It Could Happen Here - The 2028 General Strike and Climate Change

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Mia talks with Rosewater, an organizer with the Sunrise Movement, about how the UAW's plan for a 2028 general strike has changed ecological organizing.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia,

and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again 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 digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, five-year-old Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez was found off the coast of Florida. And the question was, should the boy go back to his father in Cuba? Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or stay with his relatives in Miami?

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's It Could Happen Here, the podcast about things falling apart, how to put them back together again. I'm your host, Mia Wong. So for people who listened to yesterday's episode, which I'm hoping is like most of you. Yeah. episode which i'm hoping is like most of you yeah so yesterday was a very kind of downer episode on hurricane misinformation and the way that these sort of people construct these reality tunnels

and you know they have become active participants in their own sort of propagandizement and i think we kind of we left on a kind of note of of what you can do for sort of individual people, right? Which is the same mechanisms you use to get someone out of a cult, which is you stay with them, you maintain enough personal connection that you can pull them out if they ever want to come out. But that's also not a large-scale solution to this problem. And in order to talk about a large-scale solution to both our present social crisis and the ecological crisis that this social crisis is being aimed to sort of cover up right now, I'm talking to Rosewater, who's the hub coordinator for the Sunrise Movement's DC hub and delegate to Sunrise's delegate body and also a solar pump organizer. Rosewater, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me on.

welcome to the show thank you so much for having me on yeah hi everybody my name is rosewater and yeah long time fan of cool zone media y'all were my introduction to my current like democratic confederalist politics oh that's awesome so it feels like a really fun like full circle moment to have a chance to be on the pod yeah and i'm excited to talk to you so the specific thing we're talking about is in terms of there being an actual plan for what people are doing like past the next three weeks like after the election the the biggest thing that has been happening is something we've talked about a little bit on this show is the proposed 2028 general strike. So do you want to talk a little bit about what that is before we get into Sunrise's involvement and the sort of broader story? Yeah, yeah.

So I feel like most people who follow leftist politics were following the UAW strike against the big three automakers last fall. And people found their strike really inspiring, and they had really strong gains that were the sort of straightforward, increased pay, better benefits type stuff. And people were celebrating that. But I would say the two actual most important changes were not reported on nearly as much. One was they eroded their labor peace clause and they they made it possible to go on strike if any of their facilities were closed which labor peace has in my opinion been sort of strangling the u.s left for 80 years yeah can you explain what that is for people i think we've usually more broadly talked about is no strike clauses. But yeah, can you explain what that is? rights and the u.s government is like a quote fair mediator between capitalists and the labor

movement and capitalists get a consistent workforce and peace like peace from disruptions and this essentially was established between the beginning of world war ii and the end of the red scare when all of the socialists and anarchists and communists were expelled from the labor movement. And it felt like a good deal to a lot of liberals at the time and a lot of normal rank-and-file workers at the time, but on reflection, it has really strangled the U.S. labor movement. And so the fact that the UAW eroded their no-strike clause at all is a huge precedent, right? Yeah, and this is something, I mean,

I don't remember if this actually got into the Labor Notes episode that I did, but I remember at Labor Notes, I was listening to people talk about this, and this is stuff that I think the global impact of it has also been really underplayed. Like, I mean, obviously, there was a lot of attention paid to this in Mexico, right?

Because there's a lot of, like, you know, the structure of the auto industry is such that. Not so obvious to me. I didn't even think about that until just now. Yeah. So one of the things that NAFTA did is that sort of right across the border. Right, right. A whole sort of range of factories that are right across the border that operate off mexican labor that do some of the auto industry stuff so there's always been sort of connections between the the more independent unions there and sort of american unions so but

like you know but this is also struck as being watched really really heavily in china yeah which is interesting because like chinese state unions are a fucking joke yeah they're basically not real unions at all and the extent to which you know the china's version of the labor peace was also the the deal was less like you get rights and we get like labor peace and more like uh we're going to just stamp out our working class organization yeah completely in a way that like was even more thorough than what happened here where most of it got wiped out i think like the breaking of the labor piece and the demonstration that there is another way is something that has reverberated massively across a lot of different places that i don't think both the

people organizing the strike or the sort of like press coverage of it has really gotten into sort of how how wide the reverberations of this have been right i think if it were just eroding that clause alone it wouldn't be such a signal but yeah definitely the real thing that caught my attention at first was immediately afterwards they changed the end of their contract date to international workers day 2028 and they called on every union in the country and later every union in the world to align with that contract and go on strike with them on May 1st, 2028. And that was the first time, like, correct me if I'm wrong, that was the first time that a major labor union in America has called for a planned general strike since 1948.

