Rev Left Radio - Organizing in a Pandemic: Rebel Steps and Rent Strikes!

Episode Date: April 18, 2020

Liz and Amy from Rebel Steps joins Breht to discuss tenant organizing, rent strikes, the Covid crisis, anarchism, and much more!  Check out Rebel Steps here: https://rebelsteps.com/ Follow them on Twitter @RebelSteps Here is a list of Mutual Aid orgs to donate to: https://itsgoingdown.org/c19-mutual-aid/ Check out Channel Zero Network here: https://channelzeronetwork.com/ Outro music 'Breathe America' by Mosin Nagant find more of their music here: https://mosinnagant.bandcamp.com ------- LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com SUPPORT REV LEFT RADIO: www.patreon.com/revleftradio Our logo was made by BARB, a communist graphic design collective: @Barbaradical Intro music by DJ Captain Planet. --------------- This podcast is affiliated with: The Nebraska Left Coalition, Omaha Tenants United, FORGE, Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), Feed The People - Omaha, and the Marxist Center.

It's a really unprecedented moment here in New York and globally. It sort of feels like the world is ending, but there is some hope in this moment. We've seen mutual aid projects starting. Neighbors are helping each other with groceries. People are donating and even sewing masks for medical personnel. We've seen increased calls for Medicare for all. We've seen people realizing that they have to support one another because once again, the government has failed us. One idea that's been popping up all over the place is organizing a rent strike.

Today we'll be looking at how you can participate step by step. Before we get into the how-to, let's talk about why you should consider participating. There are some vital reasons to consider doing this both in your building and in coordination with tenants around the world. In your building, one reason could be that you've lost your job or aren't able to work. You may just need that money to survive. You may need it for food and medicine, and that's a really, really good reason. This is probably the number one reason people will participate in a wrenching. 2. Even if you can pay rent, a rent strike now can make sure that as we recover from the effects

of COVID-19, all of us can remain in our homes. It's a protection for the future. And while you may be able to pay today, you might not be able to pay next month. Three, this is also a chance to show solidarity with those who are already struggling. If someone else in your building can't pay, you can have their back. And if you have that money instead of paying rent, you can use it to support the people around you by buying food or medicine. Lastly, even if you don't decide to strike in the end, organizing your building is a good thing anyway. So regardless of what happens next, you can aim to create a building-based tenants union when this is all done that can fight rent increases and evictions. With climate change and an economic depression underway, this won't be

the last crisis we face together. Organizing now can make sure we are more resilient for the future. Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. On this episode, we have Amy and Liz from Rebel Steps on to talk about organizing, about capitalism and crisis, and some advice for people who are trying to get organized in this moment and lots of other things that people might find useful and hopefully inspiring. I really enjoyed talking to Amy and Liz, and if you haven't heard their podcast, Rebel Steps, definitely go check it. out it's really accessible, wonderful, sort of heartfelt way to get started organizing and learn how to get started organizing in a sort of non-judgmental space. So it's a really wonderful resource for people who are already organizers or people who want to become organizers. So

definitely check that out. It will be in the show notes as usual for people that want to jump in and go check out their show. So without further ado, let's get into this episode with Amy and Liz from Rebel Steps. Enjoy. Hi, I'm Amy, and I'm the producer of Rebel Steps, and I live in Brooklyn with my little dog. I'm Liz, and I'm the host of Rebel Steps, and I also do a lot of the writing, and it's just sort of a fun fact, we're sisters. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm a big fan of your show. I know we reached out recently and communicated on Twitter about organizing, because I think we were both saying similar things.

about a certain sort of rent strike, which we'll get to in a second. But I'm just really happy that this turned out that we can collab on this. And especially in this time when I think your show specifically is becoming incredibly valuable. People really want to take action and start organizing and Rebel Steps is a wonderful guide for people to do that. So thank you so much for both of you for coming on. We're so excited to be here. Yeah, we're big fans of yours as well. So it's very exciting for us too. Beautiful. All right. So first and foremost, just sort of outside of politics and organizing, how are you two holding up during this pandemic and the lockdown? And what's been the most difficult part of this for each of you personally? Yeah. Well, we're both in Brooklyn and New York.

So it is like very difficult. Even just being on the street at all is a little risky right now. It's very challenging. I think really for me, I'm just taking it one day at a time, trying not to like ask too much of myself at any given moment just because it is so overwhelming and that has included just like letting myself sleep a little extra because I think my body like a couple days ago just hit a wall as far as like dealing with anxiety. I was like feeling a lot of anxiety early on like and my body was just like we can't do this anymore. We need to sleep. We need to sleep through the night. We need to take naps. This is too much to handle. So right now I'm just sort of trying to like let my body sort of lead the way as far as dealing with those day-to-day moments. But I'm feeling

okay other than that, though. I have great roommates. I have lots of puzzles. I have some food. I've been able to help out some people around me too. So just taking it one day at a time. Yeah, definitely like also one day at a time, how I feel about like everything changes minute to minute. I'm still working, which is obviously good as far as, like, being able to sustain myself goes, but is also disorienting in that, like, it's hard to feel, you know, it's hard to engage with my work, my, like, regular day-to-day job when it feels like, you know, the world is sort of falling down around me. So, yeah, it's definitely like, there's a lot of weird things, like, feeling both overwhelmed and bored, but also, like, that there's a lot of urgency, but also

nothing that I can do every moment and also having to give myself, you know, time to, like, rest and deal with the like stress of just like going out on the street and things so it's just very disorienting but we're we're getting through the best we can yeah well yeah here in omaha i think we're a little bit behind the coast and definitely behind a new york city for the wave i think the wave isn't supposed to really hit us very hard until sort of the end of this month so there has been a little bit of buffering from the first sort of you know wave of the pandemic here and then we're also in one of the eight red, you know, Republican-dominated states, which has not issued any sort of lockdown orders yet. And so we still see people going to work, people out on the streets all the

time, and it's very, very disconcerning. But I also just sort of wanted to touch on that idea of people, whether you're working from home or you're off work completely, because we've been so conditioned in capitalism to be productive, I almost felt in myself as like, oh, okay, Now that we have to go into quarantine and I have to stay home, I have to start getting things done. And I've sort of come to the realization that, no, I don't need to be productive in this moment. You know, maybe my mental health and my family time needs to be more prioritized over being productive for its own sake. And so trying to shake that idea that I need to make the most of every moment and get stuff done, I think, has also been something that I've wrestled with as well. Have either of you wrestled with that?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, um, it's taken me, like, I think, it took, it took me two full weeks to really settle into being able to even just sleep through the night. Like, I was waking up in the middle of the night, just, like, worrying about all sorts of random things that I felt like I should be doing or I wanted to do to, like, help other people or to get myself through it. I think, you know, we'll touch on this a little bit later as we go on, but as much as our podcast is about taking action and building skills, um, it's also about how this is like a long haul project, like, Oregon. organizing is not a mad dash to one small goal or, you know, the next, you know, it's not a mad dash to like the first of the month, like whether you can get a wrench strike down or not. It's about building sustainable movements. So I think in this moment, we really need to like make sure that especially as leftists, we're kind of like preparing ourselves for the next wave of action.

