It Could Happen Here - A Guide for New Activists

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Margaret Killjoy talks with Gare about how to get and stay plugged into the movement.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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a podcast about things falling apart and how we try to put them back together again. I'm your guest host, Margaret Kiljoy, and with me this week is one of your regular hosts, Gare. Hi, Gare. Hello. This week is one of those putting things back together episodes.

The premise of this episode is simple. Let's say you're newly radicalized. Maybe you were a participant in the occupations and now the school year is over, or you got expelled, and you're wondering what the next steps are. This won't be an all-in-one guide to how to become an activist, but it's sort of a sketch of one. It's also not quite a complete summer 2024 guide to protests, but there's some of that in here too. It's a magpie's guide to getting started in activism. I want to start with my own biases up front because it's going to inform everything that I have to say about all of this. I'm an anarchist. It's also been decades since I've broke into the movement. I've been doing this stuff since 2002, when I dropped out of college

to join the ultra-globalization movement. So I have biases towards things like dropping out of college, because it worked for me. And I have, you know, a lot of my experience isn't recent, at least my direct experience personally, but I've been watching people come into the movement for a very long time. I also have biases against authoritarian organizing and electoral organizing and biases towards direct action and autonomy as models for radical social change. I believe this is how you build a freer and better world, by practicing freedom along the way. But you can adapt this to suit your own interests. That's not to say I have any interest in guiding people towards specific paths, specific actions, specific issues and movements. Exactly

the opposite. This is my attempt to kind of give a big picture view of how one might get involved. give a big picture view of how one might get involved right now i don't know if you knew this gare the world's kind of in trouble i have heard this before i have i have heard this said yeah do you ever like think about how your job is to be a professional chicken little yeah sometimes i guess so yeah i mean i'm definitely in the dredges trying to find what horrible things are always happening, certainly. Yeah. I would say, even though the world is always in serious trouble, it's like extra in serious trouble right now. And we are in desperate need of people who dedicate their time,

whether part of it or all of it, to trying to stop the terrible things that are happening and trying to build beautiful things and beautiful alternatives. So how do you get started? I want you to think about a couple different things that are separate from each other. I want you to think about, this isn't necessarily you, Gare,

although you could if you want. Sure, why not? Yeah. What do you care about? Like what issues are specifically important to you? That's the first thing to think about. The second is what do you want to do about it? And if you have a sense of that, and like also kind of how far you're willing to go, if you get a sense of those things before you throw yourself

into the fight, you're going to start off strong. Those things can change. They will change over time. But getting a sense of those ahead of time is a good way to figure out which door you want to go in and then also to avoid some of the dangers that lie on the other side of any given door. What do you care about? What movements and projects speak loudest to you? A ton of causes are interconnected, of course, right? The fight for Palestinian liberation is not at its core a separate project than the fight against policing in the United States, for example. The rise of a global police state is everyone's problem, and so is the US and Zionist imperial project. Causes are interconnected,

but you can rarely start by trying to fix everything. Usually you got to pick somewhere to start working. You don't climb a mountain by just willing yourself to the top. You climb it by picking a place and then starting to climb it. Maybe you're concerned about the police state or surveillance or the erosion of rights or Palestinian liberation or fighting for prisoners in the US to still have access to books or for LGBT rights or for migrants at the border or for the protection of the remaining national ecosystems and stopping the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. Maybe you're concerned about something hyper-local, like the destruction of a local park or the sweeping of homeless encampments.

Maybe it's something a bit broader and more abstract, like you want to get involved in explaining the need for police abolition. But there's something, there's something that you want to change as a place to start. The second question is, what do you want to do? There's multiple questions embedded in this. There's how far are you willing to go? We'll talk more of that later. More immediately, what is your skill set or what skill sets do you wish you had? Like a lot of times I'll just be like, oh, hey, what are you good at? Now go do that. But sometimes like what you're good at isn't what you want to be doing. And it's also totally okay to be like, well, what do I want to be good at? Like, what do I want to be trying to focus on? What do you have to offer the revolution? Or what do you wish you had to offer? Are you in med school or have other first aid or medical experience? Maybe you want to plug in with your local street medics.