Yeah, I think that's true. And i think there being an actual plan and there being a way to do it that's legal it's a big deal because part of the problem with this is that there's you know unlike unlike a country like france uh american labor law is specifically designed so that you don't have this happen and there's a bunch of legal mechanisms for this but it's very very specifically designed to make sure that people are not allowed to do solidarity strikes people are not allowed to like coordinate the entire power of their of of their action yeah and this is a pretty promising way around that yeah this may be better for later in the episode but one of the things that we're doing is we're in collaboration with the institute for social ecology doing a teach-in

on labor peace and the history of general strikes in the u.s about a week after the election in order to orient ourselves in whatever new political context exists there but yeah so yeah i think that's a jumping off point to get into i think sunrise is kind of an unlikely organization that people would think to be getting like excited and trying to get involved in a labor struggle yeah but yeah let's talk about how Sunrise got involved. And I guess first also, I don't know how many people listening to this know what Sunrise is. And if you do know what Sunrise is, that might also make you more surprised you're getting involved in labor. But yeah, let's talk about that. Yeah. So Sunrise is a youth climate movement that has been one of the main advocates for

the idea of a Green New deal when aoc first came into office and she did that like sit in at nancy pelosi's office like that was a sunrise action and we historically have been an org that sort of like tries to bridge the divide between people who are sort of apolitically liberal and like more radical politics which is a hard place to be yeah someone's got to do it yeah but we've really focused on trying to like connect environmentalism with labor actually one of our main slogans the main intervention that we've succeeded at has been associating the idea of environmental action with jobs like green jobs and stuff like that the problem with that has been one it has

been primarily rhetorical especially after bernie's loss in 2020 yeah and stories matter but material conditions matter more yeah and the reason that we didn't we weren't more materially involved in connecting labor and environmentalism and by that i mean like connecting with unions is that unions leadership was often very far to our right yeah you know especially in the united states so it didn't feel like it made sense but as a result the sort of biden years have been a time where there's been a lot of internal discussion about like who we are are we a radical movement that sort of positions itself rhetorically as more normie in order to bring in like young people who whose parents won't let them you know uh join a fight to end all unjust hierarchies or yeah like seize the means of production etc

like are we are we a radical movement that poses normie or are we a like liberal progressive movement that sometimes asks for radical things? And that's been a really big conflict within the org these last few years because the path to any climate action, the only path that a lot of people have seen has been electoral stuff, pushing politicians and things like that in a lot of ways the inflation reduction act was a direct result of sunrises organizing and our work to try and force through the build back better program but it aligned us with biden and from the point of view of a lot of our organizers, like even if it was a victory, it didn't feel like one.

And it's certainly not nearly large enough to actually handle the scale of the crisis. And so essentially the more radical wing of the, of the movement has been winning that fight over the last year to fight. So strong word has been winning that like debate over the last year or two fights a strong word has been winning that like debate over the last year or two and specifically this last summer when the american federation of teachers joined the general strike which almost no one has heard about but the aft and their 1.7 million members have already decided that they're

going to try and join the 2028 general strike. So it's not just the UAW anymore. Yeah. But unfortunately we need to take an ad break. When we come back, we are going to get to that because that I think will be looked back as one of the pivotal moments of this whole thing that everyone kind of just missed when it happened.

I completely agree. It's going to be amazing. Yeah. Okay. Ads. Unfortunately, we to be amazing. Yeah. Okay. Ads, unfortunately. Ads. Ads. Buy gold.

I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend,

and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters.

From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit 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 digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at 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, or 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, Thank you. 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. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba.

He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez.