Because it's not like this is the only crisis we're going to deal with. There's going to be like three or four more in the future. And so really taking care of. of ourselves and our communities in these moments, I think it's going to be really important. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and I think I found, I think for me, kind of, like I was saying, the back and forth and the sort of, like, disorienting feeling of wanting to do different things, where it's, like, on one hand, I actually don't feel like I have to be productive because that is something that, you know, is put on us by our society.

And at the same time, taking action is one of the ways that I personally, like, feel better, right? like we put together the wrench strike episode in like 48 hours and we usually put it you know we usually work on episodes for like weeks or months um and even though that was like exhausting I felt better at the end of it because I was like oh I'm I'm like taking action and so it's this thing where it's like I need to rest and then I also need to do things to feel better I need to do both those things and it can be hard to figure it's like it takes a lot to figure out which one of those things I need at any given moment yeah I think that's probably the closest to how I feel as well because when I am

being productive, either organizing or doing political education on the show. It does sort of anchor me a little bit. Let's move on. But before we talk more about organizing, you mentioned your podcast. Can you just talk a bit about Rebel Steps, why you started it, and sort of what your goals are with it? Absolutely. So Rebel Steps is a podcast about taking action. It's really about concrete things that anyone can do to like get started in political organizing or becoming more politically active. We really started it as a reaction after 2016 to a lot of the calls to, like, read a book or call your senator or donate money, which we all felt were very, like, they're not very direct action-y, right? Like, they're sort of, we just really wanted people to be able to engage in, like, action.

And so, yeah, so we really tried to drill down into, like, the tiniest steps, the things that you can do to start getting out there. Because there's a lot, there's a lot of media and a lot of things out there about, like, what's wrong with the world. but not always a lot of things about like how to get started fixing them or like taking action so that was really sort of the niche we wanted to focus on yeah and a big part of it is being welcoming to new people and kind of growing a movement of organizers so we were also sort of reacting to like sort of a little bit of like subculturalism that sometimes crops up on the

left and you know it's fine to have subcultures that like are nourishing for different groups of people but we really wanted to like make something that kind of cast a really wide net and invited a bunch of different people in. So, like, as one example, you know, we saw a lot of people participate in the Women's March who maybe had never really done anything that was explicitly political to them besides voting or something. So there's this huge new group of people who wanted to participate, but maybe didn't know exactly where to go next, or maybe we're going to be funneled into like a very kind of liberal or a DNC sort of direction. So we just kind of wanted to offer a really inviting alternative to that. And as ways to like be really inviting to

anyone who wanted to participate, we try and explain jargon or stay away from it completely. We try and start from the very, very beginning. And we also try to provide some context for the actions we're talking about. So like as one example, our little writing episode where we're talking about ready to political prisoners. We talk about how Emma Goldman and Ashada Ashikor both wrote about their experiences as political prisoners. So trying to kind of to root today's action in a long lineage of political action. And then sort of like the last part of our project is not talking only about the concrete steps, but also sort of talking about like the emotional journey to becoming politically involved. So talking about things like imposter syndrome as one example

and just talking about how, like, new things can be uncomfortable and, like, a little bit scary. Even just going to a meeting can feel very intimidating. So we just try and, like, really think about, like, what it would be like to start from the very beginning. Because also, that was where we were, you know, only a few years ago. And that's a big part of our project. So we always are telling people, if you know someone who's new to politics, who wants to get involved, send them to our podcast, we made it for them. And we really want to invite as many new people to be organizers as possible. And that's absolutely what I love about rebel steps. It's accessible. It's welcoming. It's caring. It's non-judgmental. It's non-sectarian. It's, you know, it explains concepts to people that relates to people's sort of like you said. They're sort of, you know, their personality. Some people are a little bit more shy and reserved. And to get into organizing where you're talking to strangers can be very difficult. And so having somebody explain how to organize while being conscious of people's different.

and some of the obstacles that some people may face that others don't, I think is truly, truly a wonderful treasure on the left. So I really appreciate your work. And I'll definitely, as people know, link to it in the show notes for anybody that hasn't heard Rebel Steps. Definitely go check it out and share it with your friends. In 2017, a lot of us woke up to some harsh realities. Trump in the White House, the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, the repeal of DACA, the rise of ICE deportations, the lack of response to natural disasters, it all adds up to paint a pretty bleak picture.

On the other hand, there was a lot of energy for the resistance movement. On inauguration day, there were blockades at the entrances to the mall in D.C., as well as several large marches ranging from festive to militant. The next day, millions took part in the Women's March internationally. A few days later, everyone was showing up at the airport to protest. the Muslim ban. Since then, there's been a steady presence of activism in the public eye. And it's been truly inspiring. I'd been involved in political organizations in the past, but I'd taken a break for a few years.

My own privilege as a white, straight, cisgendered person allowed me to be complacent during the Obama administration. Despite tragedies like increased drone strikes and Guantanamo remaining open, Obama offered me the illusion that we were moving forward, that progress was inevitable. Trump shattered that illusion for me. I called my senators and encouraged others to do the same. I donated to the organizations on the front lines of the fight. I read the books that everyone's been telling me to read.

I came back to political work with a lot of energy and a new sense of urgency. I was ready to fight, and I was ready to win. But after a few months of showing up at protest every weekend, I started to burn out. It didn't feel meaningful, and it didn't feel like anything was changing. In fact, maybe things were even getting worse. And it got me thinking, what comes next? This podcast is about what comes next. I'm going to walk through what you can do to start plugging into movements

and learning organizing skills step by step. If you've already been around political organizations, this podcast might not be for you. But if you've been to a march or two and you're looking to jump in, you're in the right place. Today I want to set you up with my intentions for this project. Let's talk about action versus education. It's important to understand how messed up our society is. There are many books and podcast and documentaries dedicated to this understanding. I encourage you to educate yourself.

However, this podcast is mostly dedicated to taking action. I won't be going in depth on most issues, but I'll always provide further resources in the show notes for each episode. Second, I don't pretend to be an expert. I am going to be drawing from my own personal reflections, but I'll also be bringing in people who have different experiences. So what's this podcast about? The Brazilian educator and philosopher Paolo Frere asked,

What can we do today so we can do tomorrow what we cannot do today? This podcast is about that question. It's about getting out of your comfort zone to try new things, meet new people, and learn new tactics. It's about boots on the streets, getting your hands dirty, fighting the good fight, getting beyond donating and calling your senator. It's about resisting capitalism, white supremacy, sexism, and heteronormal. nativity in your everyday life.