Are you studying law? Movement lawyers need paralegal help and there are groups that use volunteers to get people out of jail or through difficult court cases. If graphic design is your passion, this is me referencing a meme from a million years ago and totally winning people over.

Every group that exists needs help with their flyers or Instagram slideshows or whatever the fuck. That is certainly the case. Yeah. No, it's funny too, right? Because it's like, it's one of those things where if you do graphic design, you sort of think like, oh, everyone's sort of does this or whatever, right? And then I have been part of groups where people are like, no one knows how to do this at all. And everything is that we make is garbage, you know? Yeah yeah although there is actually

a careful needle to thread in this vein because if you've had enough experience you can kind of figure out what type of action it's gonna be based on how well designed the flyer is yeah and which way if it's kind of corporate well designed it's like gonna tie into electoral politics and be boring but if it's hip and well designed it's a riot well sometimes there's sometimes there's some like very like well-designed flyers that are not like very electoral but they're like okay this will be on march there'll be some speeches we'll kind of walk around a little bit because it's like a very well put together flyer versus when you have like a white background a big block text maybe one poorly cropped picture you're like okay this is obviously a riot flyer yeah okay okay it takes a degree of subtlety to to to get the instinctual difference

uh when you're looking at a collection of flyers that are going out. No, see, this is interesting to me because in like about 15 years ago, the people throwing the best riots were like a bunch of graphic designers. And so it was the specific hip style. Yeah, not the case anymore. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, you know, and actually as a good graphic designer knows the language that they are speaking with and knows what they are communicating.

So, that might be what you want to do, is get involved in making the flyers. If you spend all day on Twitter, a lot of activist groups can't find someone to run their social media or they have people who run it very badly. Sometimes being an extrovert is a superpower. sometimes being an extrovert is a superpower building strong movements means building strong communities and every meeting and party needs someone willing to introduce themselves to the new people and help them figure out where to go the best activist meetings i've ever been to have like someone who's there to sit next to new people and explain what's going on also if you can plan a party you can plan a benefit show to raise money for bail funds there's kind of this like like whenever i talk about this like oh everyone has their place and

people are like why don't i'm a fucking bookkeeper and i'm like oh my god we need you or like sure you know all kinds of different skill sets that people like don't think apply actually do project manager yeah we're we're not all instinctively good at that you know and so the quickest way to sum this part of it up is you think about what's wrong and you think about what you're good at and then you get together with other people and apply what you're good at to stopping what's wrong that is the like one sentence version of how to start getting involved in making the world better but the last part of it that I want, the question of it beforehand, is risk analysis. It is very easy to get swept up in the moment and go beyond your comfort zone in terms of risk in a lot of different environments.

The more you have sorted out ahead of time about what kinds of actions you're comfortable with strategically, morally, and personally, the easier it is to stick to your decisions when things get hard. For example, you might tell yourself, I will risk arrest, but I will not get arrested on purpose because I have a massage license I don't want to lose, or I have kids at home, or I'm undocumented, or I don't like the idea of jail. Whatever your reason is, there's plenty of reasons to make that decision. You might be willing to risk arrest, like being a hectic riot, but you're not willing to lock your neck to a bulldozer. So when you go to the planning meeting for the lock your neck to a bulldozer action, and you're trying to figure out who wants to lock

their neck to the bulldozer, you've already made up your mind and you're less likely to kind of pressure yourself into volunteering or feel pressured by others yeah i'm imagining the positive version well okay because it's very rarely someone's like hey gare been a while since you locked your neck to anything and it's usually more like man it just sure would be good if someone was bold and noble enough to just step up right now. And then, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've organized some of my friends' arrests before and it's, it's not always, that's not always the strategy that people want to be doing anyway. I'm just using this as an example, like a kind of earth first style thing. If you know what your risk models are, you can make better decisions maybe you're fine with a spirited march but as soon as windows start getting broken you're

