we're really excited for doing something fun like that, because usually, in a lot of like soup kitchen places, you have foods that are like, hey, this is nutritious, but you know, like, I don't want to eat beans all day. And someone who like does like beans, but not everyone else wants to just eat, you know, like, mashed beans all day, that kind of thing. And so having a like a variety of things that we cook, like we pretty much like cook all kinds of curries, a lot of like rice dishes, a lot of stews, pesto and spaghetti, like pasta, you know, just like all very different kinds of meals that make it fun for the people who are arriving.

So like I mentioned pesto, I made pesto a couple of times. And like a lot of people are like, Oh, pesto basil, that's going to be great. And that was with like the forge mustard that I was talking about before. And like, when you have that kind of variety and when you have like interesting fun foods, when you can like make boba in like an instant pot, or you could grab a toaster oven and make garlic bread, which is things that we've done, you make it a lot more fun for the people that are cooking as well. And it just becomes like a community building thing, not just for the people eating but for the people doing that labor. So that's, like, that's what I would advise people like, Yes, you are under very tight budgetary constraints. We try to like, for some meals, like because there's so much donations, sometimes there's zero dollars, sometimes we have to buy things and we try to have it be less than $20 so we can like feed 30 to 40 people and you can like have that, you know, money that's donated for like $1. Have that be for like next time, that kind of thing. Yeah, so like make it fun for yourself. So you can like continue doing that work and you won't burn out in the way that you might otherwise, even as you were trying to budget. Yeah, yeah, I just wanted to say, like, in terms of roles. So we always have like somebody who like knows how to like pull a recipe together more. We always have to have somebody who like does dishwashing and like each of these roles can have like one or two or three people in it.

And then there's always like people who just like do the like labor of prep. And like, yeah, that can be all the same person and or it can be multiple for each. And I want to say, usually I am a person who either like, like I show up to peel veggies that people tell me need to be peeled. And I show up to wash dishes, because I'm not a person who is like, I have trouble making decisions about food. I do not want to be in charge of food stuff. And that has been like, okay. And that has meant that like, I do not have to like get nervous and worked up about like, I don't know how to make decisions about food here. I can just show up and peel carrots. And it's like, kind of helped me like maybe get a little bit of a better feel for like cooking stuff. So that way when I am like just cooking for myself. I do just think of like, okay, if I was like, if I was in, you know, like dollar lunch prep mode. I know I have rice and I know I have beans. And so I'm set. And yeah. And a lot of times, just like taking away the like, the dirty dish bin and sort of like, leaving out maybe like a few washed bowls by the sink along with a sponge and a bit of soap. People get the queue and they'll wash their own dishes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's great. Actually having space for different skill sets and different preferences within your organizing is always key.

Okay, guys, and where can people find like, if they want to ask you for bean recipes or follow along, see pictures, whatever it is like a dollar lunch club social media they can find or do you have individual ones you want to share? So I think Alex can talk about the website. You have a website. Yes, I made us I made us a website. So we are most active on Instagram can can put our handle in the chat is dollar underscore lunch underscore club on Instagram. And yeah, the website is dollar lunch club UCSD, separated by dashes, and then get hub dot IO, because you can get free domain names, if it's your GitHub username, hot tip of the day. Um, but yeah, primarily on Instagram. Nice. Yeah, it's great. All right, well thank you very much for your time guys I really appreciate it and yeah I hope more people do the same because as you said I think this is really important.

Thank you so much we really appreciate it. Hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every week from now until the heat death of the universe. What could happen here is a production of cool zone media for more podcasts from cool zone media visitor website cool zone media.com or check us out on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for it could happen here updated monthly at cool zone media.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called inner cosmos on I heart. I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions, like, can we create new senses for humans. Join me weekly to uncover how your brain steers your behavior, your perception and your reality. Listen to inner cosmos with David Eagleman on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I am Rosie O'Donnell and I've got a new podcast called onward with me Rosie O'Donnell on I heart. Mostly this part of my life is just a part of my life. My life is just about moving forward. And I thought, what a wonderful way to do it with good friends across a tiny table and just have a heartfelt conversation.

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