You've been listening to Rebel Steps. I'm your host, Liz. Believe in yourself, trust one another, and get organized. But let's go ahead and jump into the main topic, or at least one of them, which is organizing. And I kind of want to start with just a sort of basic question. What is a rent strike? And importantly, what is not one? And in what ways does this pandemic make tenants?

organizing more difficult or maybe even in some ways easier? Just to start out, we want to be clear that we're not tenant organizers and we haven't really done tenant organizing, but we wanted to really engage with this moment doing what we usually do, which is like drilling down into the first steps that you can take the small things you can do to actually start doing organizing around a rent strike. And so that's what our episode looks at is like how to sort of do those basics and like really get started. So the other thing about our episodes is that we're often like learning along with our audience as we put the episodes together. So like as we were doing like season one, it was like about sort of what we were learning

and what we had learned over the last like year or so before we put it together. So we're always learning kind of along as we do these episodes. And then the last thing is that like everyone's learning right now. Like no one has done this before. Yeah, we're really in like a remarkable situation. So even experienced tenant organizers, they might, they have. a lot to offer, but it's still going to be new terrain for all of us. So we're all going to just experimenting on this together. But to get down into what we look at at the episode and like what the specifics are, a rent strike is a type of protest where tenants as a group refuse to pay rent, usually until a specific demand is met. So like one person not paying

rent in their building is not a rent strike. Like just one person skipping it is, it's just not the, it's not actually a tactic. And it's actually very dangerous. And that's one of the things that we really try to highlight in the episode is that like eviction is a risk and it's a very high risk if you're skipping it alone. So it's just something to take very seriously when you're considering skipping rent and to just really make sure you're strategizing along the way and thinking about what your options are. So historically we've seen rent strikes are usually used when you're trying to lobby a demand against, like, a landlord, a very specific one, usually against rent hikes or against just like poor living conditions in general. But right now we're in sort

of a different moment. There's like the five broad demands that are circulating for health care for all, for housing for all. So it's a little bit of a different situation where we're kind of like using this tactic to maybe just refocus our entire society, if that's not too, big of a thing to throw out there. Yeah, so it's like in this moment, the rent strike is this like big broad movement where some people are pushing for using this as a tactic to push for large changes to society and some people are pushing for shorter term things like rent cancellation or no delaying rent and honestly just a lot of people like just can't pay rent.

And so it's better to get organized and call it a rent strike than to just not pay rent on your own. But yeah, the rent, it's very much about, like, working together to push some demands. Yeah. And that's, I think that's what brought us together is around that sort of online petition, just declaring a sort of nationwide rent strike on April 1st without having that underlying organizations ready to, to handle that because, as you say, online and on your episode, you know, eviction, it's very high risk, you know, and if somebody is forced to try that, by themselves, maybe somebody who naively thinks that because they saw it online, that they're going to just join in this big movement and tell their landlord, I'm not paying you this month.

And then they'll be really left high and dry when they lack any organization to carry through that demand and to protect them if the landlord retaliates, which they will, et cetera. And so I really loved that part of it. And then just being understanding of why people want to go on rent strike and absolutely need to go on a rent strike, but also warning people against trying to go it alone and emphasizing the utter importance of organizing and having organizations in place that can carry through these sorts of strikes, right? That's absolutely true. And we were seeing a lot of like sort of stuff on the online, both saying, oh, like everyone should do the rent strike or saying we're not

prepared for the rent strike. And so that was something that really pushed us to do the episode, that it was like, yeah, okay, we're not prepared, but let's get prepared because this is such an important thing and so many people need to do this right now. So that was something that we really felt passionately about when we were putting together that episode. Definitely. Moving on sort of, what are some common pitfalls, not just, I mean, I guess it could be sort of organizing rent strikes, but even just generally based on your organizing and your interviews with organizers, what are some common pitfalls that organizers should avoid or should be on the lookout for if they're just getting into this sort of stuff? With Rebel Steps, what we're thinking about all the

time is onboarding and welcoming new people. And this is something clearly that's sort of the theme of our podcast. And I think in a moment like this, something that's really powerful and important is that a lot of people who haven't been politically active before are really eager to participate in new tactics and new actions. And I think if you're somebody who has strong politics or who has political experience, we might not be always prepared to fully welcome those people in. And I think in this moment, it's really important to realize that, like, just because someone maybe doesn't have organizing experience or hasn't read all the same books, it doesn't mean that they're any less able to participate in these new tactics. And it doesn't mean that

we should, like, diminish their contributions at all to a rent strike. So I think that that's, like, one thing I really want people to think about. And these, like, the labels of, like, organizer or activists, they really are only so helpful and just like don't put too much stock in these political labels or like how people are labeling themselves in your building or how you're labeling yourself. Right now it's like a time to sort of invite everyone that's like a tenant in your building or everyone who's having issues paying their rent into this movement like full hearted or like just embrace every new person that like really wants to participate because this is really a time to bring as many people into the movement as possible.

possible. Yeah. And just to add on to that, it's really important to let tenants or like the tenants as a group take the lead on what you're what you're going to be doing. It is like it's high risk. It's something that everyone needs to be on board with. And so you want to make sure you leave space for everyone to talk about where they're at, talk about what their risks are, talk about what they're comfortable with. Just because you may have political experience doing organizing or you're like gung-ho to try it out, like doesn't mean that you should be sort of a de facto leader of the group. You want to make sure that you're collaborating with everyone in your building or everyone that is like in your sort of rent strike group and make sure everyone's

empowered to participate if they want to be. And then along with that is making sure that you aren't pushing people too hard to do something that they're uncomfortable with. Like some people may be in really risky situations. They may not really have any safety net. So just making sure you're listening and understanding the group of people that you're working with to make sure that everyone is comfortable with the actions you're taking together. Yeah. And I think like also with everyone moving to the home, you know, people are talking about how there's like not, like we're not working. We have all this time. But like actually a lot of labor has actually just been shifted into the home. So you have people who are now maybe working from home and caring for children and cooking and

cleaning everything. Like these are things where you used to be able to like maybe go buy prepared food or you used to be able to like send your kids to school and now you're like homeschooling and figuring out if you can pay your rent. There's so many things that have been shifted to the home and so like really understanding that like maybe some people can't pay their rent but they might not be able to get on a Zoom call for an hour. So they might just only be able to check in with you for five minutes and like say like this is where I'm at. This is what I can do. And just being understanding of that. It's just a really challenging time and we just have to meet everyone where they are. So for some people participating in a rinse strike might feel kind

of therapeutic because they're standing up for themselves in this moment and that feels good for them. But for other people, it's going to be really tiring and it's going to really drain their energy. It just people are interacting with it differently and leaving room for all of those different emotions and reactions is just really crucial. Yeah, definitely. I could not agree more. Me and my wife, we have a five-year-old and an 11-year-old and they would usually be going to school during this time but they are you know staying obviously in the house with us and my wife lost her job i'm working from home and so you're absolutely right to point out how all these different things given depending on you know your family situation can really pile up and and make things incredibly

difficult you know try working from home with a with a five-year-old who feels pent up and you know it's it gets very difficult for people so understanding the individual people's needs and their different circumstances i think is absolutely crucial and all of this all of this organ if you want to be an effective organizer, it takes empathy, it takes compassion, it takes being able to talk to other human beings and respect their humanity. Nobody wants an egoist, you know, sort of asshole barking hoarders at them. That never ever works in a crisis or outside of a crisis. And if anything, I think this should definitely drive home the need to get away from what we sometimes flippantly call online leftism, where it really is about