like you know i want to leave that's gonna not be my scene you know i'm not mad that the people did it but it's not what i am willing to get arrested in response to It's also important to know your risk levels, which can of course shift because there are predators in the ranks of direct action activists. I don't know if you knew this, Gare, there's a shadowy, unaccountable group that tries to get people to break laws. They're called the feds. They're called the FBI. They have a history going back decades of entrapping people by coming up with bomb plots or arson plots or whatever. And we're not going to go into this in depth in this episode. But if you want to do more research, people should look up, they should read about COINTELPRO, it's an acronym, or read about the case of Eric McDavid, or read about how the FBI set up Muslim Americans in the wake of 9-11. but another thing you should go into all this knowing is that um that doesn't mean that everyone who wants to do those kinds of actions is working with with the feds yeah and you shouldn't go around accusing everyone you don't like of possibly being a secret federal agent because

you know who likes accusing people being federal agents federal agent yeah and also our sponsors they don't they don't they're all great they might they might i don't know i can't really speak to them but here they are they can speak to you hey guys i'm kate max you might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout?

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Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. That is a thing that is absolutely worth, anyone who's getting involved in activism, especially direct action activism, including above grounds of a disobedient style action. It is really worth understanding the ways in which

federal oppression works and how federal oppression works often by the fear of federal oppression and getting people to spread paranoia. And so as a general rule, the way that I've always heard it talked about is that it's like, you want to be like hey I think that guy's a fed instead you're like hey guy that kind of behavior is disruptive and leads towards bad things you know like

yeah and I think I even have some hesitation to just be like you should just go google cointelpro and learn all about it because I feel like that can also lead to someone kind of falling down like some conspiracy brain rabbit holes. And I have gotten the best information by just talking to older people who've been in the movement for a while.

And just like if someone has over 10 years of experience and you can learn a lot about what has happened before through just like actual like in-person conversations. And I have found that to be much more useful than just like going down like a Google rabbit hole. Cause that can just kind of lead to, I think slightly even slightly more like paranoid thinking, or just, it just becomes like less applicable than like, Hey, you have like a friend of a friend who's like done this for a while. And you just ask, Hey, like, what if, what do you have like a friend of a friend who's like done this for a while. And you just ask, hey, like, what do you know about this sort of thing?

No, you're right. What are your experiences of kind of facing like repression in the past? Because chances are some of them will probably know people who've either turned out to be like informants, have started informing, or were bad actors from the get-go. Like it does happen. And there's even been And it's not even just stuff from 10,

15 years ago. There's a lot of that stuff post-2020. Some stuff in Chicago, some stuff in Colorado Springs have gotten decent news coverage. I think you can look to articles specifically of the Colorado Springs infiltration that the FBI was running around 2020. I think that's a really useful case study for a more recent version, as opposed to like the green scare stuff from at this point, like 20 years ago. No, no, it's true. And there's a good, there's actually a good podcast series where I liked it called Alphabet Boys. The first season is about that case. No, that's a good point that you, that random internet search is not the way to get this kind of information, this information. Like you'll honestly, it's kind of

funny. I would trust a random zine in a radical bookstore far more than I would trust a Google search result. Agreed. Which is not true for everything. Like healthcare. Well, you're going to get shit answers no matter what, you do that yes yes the internet's gonna tell you you have cancer and the zine's gonna tell you that tea tree oil will fix it yes there there we go yeah yeah no that is actually a very good point and it is the kind of thing that yeah the longer you're involved the more you're just like oh yeah the you know my ex who's a snitch. That sucks. Yeah. You know, anyway, now you have what you care about,

what your skills are in your risk analysis. It's time to get started. How? There's two basic ways and they're not really a dichotomy, but you can plug into something that exists and you can start something of your own. And both are valid and both have advantages and disadvantages. There are structures and movements that are already in place

that are desperate for your help. There's a catch. Many, not all, but many of the more reasonable groups are challenging to break into. Very few groups have a truly open door policy. And those that do, honestly, sometimes are suspect.