At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Cuba. Mr. Gonzales wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back on Don't Buy Gold. At some point, I'm going to write a Don't Buy Gold episode. You think this is a joke. There is a Don't Buy Gold episode. It think this is a joke. There is a Don't Buy Gold episode. It's being worked on in the Mia laboratory. The gold scammer ad thing. Okay, back to the present, or I guess back to the future.

I don't know. Time is falling apart here. But let's talk about the AFT, the American Federation of Teachers. Right. And I don't know what they've announced in terms of this. Right. So the American Federation of Teachers, sort of led by the Chicago Teachers Union, the Baltimore Teachers Union, and to a smaller extent, the D.C.

Teachers Union, managed to get through a resolution at their convention that when you read the title, it's very boring. It's like on aligning with the UAW. But when you actually click on the document and you read it, it is like class struggle fire. Like reading it from beginning to end, I felt exhilaration. I felt like a fire exploded in my heart. It was so amazing. I felt like a fire explode in my heart. It was so amazing. And I heard about this the same weekend that we were actually having a climate disaster training in D.C. Right. We had about 100 leaders from across our movement, about half of our staff there.

And at the beginning, people were really excited for climate disaster actions responding to moments like this actually but when we talked about victory when we talked about and we're going to have like uh mass mobilization against the climate crisis where the whole of our society like pitches in to do this the federal government like does a world war ii style mobilization against this destruction and stuff like that you could tell that people didn't see a path you could tell yeah and so like this news dropping that the teachers were joining a general strike we're joining mass disruption in some meaningful way. It hit us like a bomb. It was the perfect moment for it to hit us because it was like, yeah, if the auto workers

are going on strike and the academic workers are going on strike and the teachers are going on strike, then why can't the students go on strike? And not only why can't they, but the students must go on strike and not only why can't they but like the students must go on strike and that was sort of the moment that really got our movement from yes we would like to figure out some sort of different way to get to the mass disruption needed in order to like win serious action on the climate crisis to like oh Oh, there's a path. Yeah. Like we see,

we see a path. It's, it's core memory. Like if you know, like inside out, like core memory formed that weekend, it was, it was beautiful.

Yeah. And I think what's, you know, I mean, there's a couple of things that are important here, right? But I think it's being underplayed exactly how important it is to have teachers unions being into this,

because the thing about teachers unions is that they're an extremely important lever on labor movement because the, the way the capitalist society is structured, right. Is such that most childcare is just sort of like all of that labor is basically it's been pushed on the teachers right and the moment that child care collapses right a bunch of people suddenly also who are not normally on strike suddenly are not able to do their jobs because they have they have

to find some way to take care of their kids and so this is this is sort of a massive like leverage point and in the in the same way that like sort of dock worker strikes or i mean not in the same way but like in a sense that a strike by these people can shut down way way more labor than just theirs directly right this is something that's very important you know yeah i never really thought about that i've thought about them in the context of like their sort of community pillars so like when teachers go on strike they often bring way more community support with them than other types of workers but you yeah you're totally right like outside of like the community going with them also that is the primary form of child care that exists

in this country yeah and and this is something that like teachers organizers like teachers union organizers are very big on sort on emphasizing because they have an enormous amount of social power. And it's kind of, to a larger extent, hasn't been tapped for the kinds of mass political action that we're seeing here. that's always existed, but there hasn't really been the kind of like political will or momentum or sort of organizing capacity to fully mobilize it. And yeah, so I guess I want to move from here

to talking about Sunrise's involvement in the strike, because I think this part's really interesting, both in terms of there being, like both in terms of strike support and student strikes. So can you talk, I guess, about the sort of politics of student strikes and how you see this fitting into the broader

thing that's happening yeah yeah so the climate movement sort of had the height of its power uh in 2019 i would say when you had fridays for Future and like Greta Thunberg, climate strikes all across Europe and America. But I would use the word strike in quotes because sometimes you had full walkouts. Sometimes you had like those sorts of huge things. But most of the time, it was students asking permission from authority figures to participate in a rally and things like that. Whereas in a class struggle context, like a strike is people going to the authority figure and saying this is not occurring because we're not going to be here. You know, like this has been a critique that's existed inside of Sunrise, like from that period for years now, which was one of the reasons why we haven't figures doing this sort of thing, especially in more conservative areas, while also teaching them how to do it. Because in really meaningful ways, schools are practice work. Like they were directly modeled after factories in the 1800s.