having an identity out of politics. It's about sectarianism. It's about I'm an anarchist, you're a Marxist, or you're a Marxist, and Amatross, or whatever, and fighting over those absurd minutia, you know, this urge to turn leftism into a subculture with gatekeepers. All of that stuff really is shown to be utterly ineffective and really an obstacle to real organizing in a time like this. It really highlights the importance of that, you know? Yeah, absolutely. I think it is kind of shocking sometimes to me how frustrated people can get with people that they agree with maybe 90%. And for some reason, the last 10% is just the end of the world. And I think especially at a time like this, you're just seeing that people are radicalizing really fast. So just because, you know, even like a neighbor who has never spoken to you before or a neighbor who is just a neighbor who is just, like for some reason obsessed with Hillary Clinton, they might still want to talk to you right now about further left politics. And just because like every, all the things in our society that

as leftists, we already knew we're wrong with society, are now getting highlighted for everyone else at like an increasing speed. So just like I don't want to discount anyone because of anything they've said politically in the past at this point. Like it's kind of all up for grabs. It's sort of like the moment after the 2016 election where it was like everything was upside down. You everyone was changing their affiliations and changing what they were interested in because people were like, wow, what we were doing wasn't working. So we're sort of having like a new moment like that where there's really a lot of capacity for everyone to shift and end up in a different political sphere. So as leftists, I really think that what we should be focusing on is

making sure that they end up coming in our direction. We don't want them going the reactionary right direction. We want to invite them into this direction. And there's a lot of capacity to bring people this direction, I think. Yeah, absolutely. And I said this. in another interview recently, but it's really important. You know, when it comes to recruiting people, to bringing people over to our side, to taking away the stigma and taboo associated with labels like anarchist or communist, you know, you could argue all day online, you could scream about your ideas about the world, but the most effective thing you can do is show up when people's lives are falling apart or in a moment

of crisis, and then when people look back and say, hey, I was in a moment where I was thinking I was losing my house, I just lost my job in my health care, and it was the communist or the anarchist who showed up and had my back at that crucial time. That does more in a single day to destigmatize what we're doing on the radical left than hours spent arguing with weirdos online in your local news, Facebook comment section, you know? And so I think that's also something we should definitely keep in mind. It's not just telling people our ideas that's going to bring them over. It's showing up in their time of need and saying, we're standing right next to you when the government won't, when the fascists definitely won't. It's us who have your back. And I think that

does so much to bring people over, at least to humanize the far left, right? And make it less scary in people's eyes. Yeah, that's super true. Like showing up and just doing the work and like helping people with what they need in the moment has like such a big impact. And then also getting people involved in that action. So another thing that we really feel strongly about with the podcast is that like action itself is radicalizing. Like taking action is like the best political education. So really getting people involved in those projects and having them feel that like empowerment and autonomy and like really feeling power over their lives is that is like a feeling that radicalizes better than any book could ever do. Absolutely. Yeah. Learning through action.

I absolutely love that and I agree. So I've had people reach out to me in the past week or so basically asking about advice on how to get started, organizing, a rent strike in these conditions, but just organizing in general. Specifically, I guess we should maybe focus on tenant organizing a little bit given that you just did that episode and that's what connected our two podcasts. So what would your like 101 advice be for organizers who are new, totally new perhaps, to any sort of tenant organizing and just want some basic guidance

on how to get started? Sure. So I can say this as somebody who is new to 10 in organizing and reached out to people in my building. So this is coming directly from my experience this month. But I actually, when all of this kicked off, I put notes on all my neighbor's doors just being like, hey, I know it's getting really scary. If you don't feel comfortable leaving the apartment building, please just let me know

there's three of us in the apartment upstairs who are all very, you know, able and willing to go to the grocery store right now. and we're like more than happy to help. And through that, a couple of my neighbors reached out to me and we're like, thank you for the note. And that's how I got everyone's contact info. So it wasn't even, it was before even wrench strike stuff happened. So I think like even though now we're in a more accelerated moment,

I would still maybe recommend trying to like reach out with that, with sort of like that in mind first maybe, just because the words rink strike can be really intimidating to someone who isn't prepared for that action. And even if you want to include something about rent, maybe say something like, hey, like, I know a lot of us have lost their job, so we want to negotiate with the landlord that's still sort of talking about a rent strike, but you're not maybe sounding so bombastic or, again, just intimidating. And so like starting from that sort of place, I think is a, like trying to just think about a friendly place to start, I think is a really good thing to keep in mind. And since we are in the middle of a pandemic, usually tenant organizing would include. going door to door, but right now you just really don't want to do that because people are not

going to respond well. And it's just very unwise. So leaving flyers and notes, like reading, like handwritten notes in people's doors with your phone number, your email address, that's going to be a great place to start. And then from there, once you get some people back, like, or get some contact back from people, you want to keep things online again just because people are not going to feel comfortable gathering. So setting up a call, setting up a text loop, these are good places to start. I think another thing that comes up a lot in leftist organizing is we're like obsessed with the app signal, which no one else wants to use. I'm just going to tell you no one wants to use it. So I think in a situation like this, you really want to be careful

to stick to platforms that the other tenants are comfortable with. So Franz, who we actually interviewed for our episode, and she's also a tenant organizer and the host of Dumer v. Bloomer, another anarchist podcast. She recommended group me as a way to text a group of people easily who maybe all had different phones or different texting apps. So that's something to, like, check out. And I know that, like, as leftists, we want to keep things secure.

but right now, I think the emphasis should be on making the other tenants comfortable and asking them to immediately download a new app is just not necessarily like the greatest first move in an organizing campaign. And then, you know, scheduling check-in calls is like what I would say is next. And like since in a lot of ways, like when we made this, we were thinking of April 1st and there was like a week before April 1st, which is a really tight turnaround. But now we're kind of talking more about May 1st, but still three weeks is a very tight turnaround. So, you know, if you have a big building, maybe scheduling regular calls. So maybe like

a daily quick check-in or maybe a weekly check-in, but just like keeping things moving because right now everyone is moving a little bit slower because it's a challenging time. And do you want to make room for there to be that sort of like slow response because we're all just dealing with our lives? But so just having kind of like a regular rhythm to things rather than it being like, oh, we have to like schedule this big special call where we figure everything out. in two and a half hours, like, it's not going to be able to work that way. So, you know, having, like, a bunch of shorter calls where you're all getting to know each other and thinking about what's important to you and what works for you, I think is going to be really crucial. And then

the last kind of step after that is strategizing. So, like, researching your landlord, seeing what other buildings there are to connect with, looking at tenants unions, that might be able to support you and other ways forward, talking about whether you're all comfortable rent striking or whether you're looking at more of a discount, what your risk of eviction is in your city. Basically, once you get your building organized, depending on your situation and where you are, you're going to have like a bunch of different routes before you. And it's just going to have to be up to you and your group to sort of figure out what your next steps are. Yeah, and basically like organizing is always an experiment and even more so in this moment.