Yeah. Some of those people are just trying to use you. They're trying to suck you into a political cult or use your energy and burn you out for some vaguely progressive politician or activist cause. So either way, you're going to need to exercise some common sense and do some reading and research about what you're getting into. The best publicly accessible groups and movements are the ones that are organized from the bottom up because the participants themselves have a say in what's happening there is less ability to be sucked into a cult and used that's not to say it's impossible and there are such things as decentralized cults that don't do any, you know. Many such cases. Yeah. But I know it's easy and convenient to join a group that'll just tell you what to do. It's very nice to imagine that there's benevolent people who will just do the hard part of making

decisions and you can just show up and clock in and listen to what they have to say and make the world a better place. This is rarely, if ever, the case. I can't point to examples of it being the case. Movements that maintain everyone's autonomy instead, I think, are what are interesting. And they often do it by not being a group at all, just a movement.

The uprisings of 2020, I think, are a brilliant example of this. There's not the group that organized. No, there's a lot of smaller groups, whether that be some informal organizations, formal organizations, or just groups of friends. It's made up of a whole bunch of these smaller groups.

And I think a lot of times, the best case scenario in many cases is if you have a friend or two, because you shouldn't really show things alone, I would say, but if you have a friend or two, because you shouldn't really show up to things alone, I would say. But if you have a friend or two, go with the friend or two. Just like, just go to things. And if you go to enough things and people see you, you can chat with people.

You can start learning more about kind of what the different mechanisms in each different city and each different scene, how they operate. It's kind of silly just to be like no you just like have to like show up but like that is kind of a lot of how it works you'll maybe hear about a instagram account that posts flyers for semi-weekly like picnics organized by some of these same people and then you can go to events like that and learn to like socialize and it really just does require a degree of just showing up and you shouldn't go by yourself, you should if you should ideally have a friend or two that you that is that they would be okay going with you. But then you'll you'll find people to connect with. And you'll kind of

maybe find a different group of people that you want to start hanging out with more. And I think in general, that's kind of how the best case scenario works, as opposed to like, joining like a big above ground organization, which is just going to use your body as a tool to get arrested as or just treat you as disposable, or in other cases, just be actually kind of like abusive. I agree with that. And that's some of that we're going to get into also. But yeah, no. And I will say, overall, absolutely, it is better to do those things with friends. I didn't. I started going to things alone. That has something to do with my temperament and that has something to do with my social standing when I was in college and decided

to get involved in the movement. But overall, that is the best practice. But if you're listening to this and you're like, I don't have friends I can go do this stuff with, there are more risks involved. And you're also kind of stuck. You're going to go to a lot of things where no one will talk to you. Yeah. You know, and you can't necessarily expect

that people will talk to you immediately or like, and you're going to have to be a little bit more self-motivated. Yeah. And if you're going to a zine fair, you can chat with people at like the tables when you're looking for zines.

Like it's, yeah, not everyone's going to want to get into a deep personal conversation with a stranger they met at an event like this because it also has security risks. But yeah, it's going to require a little bit of uncomfortable social interactions, which for someone like you or me who did go to a lot of these things just by ourselves, it just kind of takes more time. No, totally.

And I think actually zine fairs and things like that and anarchist book fairs and all that are like really good examples of places that are publicly facing that are designed for people to interact with each other. And also like one of the main pieces of advice that we have is be brave, right? And we talk about that in terms of street actions,

but yeah, okay. Also social anxiety. Exactly, exactly. Because how much of the social anxiety will become an inhibiting factor similar to the state? Not saying those things are equal, but they can both inhibit you from doing things.

And you can kind of approach it via a similar means of trying to like overcome this thing that is limiting your autonomy yeah no totally so to go back to if you're joining an existing group some groups maintain everyone's autonomy by being structured horizontally some groups that exist as a structure will do it by being structured horizontally if you found yourself for exist, go ahead. Claim to be structured horizontally as well. No, it's true. But like, like if you join a local earth first chapter, you're going to find there's absolutely informal hierarchies that exist within these things. And they're like worth being aware of. But the decision about who's going to lock their neck to the bulldozer is going to involve everyone who might lock their neck to the bulldozer. Yeah. It's not the same as like the DSA or the PSL. Like it's, it's going to

be a very, a very different, uh, organizational structure. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, you want to be part of the decision-making about locking your neck to a bulldozer because it's your neck on the line. That's my best joke in the whole script. I'm sorry. We'll just move past it quickly. Thanks. Plugging into an existing project is often a good first step.