So schools are modeled after factories in the 1800s so schools are modeled after work so if schools are practice work then student strikes can be practice labor organizing yeah i mean and and turning schools from from sort of laboratories for the reproduction of the class system into laboratories for learning class struggle it's something that's very very important both in the immediate term and in the longer term yeah we've talked a bit about this on other episodes but like there hasn't been the kind of like generational pass down of organizing skills that we've seen in sort of previous generations and the way honestly we were talking this is about the center sort of uaw staff union episode, right?

The way that a lot of these unions are running their staff systems also aren't designed to build up like continuous momentum for people who learn how to organize and keep doing it. And this is a way we can sort of restart that treadmill to create a generation of organizers,

both in this moment and for the future. Yes, exactly. And I have had many critiques of my organization, many critiques of my movement. But the thing that has always made me want to stick around has been seeing the young organizers who find themselves here. The primary person who does our press stuff in the movement

is turning 18 in like three days. Wow. They're one of the best organizers I know. It's, it's, it's inspiring, but it's something that we, I want our movement to do at scale, as opposed to like having something like that every once in a while like you said the i the idea of creating an entire generation um and i i'd love to talk about a sort of thought process and plan around that after the ad break whoo here's some ads when we come back we'll do things that aren't ads question mark. Woo! I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly.

I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend, and I found his piss jar in our apartment.

I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. Hey, I'm Jack Peace Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works

while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers and to bring their words to life. Listen to Blacklit 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 digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley

into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at 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. Apple Podcasts, or 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. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami.

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. What better ad transitions? They should raise my salary, damn it.

We're back. Awesome. So one of the things that I think is really, in terms of like for us, think is really in terms of uh like for us a stable niche in the movement ecology is to be sort of a feeder for radical labor in a sort of way like because one of the things is even if you are radical and you go into the labor movement oftentimes you are going to be taught practices that rely on labor peace in meaningful ways yeah practices that are going to be going to be really disrupted if labor law weren't a thing and stuff like that and it's something that holds back our ability to create a strongly organized working class but in the context of schools right there is no labor law there is no labor peace in a high school right so as a place to practice the sort of radical class struggle organizing that we're talking about it's sort of the perfect place because it's a simplified version of the workplace of like adult reality there are obviously many other

like blockages like students and like young people minors have far far less power and far fewer rights than you do once you become an adult and their family has far more power over them. There are huge barriers. But in terms of grounding people in class struggle, labor organizing tactics, I'm thinking of things that you can learn about in Jane McAlevey's book, No Shortcuts and stuff like that. you use structure tests and like use hard organizing conversations in order to build their power in a specific like context and things like that and whether or not they actually manage the the strike right at the end of it you have an 18 year old entering the workforce yeah is a skilled trained class struggle organizer who has gained their politics completely outside of the context of labor peace yeah and i think that that's one of the important aspects of this and i think that the second one is something you were talking about earlier which is sort of bridging the sort of labor ecological divide and i think that's been happening more which is encouraging

because yes there's been an enormous effort to make sure this doesn't happen i mean i think we've talked about this on this show at some point i know i know margaret's talked about it on cool people does cool stuff but i mean one of the most famous times people tried to do this um so iww organized it uh jody berry and she so legally speaking we don't know who killed her what i will say is that she was killed by a car bomb that was virtually identical to a car bomb that was built by the fbi that was edited by the fbi in their bomb like training things like a couple of weeks before so uh right we genuinely don't know who killed her however comma someone someone built a car bomb and blew her up

in order to stop this from happening so it's something that is right very very obviously seen by the powers that be is extremely dangerous yeah in the same way that we know exactly the singular one person who on his own completely killed martin luther king with no support from the u.s government yeah yeah and like you know i i think this is this is an important moment to sort of do this because one of the things that the right is trying to do to like capture this sort of like moments of radical labor has been like oh yeah all the problems the uaw are because the government wasn't forced to make electric cars it's like you know there's very much like an anti-ecological