So each person's building situation is going to be totally different. and like no one has organized the Red Strike during a global pandemic before. So it's really like everyone's figuring it out as we go. So getting creative and figuring out where to go from there once you've sort of all gotten together as a group is really important. And then I'd also to say people can listen to our episode about it. There's also a transcript and a transcript translated into Spanish. And there's a few other Channel Zero Network podcasts that have done episodes about the Rent Strike. It's Going Down has a couple of episodes, The Final Straw Radio, and Crime Think has an episode, too.

Yeah, and Channel Zero Network is a anarchist podcast network that we're a member of just for folks who might not be familiar with it. Yeah, no, I love Channel Zero Network. I've done episodes with a different podcast in that collective. The very early days of Rev Left, I was thinking about trying to join it. It is an anarchist only one. And so I was like, well, I'll still support Channel Zero Network, even if I can't formally join it. So for anybody who still hasn't learned about Channel Zero Network, it's a wonderful sort of combination and collective of a lot of really principled, wonderful anarchist voices. So definitely go check them out and support them if you can.

I do want to say, though, listening to your latest episode, one of the things that stuck out to me is you're onboarding people, people are coming in, perhaps in this sort of feverish moment. and, you know, there will be some people that stand out as really wanting to get involved maybe more than the average person that you make contact with. And one of the things you recommended in that show where perhaps your guest did was giving people to, and this is good advice for organizing generally, but just giving people small, very easily achievable tasks that can get them sort of engaged in the bigger thing without putting too much on their lap, right? Absolutely.

Yeah, I think one of the ways that we think about organizing and talk about, it is that if you're an organizer, what you're doing is making it easier for other people to take action. You're kind of like creating a route for them to get involved. That's kind of, in my opinion, the basic definition of organizing. So if you're trying to like organize a rent strike and you want to make it easy for people to participate, you don't just say, well, you should really help with this. Like that's not, if that's not helpful. It's very difficult for people to use that. And I think like in the left in general sometimes you'll see people just saying things like

you should really get involved like if no one's been involved before that's a really intimidating thing to say to someone like you should just do something so things like you know saying hey it would be really cool if you and this other person like put together a list of other buildings we think our landlord

might own or it would be really great if like maybe you could be our liaison to the tenant union and see what they're working on and see if they have resources for us and you can even present, like, a couple things that would be really great and supportive and see what speaks to them, because you might find that, like, one person really likes talking to the tenant union, but someone who's more of an introvert might enjoy, you know, the research project a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah. I love that, and I just think that's just important sort of information to keep in mind broadly. I've definitely been in organizing circles, especially in the early days of organizing, where we do make that mistake is, like, you know, show up to this event or, You know, you don't really give people any concrete, achievable steps. You just say join the movement broadly or become a member of our organization. And, you know, people really respond a lot better if there's like, hey, here's a couple tiny tasks that we need done. Would you any of these jump out to you?

And then you'll start seeing sort of organic organizers come out of the people, right? You'll see a few people will actually really take it upon their shoulders and go out and do that small task and come back asking for something else. And then that's somebody that, you know, you might want to bring, further into organizing efforts more broadly, et cetera. So I think that's really important for people to keep in mind going forward, whether you're organizing in this moment or just in any time. This is an unprecedented, historic moment. Let's seize it and run with it.

The Trump administration is already cracking down in a variety of ways. The only antidote to the oncoming authoritarianism is organizing and community building. We have an opening here. Let's take it and make rent strike a reality. If you're a podcaster, writer, journalist, or any other kind of media maker, please consider covering this in the next day or two. We need all the perspectives we can get. We need the idea signal-boosted now while there's still time to organize. We need to normalize the idea of a rent-strike on every platform. Literally, no one has organized a nationwide or international rent-strike before. This is new for all

of us. No one has a magic formula for it. No one knows how it might work. We have to organize our communities and try new things. And trying new things is uncomfortable and difficult. Talking to your neighbors who you've only passed in the hall before will likely be awkward at times. J. Lucien of IWW. DSA LSC and Symbiosis Federation in Milwaukee and Varla McRat of Tenants United in Chicago wrote of their own uneasiness when entering tenant organizing for an article in Roar magazine. They wrote, quote, many of us who started the union had experience in other forms of organizing and had no illusions about how difficult building the union would be. The biggest fear, for many of us, was that people might get evicted as a result of our mistakes.

We have since come to realize that the real harm comes from not getting involved. Our experience has taught us that in cases where tenants fight back, they are significantly more likely to get better outcomes. And, crucially, to help avoid future evictions, end quote. With a pandemic in full swing and an economic depression happening, it's going to at least be uncomfortable anyway and more than uncomfortable for many of us. is the time to jump in. Also, I just want to stress that we don't know what tomorrow is going to be like. We're not encouraging any reckless behavior. The risks of a wrench strike are incredibly high, including risk of eviction. Please take this decision seriously. You know your unique situation best. But the reason we're putting this out now is that a mass wrench strike creates more safety for all of us.

They can't evict us all. To be completely transparent, for me, my landlord owns just one building. I'm in touch with my neighbors and we'll see how things progress, but it's not a given that even my building will do this April 1. Amy, the producer of this podcast, lives in the same building as her landlord and his family, which is one other tenant. So any rent strike would be a more personal conversation. I'm just offering you information that may be useful if and when the time comes for you and your building to rent strike. At the very least, we'll be waiting to pay rent until the last possible day so we can make an informed decision, and I'd encourage you to do the same. And as we organize our neighbors, let's build for the future. Again, helping out your neighbors and creating a stronger community in your building is a great goal, regardless of whether or not you strike.

Keep that long-term vision in mind as you consider this. Even though we don't know what the future holds, we do know that those stronger communities are the best way to ensure a safer world for all of us. In the podcast, it could happen here, Robert Evans said, quote, A network of human beings working together to protect one another are stronger than any bunker. They're stronger than any state. Those bonds are not just what will save us if the state collapses. They're the only thing that can carry us through to a better future. Let's go ahead and transition.

So we've talked about organizing. Again, I'll put the link to that episode and to your podcast in the show notes. People can go and learn more if they're interested in that. But I kind of want to shift and just sign a Zoom. out and talk about, you know, capitalism in this moment of crisis. So in both of your opinions, how monumental is this crisis for capitalism and the status quo? What does this crisis sort of reveal about the underlying economic and political systems of the U.S. specifically? I say let's make it a big problem. I think if we do nothing, it might not be a problem at all.