What I did personally, I started showing up to the meetings of this radical media project, Indymedia. I had film skills and soon enough I found myself in the film collective. I spent a year or two bouncing around from demonstration to demonstration, coordinating with all the radical videographers to collect everyone's footage and edit together news videos about what had happened while we collectively fostered a culture of like respectful riot videography. I did not realize we had that similar background. Oh yeah. No, that, um,

it's interesting cause I don't, I don't do that stuff anymore, but that was like my thing for a long time. Me either actually. But no, I, I did not realize we, we had, we had that, uh, we had that overlap. Yeah, no. And it was, it was great and it was fun and we you know we taught how to not film people's faces we coordinated runners where in order to get footage out before the cops could get it we'd make sure everyone you know someone every videographer had someone next to them like ready to run out of the situation take this sd card and run yep exactly and i started off by joining an existing group that was doing this, but within a few months I was doing it independently and

coordinating with different groups that came together at all these different summit protests because I was a known entity to people, you know? Sure. It was fun. I dropped out of school where I've been studying film and photography. And even before I would have graduated, a film I'd edited sold out a movie theater in Portland. We didn't have YouTube. So we organized in person. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When we shut the city down on like March 20th or whatever, 2003, to try and stop the Iraq war, 2003 for to try and stop the Iraq war I like didn't sleep and just edited everyone's film footage together and made a like 30 minute documentary about the day of protest and sold out a movie theater and I was like damn this was way better for my career than going to fucking staying in school I mean like my name isn't on it but that like didn't matter to me sure and then everyone the the local news media got really mad because I didn't include the stuff

that could have been used in people's court cases, like the time that people attack cops on the bridge. Because I was like, nope, that's too recent. We don't know what's happening there. Anyway. And getting into certain types of groups is kind of like applying for a shitty job. A job that'll take you without reference is going to treat you like shit, but jobs that are worth having require you to somehow have already been doing the job before you got hired. And once people know who you are,

it's easier to find folks to work with. And I think Gare's suggestions is like the main way you go about that is you don't necessarily show up to organize. You just show up to participate. You show up to talks, you show up to radical bookstores and public events and zine fairs and protests and whatever interests you, you know? And I would say that if you're going to actions and you're new, remember to be both brave and cautious. If you tend towards recklessness and being swept into things, maybe make sure you take less of a front lines role until you get your legs underneath you. But it really is okay to be brave. I think we're asked by the times we live in to be brave.

And sometimes we're going to have to step outside of our comfort zone. We should just always look to make sure it's us encouraging us to step outside of our comfort zone instead of political actors, whatever political ideology they call themselves. And also, if you can, another collective that people, you know, usually medic collectives, maybe they'll have a radical media collective. Another one will be a jail support collective. It's very common in a lot of cities.

And not, even if you don't want to take part in that, if you can at least get in touch with them to fill out a jail support form before going to things, that will also be useful in case you do end up getting arrested so people can actually find you in the system and help you get out of, get out. Just another, another quick tip, I suppose.

Yeah. And if you want more quick tips, I've got some for you right now. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their

journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. You know that rush of endorphins you feel after a great workout? Well, that's when the real magic happens. So if you love hearing real, inspiring stories from the people you know, follow, and admire, join me every week for Post Run High. It's where we take the conversation beyond the run and get into the heart of it all. It's lighthearted, pretty crazy, and very fun. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline Podcast, and we're kicking off our second season you get your podcasts. the underbelly of tech, from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people.

I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Hola mi gente, it's Honey German and I'm bringing you Gracias, Come Again, the podcast where we dive deep into the world of Latin culture,

musica, peliculas, and entertainment with some of the biggest names in the game. If you love hearing real conversations with your favorite Latin celebrities, artists, and culture shifters, this is the podcast for you. We're talking real conversations with our Latin stars, from actors and artists to musicians and creators, sharing their stories, struggles, and successes. You know it's going to be filled with chisme laughs and all the vibes that you love. Each week, we'll explore everything from music and pop culture to deeper topics like

identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Don't do anything that you just got told by voices that aren't me or Gare.