angle to definitely to the way that sort of like republican like caution is happening so it's like you know there's very much like an anti-ecological angle to definitely to the way that sort of like republican like co-option is happening it's another thing that we can use a simultaneously tactic for our side and helps defeat a co-option attempt in addition to this being a way to like take on the climate crisis in meaningful ways the climate crisis is also a way where we can like make more radical demands this is one of the reasons that i really love sunrise and ecological like eco-socialist movements in general because if you ask someone to seriously consider how do we address the climate crisis and you're not paying them to have a specific answer which which is nonprofit industrial complex things. Like if you ask someone to seriously consider what do we need to do in order

to address the climate crisis in six months, you have a radical no matter what, in my experience, no one who I've ever like talked to who has thought about that question seriously for six months and not avoided it has not come out the other end being like oh we need a general strike we need a revolution you know yeah and so like being able to bring that exact that exact analysis into the labor movement I think is one of the things that can bring back radical labor.

You talk to labor leaders who might feel comfortable with labor peace and they're like, we can do this. We have time. And you're like, how much time exactly do we have? Like really think about it. Yeah. And this is something that we've seen.

I think this is sort of a good place to wrap up. This is something that we've also seen in the way that immediate short-term disaster response is happening where you know all of these sort of you have like millions of people who are like would not show up to a mutual aid thing are suddenly like out there doing mutual aid and have at least

temporarily completely restructured the way the society works because they're confronted with the sort of immediacy of crisis and also of immediacy of of crisis and also the immediacy of the fact that the way that we have been doing things simply is not actually a functional way to for example respond to a hurricane yeah i think there's a bridge there between the sort of immediacy of this like mutual aid disaster response politics and sort of long-term goal of of trying to actually

like have sustained substantive action against the sort of climate devastation yeah i completely agree and this is quite a tangent from this specific topic that we're thinking about but when i think about democratic confederalist politics like rojava was able to take power and have its revolution because the state retreated. And ideally, we don't have a civil war that causes the state to retreat, ideally. Yeah. One thing we do know will happen and is happening right now is that the state retreats during disasters. The state retreats during climate disasters. And so if we're prepared to take that temporary mutual aid structures and jump on them in order to create systems like what they have in Rojava and create like like build our labor movements, build our neighborhood power, build our direct democracy capabilities and be able to be like, we want to keep these when out like whenever the police come back whenever da da da da da yeah like there's going to be devastation but there's

also a lot of opportunities for creating really really beautiful things yeah and i want to close on there's now a whole argument as as to whether or not whether or not buena ventura derudi who was one of this uh like very prominent organizers in the spanish revolution ever actually said this but there was a quote attributed to him that goes roughly we are not in the least afraid of ruins like we are the people who built this world and we'll fucking do it again wow that's beautiful yeah and and i think that's in some sense the attitude that we have to be going into this here right of you know like the path that we are on now and this is true even if a movement takes power that is dedicated to actually sort of dealing with the

climate crisis right the stuff that we have now is normal yeah this is just what the future is going to be there's going to be disaster there's going to be storms going to be. There's going to be disaster. There's going to be storms. There's going to be destruction. But again, fundamentally, we are the people who built this world. And we can build it again. We're going to have to build it again. And we're going to build it better. Yeah. Actually, that makes me think of

this one song that we sing a lot in Sunrise. We have a really big cultural focus on movement song. I would really love it if that could be the outro yeah there are more waters rising this i know this i know there are more waters rising this i know it is a movement musician actually from Asheville, North Carolina. It's not fully clear to me right now if they are safe, but we've been singing this song for There are more fires burning this I know There are more fires burning they will find their way to the sky It is a song that I think really resonates with the thing that

Mia Mia just finished talking about, knowing what's on the horizon knowing the ruin that we may face but also knowing that we're not afraid of that and that we can get through it yeah so i hope that you all find the strength with this song and with these plans to song and with these plans to rebuild the mountains. Thank you. 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 now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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