Like capitalism is very resilient. It shifts and forms itself around the issues. And I think, I think that we really have to like take this moment and take it as a time to challenge capitalism and challenge the status quo because this is, because if there was ever a moment to do it, it's now because everything is sort of in such disarray. I think we have to seize that moment and do something with it. And if we don't, it may not be a problem at all. Yeah, and I think that we're seeing the state and corporations are vulnerable in a way that they really never have been before. Like my neighbors and I who are negotiating with our landlord right now We're talking about this how like our landlord hasn't adjusted to the fact that like they don't actually have that much power right now So they're still acting like they can evict us which they literally can't for months

So they really need to like be at the bargaining table a little bit here And this is really new for New York because in New York tenants historically have not had a ton of leverage But we're seeing that like across the board that's just like one small example of these institutions that felt like they were just untouchable now just being like brought down by strikes and by lack of access to funds. And we really should make it our business to seize upon that moment and run with it. Yeah. And it really is revealing the petulance of the ruling class, both in the sense of the landlords. I mean, the reaction from the landlord class has been amusing but also very revealing. Many of these landlords, their only income comes from owning property

and bringing in rent. And we see how petulant they get in the face of tenants coming together and organizing in their own interest and sort of them not having the privileged place and the imagination of all the people that they are used to having. And then we see the petulance of the big capitalist class more broadly, which, you know, last week was really testing this idea of, forcing people to go back to work, to get out there and lay down your life for the economy. And we can see how the same capitalist who finger wave at regular people saying, you're poor because you got there, you need to save, you need to think about the future, you know, you need to be more fiscally responsible.

They can't go a week without, you know, all of labor and all of the army of consumers that we also are, you know, being involved in the economy, one week without workers. and they're ready to sacrifice millions of Americans just to get their profits ramped up and going again. And so these are moments that we can see, as you said, the sort of these ruling class people coming to terms with their own disempowerment in this moment. And we can also use it as a jumping off board

to point to regular working people in our class. See, look what they're willing to do. They're willing to kill your grandparents to get the economy started or this landlord is still trying to evict people when people aren't even allowed to be outside right now. Isn't this ridiculous? Isn't this terrible? And so it's an opportunity. But at the same time, it's an opportunity for the far right and the state as well. The state can solidify its sort of repressive powers and the eco-fascist far neo-Nazi right can take advantage of chaos as it always does. We saw a story come out recently of a neo-Nazi planning on bombing a hospital during a pandemic. So that's where the sort of fascist neo-Nazi mind is at right now. So the left, for whatever else we do, two things really stand out to me as things that we need to do to take things to a higher level and to prepare before the next crisis, which is more

organization, just broadly, and then building dual power, taking dual power seriously. We have a real opportunity here to build up some of our capacities and some of our organizing abilities and get more mass support and then to leverage that in the future against our enemies because if we don't, if we, if we, if we, if we, if we're too powerless to, to sort of go on the offensive coming up, our enemies absolutely will, you know. Yeah, absolutely. It is definitely a time to be getting, getting ourselves together, getting organized. And I think it's like, it's revealing so many things that like we already knew as leftists.

It's just like revealing them newly to everyone. And so in like ways that how, how else could we have demonstrated how much this, how awful the state is and capitalists are than like this crisis. And so, yeah, I think it's like it is a lot of people are realizing these things that the left has known for a really long time. And so now is the moment to like really pull those people in, welcome them in, say yes, like let's challenge the status quo. Yeah. And it really highlights for me also just the need to get organized before a crisis hits, right? Like there is levels of organization among the left on this continent for sure. But, you know, we could always be more organized. We could always be more prepared.

And here's a situation where, you know, if we had more dual power, if we had more organization, we might be able to do even more for our class. And if this is a dress rehearsal for more crises to come, especially the crises surrounding climate change, it's a learning moment for us at the very least to see what we have to do before the next crisis hits so that we can be ready to jump into action. So it's an interesting time for sure. I just want to note that like with organizing before the crisis, absolutely, we want to always be bringing more people in. But I think also we have to just be ready for these big influxes around these crisis, like around a crisis.

So, you know, we see this a lot where there will be a moment where tons of people are ready to get involved. And there'll be a small group of people that are already organized that sort of help get that started. I think like an example of that might be Occupy where you did have some people that were planning and trying to. to get things started and you had people who were food not bombs that were ready to run kitchens. But then you also had all these people that came in and participated really fully in the moment, even though they hadn't organized before it. So I think like no matter how much we get organized now in this moment, no matter how much we get organized before the next crisis, I think we should always be remembering that there will be these sort of like boom cycles

where we just get a huge wave of people. There will always be that need. to onboard during these moments of crisis, no matter how much on, like, no matter how much organizing or onboarding we do beforehand, it's just sort of the nature of social movements. And also, like, no one could have anticipated, like, if three months ago you said that there would be a global movement to do a rent strike, I would have laughed in your face. You know, it's like we can't, like, having, being prepared and, like, building up power is obviously the long-term goal. Like, we need mass movements to challenge the system. that we have right now, and at the same time, I think it's really important to be present and be

doing the things that people need now and organizing the people that are being activated in each moment, in each of these big moments. Totally. Yeah, it reminds me, I think that's a great point, and it really reminds me of right after the Trump election, we had organizations on the ground, spearheading protest movements and stuff like that. And in the early heady days of the Trump presidency, when a lot of people were scared and active, we would fill. up these public library conference rooms, I mean, wall to wall with people that we've never seen in any leftist circle. I mean, people all across the demographic spectrum wanting to get involved. And we were sort of young and naive in our own way. You know, we hadn't learned all the

lessons yet. And we didn't really know how to take all this big energy in this moment of crisis for a lot of people and, you know, push it in a direction that we want, get everybody involved in the exact ways that they wanted to. It's very, very difficult. So I very much take your point of Yes, organization before crisis is essential, but also realizing that a lot of people will get involved in a moment of crisis because they're spurred to do that and then being ready to onboard those people and get them involved, even if it's just for the duration of the crisis, right? If the crisis goes away, a lot of these people, you know, they, assuming the economic crisis goes away as well, they'll go back to their regular lives. And that's okay. And we should not see that as a loss, but sort of as you said, an inevitable sort of bust and boom cycle of organizing. itself, which is important. And just having realistic expectations and understanding how these

things work can hedge against feeling like you've failed in a moment, like after those assemblies when, you know, people stopped showing up. You know, we were kind of hard on ourselves. You know, what do we do wrong? And sometimes there's nothing you can do right or wrong. It's just the nature of the event itself, right? Absolutely. And it's funny because a few months ago, I felt actually kind of like maybe we had made rebel steps too late. Like I was like, all those people after 2016, they went away. And we made the podcast in 2018. And like maybe if they'd had it sooner, it would have been more helpful. And then I remember after the Iowa primary fiasco, just thinking like, oh, wait, no, of course, there's going to be another round of people.