They were trying to psyop you. It is, it is, yeah. Yeah. Another way that you might get involved in something is you, some groups are semi-open where you can contact them and express interest and they might do some basic screening to make sure you're not like a Nazi infiltrator or whatever.

I'm in the process right now of doing that with clinic escorting. It's like funny. Cause I haven't had to like prove myself to any group in a long time. Right. Cause I'm like, I'm been around forever. The clinic escorting group.

It's like, we don't fucking know who you are. Like, and I'm like, yeah, that's fair. Good for them. Yeah,

no, absolutely. I live in a place is not where abortion is not, not particularly popular with the right wing. And so I submitted my name and social media accounts to the, to the abortion clinic escorting place. And then we'll go to a training at some point soon. For folks living in Southern California or willing to go there, for example, there are groups that do border solidarity, working with refugees to make sure they're fed

and housed. If you listen to this podcast, you've heard James talking about this. And this is the first episode you've listened to, in which case go back and listen to James talking about border solidarity work. If you want to show up and distribute food and water, track border patrol activity, build shelters, do first aid, all of that, feel like you're part of something because you are and are like saving people's lives directly, that's something you can likely get involved with. But it's not something you just show up at. There are a few groups doing that work, any of whom you can reach get involved with, but it's not something you just show up at. There are a few groups doing that work, any of whom you can reach out to and express interest. There's Border Kindness, there's Borderlands Relief Collective, and El Ultralado. And there's other groups like this in different areas, but these are the examples where I asked James being

like, hey, how do I explain the following concept? In general, you want to look for groups. If you're looking for groups, you want to look for groups that are grassroots and non-authoritarian. You want to watch out for electoral campaigns and you want to watch out for nonprofits. This is not to say that the people doing these things are necessarily bad. There are local political campaigns that matter and there are nonprofits that do good work. Some of the best political work I ever did was two years at a nonprofit, honestly, but I was with one of the good ones. And structurally, those systems, even the good ones, are set up to take advantage of people's energy and then like kind of profit off of it, right? And to accomplish goals that are often tangential to or even counter to the goals that they claim.

For example, both politicians and nonprofits live off of donations. These donations are easy for them to get when those groups are seen as necessary. So a nonprofit has a financial interest in not winning. Some nonprofits manage to maintain their focus and work to make themselves obsolete. But frankly, those are the minority. You also want to look out for groups that are front groups for authoritarian groups attached to communist political parties. You mentioned earlier like the PSL, the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Generally speaking, these groups will go to protests and run events,

primarily as a way to recruit people into a hierarchical structure. These groups are often trying to control broader movements that they're involved in. They'll tell people how they can and can't protest. And they're trying to essentially own movements that were built by others. So those are things to be careful around. You can also just not worry about any of that stuff and start something yourself. It is not the easy mode to get into the movement by starting your own projects. We're going to talk about affinity groups later, actually, which is the thing that you kind of started to bring up, but it is very rewarding to start your own projects. It's like freelancing instead of looking for a job. There's no gatekeepers to cross. And the only person who's trying to take advantage of you is you. If you want to never not be working another day in your life, you can freelance or start your own political project.

It'll be what you think about every hour you're alive. In essence, the idea here is to say, okay, what's wrong and what are we willing to do about it and then get together with your friends and start doing something about it this can look like anything you could start a mutual aid group a radical bookstore an anti-fascist gym to train to defend yourself from fascists illegal hrt distribution and ban states a direct action abortion collective a zine distributor that goes to shows and parties with free literature about anarchism, a podcast about how things fall apart and how to put them back together again, a clique of saboteurs who attack billboards, a group that draws attention to international movement prisoners and support them. Like,

you can do anything. And that's one of the like, things that people, our society is designed to tell us that we can't just do anything we want. There's obviously things that if we do, we'll get in trouble eventually. But like, you know, okay. Like if you make a podcast that's too good, they will turn on you like Jesus. Yeah, exactly. Or if you go around, you know, wanting to destroy construction equipment. Right. Not usually legal.