No, it's not like it's, the crisis is over just because 2016 ended. And so I was like, okay yeah like the podcast can still have a life people are still going to want to use it and i think another thing with like having realistic goals and i like i also sort of experienced that that feeling of sadness when you started to see some of the numbers drop off after the like shock of the 2016 election wore off in a lot of circles um remembering that like you never know like what seeds you're planting in in people so people who came to a few meetings in 2016 they might be more prepared for the crisis now than they would have been without going to those couple meetings. They might be more primed to be receptive to a rent strike. They might be more interested in building an organization

in their neighborhood because they have the resources of like a free book that someone gave them at an assembly. You really don't know where those are going and so I think that's also, you know, I know we'll get to anarchism later, but we kind of have to realize that just because someone isn't participating in like your organization or your group for like five years straight doesn't mean they're not participating they might have just taken the tools that you gave them and applied it somewhere else and you're never going to know that if they did or didn't but you just have to know that for some people it just might have been that they have different priorities at that moment they have different organizing they need to do and that's just sort of the nature of how how these

things work yeah well said absolutely so um what are like in your opinions what is is like the realistic, right? Because we can think of best and worst case scenarios and sort of a vacuum and go to the extremes, but like sort of plausibly and realistically. What are the best and worst case scenarios for our society post crisis? What are the good and bad things that could happen coming out of a crisis this big and this monumental? I think even realistically, clearly the worst case scenario is just fascism. We've already seen the far right like taking advantage of this moment, where, like, you see things like in Hungary, the Hungarian parliament giving their leader the power to rule by decree, like, because of, you know, inciting

coronavirus as the reason for that. Our newest episode is on community self-defense and anti-fascism, so we really feel like anti-fascist organizing is, like, now pressing, extremely pressing right now in this moment because of the possibility for that far-right swing. you mentioned earlier like pen like eco-fascism i think that there's like you know you see people like people who would describe themselves as sort of like liberal-ish leftist-ish maybe being like oh humans are the virus like look at the dolphins and like i'm like that like you're those those are eco-fascist sort of like things to be thinking and saying and so being really

conscious of like you know if you see your friends saying that like being like oh hey like don't go that way like you know you don't have good bed fill in that direction. So I think, like, yeah, definitely the worst case scenario is just sort of like a swing into fascism kind of across the globe. And then in the more hopeful direction, the best case scenarios, I think I would be like steps towards a more revolutionary future. You know, I still don't see us having some like glorious revolution right now.

I don't think that we're, even with all the things going on, I don't see us in a place where it would be like a full. overthrow of any government. I could be proven wrong tomorrow or next week, but that's from where I'm sitting. It doesn't seem like where we are. But I think that there are a bunch of steps that we could take in the right direction that would really help move things in a better direction for people. So a renewed health care system that would have Medicare for all just like as an absolute minimum, but also like democratizing it and making sure that there's like worker control and patient control of some of the infrastructure. Housing is a human right. So rent strikes are

definitely a step in that direction. I think, you know, people are realizing that evicting people during a pandemic is inhumane. So maybe we can push that to be like evicting people is inhumane, just period. And really pushing for that to become something that everyone just understands intuitively. I think also viewing internet as a public service, I think now we see how important it is to be connected this way. And so making it like not for profit, making it something that is accessible to everyone, I think would be a great step in that direction as well. And then like democratizing the businesses we're dependent on. So we've heard people saying like, oh, Amazon is keeping the country together. So maybe it should belong to the workers and to the users. It's clear that

there's a need for a lot of people to have their medicine, their food, their needs delivered to them, and especially during a pandemic, but also just in general. So that's something that we need to take out of the hands of Jeff Bezos and give it to the people that are dependent on it, both for their livelihood, but also for these things to be delivered. And then also just like unions for everyone, you know, we're seeing that grocery workers are being put in a really challenging position right now, and they're not really being given any protections. And they also like have a lot of power right now. So coming out of this with like really strong unions for everyone that's really, I think that would be like a really strong step. And it's something that we have

the capacity to do right now that maybe has never really been possible in a wide ranging way before. And I think that like, you know, we're going to have a new wave of politically active people who where their eyes are really open to the fact that people and authority don't have their best interests at heart. And so all of these things, I think, have the capacity to kind of grow from the workers themselves in these industries and from the people that are fearing for eviction. There's really a space for a ground-up movement on all of these fronts. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with all of that. You know, to your point about revolution, I agree, it's just not there yet. obviously I don't think we have the power and the numbers in the organization to do anything

like that in this moment. But, you know, that's okay because I look back over like, you know, my life, just I'm 31 years old. So looking back over my life in the U.S., I've seen, and I sort of think about the left in this sense of like growing through these moments that we've had to live through. And we, I think it, you know, you could think about it as sort of starting for the modern, this century at least, with the Seattle riots in 1999. Then we had the Iraq War and the anti-Iraq War movement. We had the Great Recession and the Occupy movement that flew up after that. We've had Black Lives Matter. We've had Standing Rock. We've had Antifa. We've had a bunch of different movements in this country of the left going through these historical periods and coming

out the other end a little bit more organized, a little bit more mature, a little bit more educated on how things actually work. And then we take those lessons into the next moment, the next crisis. And so I very much see this as an important. step along the way as the left in this country broadly conceived, sort of gets its shit together. It's stumbling to its feet after, you know, half a century of Cold War propaganda and 40 years of Reaganism. It's going to take some time for us to build up our capacities. But in every sort of crisis that we've been met with so far, I think you see the left getting sharper and sharper. And so that process, I think, will continue. And then to my second point, which

you, which I think you alluded to, is this idea that in lieu of revolution, there are still utterly essential reforms that not only we can push for, but that the radical left has always undergirded. You can think about the New Deal and FDR's reaction to the Great Depression. That didn't come out of just the goodness of FDR's heart. FDR was pummeled on every side by these social movements, these labor movements, radical revolutionary movements, pushing him in this direction because the alternative was a full-on sort of revolutionary attack. And so the system made these monumental reforms that made a difference in people's lives sort of in the face of a threat of an increasingly organized and rambunctious left, you know, even if it wasn't as organized as we'd like it to be. So radicals have always been on the forefront of pushing these really world historical or really essential reforms.

And there's no reason that that should stop. And all the reforms that you mentioned are things we can absolutely push for. And people, regular people who might not be super political, have had their sort of perspective. shifted a little bit that would make arguing for higher living wages, for Medicare for all, for unions for every worker, much more agreeable than it was even a month ago. It's sort of crazy how fast time has flown by. But on both of those fronts, just as a better left overall happening, and then as leading those struggles for basic reforms that lead to real differences in people's lives, I think that's the best case scenario sort of coming out of this crisis. Yeah, and I think

The stakes are also like incredibly high because if we don't take on those fights and those challenges of making this crisis take us to a better place for workers, we will see a extreme push from the right. I just think it's like it's just never been clear that the right is going to take this for all its worth and take us as close to fascism as possible. and it's going to be really hard to fight back on that unless we have a really clear alternative to offer and also a really inviting alternative to offer. You know, I think like just making it clear that for these things to happen, we need the people on the front lines to participate in it

however they want to, however they can, make sure that their voices are heard. So also like not bringing our program and being like, this is what you really ought to be doing right now, but just really like supporting those people in their struggles to democratize their workplace, get unions in their workplace, protect themselves. I think it's going to be really crucial to like stopping this push that we're already seeing around the world. Yeah. Yeah, well said. Totally. And, you know, just mentioning really quick the far right,

they have an advantage of like, they have the sort of extra state or, you know, outside of the government, far right neo-Nazi, fascist movement. But they also have an overlapping Venn diagram with, you know, with real far-right Cretans in positions of power in the Republican Party. So you can operate outside the state and inside the state. You know, a lot of these Republicans already are sort of crypto-fascist and just pushing further and further in that direction. We also know that the capitalist class or at least big chunks of it side with the reactionary far-right in times of crisis

when their power and their wealth and their control over the system is threatened. Whereas the left, you know, the Democratic Party, maybe there's a couple politicians that are pretty progressive. but we don't have the overlapping sort of institutional support that the far right has. And so that's a challenge, but it's something that we have to be clear-eyed about, and so we can fight that fight more effectively. So just some of those little differences there that we should keep in mind. But I want to touch before we go into the conclusion on anarchism,