I'm not a lawyer. I can't tell you whether or not any given bulldozer is illegal to destroy. That is the kind of research you might have to do on your own. The difference between start something and join something is often blurry. For example, you can unionize your workplace. You probably should. But you might want to do that in the context of an existing union, like the Industrial Workers of the World,

or whatever union makes the most sense. Or the Writers Guild of America. Yeah, exactly. If you have a podcast about how the world's falling apart. Yeah, exactly. If you're going to start something above ground, it's worth looking around and making sure that the need isn't already being met by someone else already.

Sometimes it's better to figure out how to help an existing bail fund rather than start another. But also sometimes it is better to start another. Like it's harder for the police to raid, for example, which didn't used to be an issue when you start bail funds, but is now an issue. Which is worth pointing out that like, there's no true safety. You you know like when we talk about risk analysis like running a bail fund is entirely legal and is the kind of thing that often is done by the people who care about a movement and are like not front lines people yeah aren't wanting to do felonies in downtown right courtland or whatever yeah the more successful a movement is the broader the state repression will reach out to the fringes not the front i mean the bail fund isn't the fringe but the the less periphery that the people who

aren't committing the felon felonies yeah are going to get tagged with felonies anyway because the state being repressive is the reason we're fighting it. They will still get their houses raided. And it's the same thing at demos. You don't need to be the one breaking windows for the police to tackle you. Like at a certain point, it actually doesn't, it seems to matter very little. I mean, if things get to trial, then things, you know, will maybe matter a bit more but in like how police display the power of the state like out in the open world it it really doesn't matter if you're holding a sign or you're holding a hammer when you're getting tackled from behind by a big man with a gun yeah totally which is why it's like kind of worth i mean that's like almost like what

the the answer to that is like solidarity and by recognizing that to a certain degree, if you are at a protest and people are breaking windows and it's like, okay, well, now we're all in danger together. And if that is a danger beyond what you particularly feel like exposing yourself to, that is probably the time to depart. Another pitfall to avoid if you're starting your own thing. Any group that involves money will at some point have someone from that group steal the money. Including bail funds, unfortunately.

It does happen and it sucks. I have lost count of the number of times someone who was an organizer has stolen all of the money from this or that thing. And that's because capitalism puts people in absolutely weird and terrible positions, right? It's still not okay for people to steal the bail fund and we should stop them. But often the people who steal this stuff, if they're the organizers, they don't even

necessarily conceptualize what they did as stealing. They're like, oh, I'm gonna pay that back. I don't think anyone needs it right now. I just need it for rent. In order for the bail fund to continue, I have to have stable housing. So I'm gonna use these $2,000 right now. And yeah.

Right, without checking with the rest of the group and like, you know, like, and so if there's money involved, you should set up some best practices around multiple eyes on the money at any given point and making sure that it's accountable to the broader group. One organizing model that is worth considering is the affinity group. This is basically you and some of your closest friends that you feel like doing safe with actions with whatever the scale of actions you get together of your closest friends that you feel like doing safe with actions with, whatever the scale of actions, you get together with your friends.

Or people you're not even necessarily like social friends with, but people you feel comfortable working with. Because there sometimes is a distinction. Like sometimes you have a lot of close friends you don't want in your affinity group. And sometimes there's people in your affinity group that you may not really want to hang out with like every week. Totally. But they're good to work with. No, that's a really good point. It's about trust rather than like getting along with sometimes, you know?

Yeah, it might function better if, you know, you don't all hate each other. Have some affinity. Yeah. Yes, you know, perhaps you have a shared affinity within the group, ideally. Yeah. It is, if you're in a riot, whether by choice or by accident, you are safer and you can feel more comfortable if you are there with two or seven of your closest and most trustworthy friends or frenemies.

These are the people who are the most likely to de-arrest you. These are the people who are there to notice if you are caught and will organize your bail. These are the people who you'll be in direct communication with during the protest, so you can coordinate your actions together. It's figure out how you want to get into the area, get out of the area. Yeah. And so that's like, going alone is sort of expert mode. And so you should take fewer risks if you go alone until you are good, you know? And most people do not prefer and are not better off going to protests alone. And then the final thing, kind of tying together the existing groups versus whatever else, existing protests. Movements ebb and flow.

Protests are contagious, especially when they're rowdy and they show that they take themselves seriously enough to not just go along with whatever professional protest managers tell them to do and take themselves seriously enough to resist the police and authorities. It's more or less impossible to know which protests, like sparks, will catch a bigger fire. It is good and useful to cast sparks and see what catches or to notice when something is starting to spread and to help it spread. Like what happened a few weeks ago with the campus stuff, right? Exactly.

One or two places really start popping off and you're like, hey, I know some people in college who are in whatever town I'm in. Maybe we can figure something out. Yeah. And so if that was your involvement and you're like, oh, that's not currently happening where I am anymore. What do I do next? Things like that will happen again. And you can also make things like that happen. Most of the time they will not catch. However, sometimes they do. And that is like kind of our job in a lot of ways is to organize things and try things and see what catches. I'm curious your take. There are two political conventions happening this year.

The Republican National Convention will happen from July 15th to 18th, 2024 in Milwaukee. And then in August 19th to 22nd in Chicago is the Democratic National Convention. There are basically always protests at these conventions. To me, and I'm a little bit out of touch with it, There's going to be more this year. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. There certainly will, I think, especially at the DNC. I don't have much to say on this at this point, besides

read up on the previous ones that have happened. You can go all the way back to 68 if you want to read about Chicago and the DNC. But also like the RNC protests from the Iraq war era, I think would be really useful to look at if you want to go back to like 2008

and see how those protests were. I would just recommend reading up on it. I don't really have much else to say on those in the moment. They're too far out. Totally, to forecast. Yeah, and I, yeah, I, that's kind of all I'll say in the moment. They're too far out. Totally, to forecast. Yeah, and I, yeah, that's kind of all I'll say at the moment.

These will become recurring topics on this podcast the next few months. Great, yeah. And so keep track of what's happening and get ready to go to what you feel comfortable with. And don't be afraid to be brave. But don't let anyone trick you into doing stuff that you're not comfortable with.

But we need you. We're glad you're here. Yeah, don't be so down that the school year is over. And these campus protests only had a few weeks to live. Because I know there were certainly people who were really hoping that after we saw you know what happened during april and may that maybe this would you know trigger things happening off campus around the summer and maybe they still will and at the very least we have a lot of young people listener possibly included who like experienced their first example of like actual state violence like on them um and that could be

a very radicalizing experience so yeah don't don't be so down that maybe your occupation didn't go as well as you wanted to maybe your protest didn't but i think there's a lot of lessons to learn from what happened the past month and they will become applicable possibly this summer possibly two years from now who knows like? Like it's hard to say. But yeah, it's... Whenever you get that first hint of tear gas, you kind of become a different person in my opinion. So congratulations to everyone who did that.

Hopefully you didn't get arrested. And if you did, hopefully you have a jail support crew that is helping you out. The other thing that I think that people never really recover from isn't the right word. The first time you see the police retreat.

Totally. You recognize that this thing you have been taught is completely unassailable. The reason they're building cop cities is they know they are assailable and they want to be less so. Well, listen to this podcast and that's the only place you will ever find anything useful. That's the final. I mean, I wouldn't say that. Yeah, I know. But there are other podcasts out there.

There's a lot of books. There's a lot of zines. There's a lot of sketchy no-blog sites, which may sometimes have misinformation and sometimes have good information. Yay. You could certainly check out. Margaret, I've heard that you you yourself have a few other podcasts what i do well if you want to hear a lot of the history around some of the stuff we talked about including like the cointel pro stuff for example i run a podcast called cool

people who did cool stuff on this very network cool zone media and you can listen to it every monday and wednesday i just finished a very long, but I swear entertaining, series of episodes about the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. I did an episode about the burglars for peace who exposed COINTELPRO by robbing an FBI office in the middle of the night in the early 70s, and all kinds of other stories so you can listen to that or if you want to know more about the end of the world i help run a podcast called live like the world is dying comes out every friday and that one is um prepper but community yep there we go and i have a book coming out it comes out in september it's called the sapling cage and it's going to be kick-started

in june and if you go to Kickstarter, you can sign up for announcements about that. And it is the best book I've ever written. So you all should read it. Very excited to see that. That does it for us at It Could Happen Here. We will probably see you out there. Good luck. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those

runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, Listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast.

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