I just like to sort of hear how people are inspired, and I like to think about people's political development. I think a lot of younger folks coming up, people that are new to the left. They still have a lot of questions and they're still debating like, you know, Marxism or anarchism or whatever. And so sometimes it just helps to humanize that process to ask people sort of how they came to embrace whatever they've embraced on the far left. So how did each of you come to embrace anarchism and what vision of the future can anarchism offer that you find uniquely inspiring? Yeah. So I like a lot of people sort of was radicalized

by the 2016 election, sort of like leading up to that election over the summer. I sort of went to a few protests for like literally the first time and was, it was, I found it sort of scary and intimidating and exciting. And I sort of started to feel like, okay, something's like really wrong and I'm a very action-oriented person sort of naturally. So I was like, okay, what can I do about it? So I started sort of like looking for things that I could do, starting with some stuff like just like volunteering at a soup kitchen or like trying to like get involved in like local politics like in New York there's these things that are like community boards so I like sort of looked into like oh can I help with that and sort of just

like at every turn I felt like I was sort of blocked at to actually do anything it was sort of a like oh welcome wait around for something to happen and so I eventually ended up at Mack the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council and it was the first place where I arrived and could immediately start doing things that felt like really impactful and really important so that like just really I was like oh great okay cool this is what I've been looking for someplace where I can actually start to sort of like influence the world around me to be what it should be and like to help people have the world that they that they deserve so then I also um me and Liz actually went down to J20 together and we were down there so that was also like a very radicalizing experience and sort of after that

we just continued to organize with Mack, and that's how we became anarchists, I guess. Yeah, definitely how we started organizing with anarchists. You know, we grew up in a very conservative background, and we grew up in a Christian home. And for me, like, I actually kind of look back on that as sort of formative to my politics now, because it's this thing where it's like, oh, yeah, if you actually read the Bible, there's a lot of stuff in there that's a lot more leftists than it is conservative. So that's like sort of where I would like, I would kind of mark almost like the beginning of my political development as sort of really trying to like think through these issues of like, okay, what does it mean to actually like be a good person or like make the

world a better place or something? But that was a long time ago. But sort of in the more to come back to the to the present of why anarchism sort of spoke to me after 2016. But then like now with making the podcast is, um, as Amy said, I think. individuals can just sort of like jump in and get involved and there's like an emphasis on that in anarchism that I think is really important like you don't have to be part of a party or a movement or a particular ideology you can just sort of jump in where you are and start taking action and that's seen as valuable and necessary and that's like a line of thought within anarchism that's been really empowering to me and it's part of the ethos of the podcast also I think like another part

of why anarchism is important to me is the podcaster Robert Evans sometimes says, you know, maybe leaders were a bad idea. And I sort of see, like, if you look at history, like strong centralization and strong leaders have just not always worked out super great. And it's something that I'm always a little wary of. And, you know, I think that societies really need to be, like, rooted in direct democracy and community control. And that looks like labor unions sometimes and tenants unions and things like this. And then, like, lastly, to, like, get to a society that isn't controlled by, like, strong centralization and strong leaders, you kind of need to build a movement towards that. That is also brimming with democracy. So we had to build a movement of individuals who are empowered to act and

who also feel like they have a say in things. Like, if you show up at an organization and you're told, well, you're just a volunteer and you don't get to have a say in it, like, that's going to be very disempowering. That's going to be very disfustrating. And so I think, like, building organizations where people feel like it's normal for them to be heard and to make a decision as a group, I think is really crucial. And then, you know, I do call myself an anarchist. I'd say I'm probably kind of an anarcho-communist, but I'm also not a particularly sectarian anarchist.

Like, as you noted, the podcast is pretty open to, you know, encouraging other people to participate. And I think everything I just mentioned, like, anarchism doesn't, like, own at all. Like, you'll find overlap in, like, council comments. communism or municipalism. Definitely get a lot from anarcho-sindicalism. It sounds a lot like libertarian socialism. But I do call myself an anarchist just because the emphasis of anarchism is against the centralization and the emphasis towards community control. And that's like the emphasis that's important to me. Yeah. And just to add a little bit to that, I think that there's just a real power in hearing everyone's voice and having people make their own decisions about their

own lives and the world around them, that having like kind of gathering the collective wisdom of the people that are in the world and including everyone is really important to me. And I feel like that's that sort of direct democracy is part of anarchism. Absolutely. Yeah. And coming from the more Leninist and Maoist side of things, I totally agree with this deemphasizing of the tyranny of minor differences and working together with good people, with good hearts, trying their best to do good in the world. That's what really gets us all radicalize and that's what pushes us in this general direction. Maybe some of us go off in one path, others go off in another. Somebody hands you a book. You have a mentor that has this or that tendency that really shapes your outlook. You know,

these things are sort of really contingent on other variables in our lives. And so I've never understood the impulse to hate others on the left or to, you know, really focus on the tiny amount of areas that we disagree on to the exclusion of the enormous amount that we do agree on. And so I think your show and ours shares that same sort of approach, but from two different sides, and that's beautiful. So let's go ahead and zoom in towards the conclusion here. And one question before we end is, you know, there are many people who, for various and complicated reasons, are unable to organize in this moment.

What are some ways that people can help outside of direct organizing? and are there any organizations that either of you would like to plug for those who may be financially stable and looking to support on the ground organizing? Yeah, so I think, like, as far as things that you can do to help out, like, one thing is, like, we talked about at the beginning, like, take care of yourself, like, it's a long road. And, like, if you can't in this moment get involved in a big project or you just because you're taking care of children or you're having a hard time just handling the situation, which is totally understandable, like give yourself that time.

this is a long-term crisis. It's a long-term movement. It's a long-term thing. So we just need to all be making sure that we take care of ourselves. The other thing is that, like, it doesn't have to be a huge rent strike in a giant building that you organize, right? Like mutual aid can be big or small. It doesn't need to be done through a big organization. You can reach out to one neighbor. You can reach out to your friends. Just see how they're doing. See if they need medicine or groceries. Anything sort of small is still really great. You can also just give your friends money. It doesn't have to be organized or like through an organization. Like if you're in a position where you can help out the people around you in any small way, like that's a really great thing to do. So just ask the people around

you what they need and it doesn't have to be like a giant project. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean like lots of service workers have lost their jobs. There's lots of people who for whatever reason can't really apply for regular unemployment. And if you know of those people in your life, or think you might know those people. Just, you know, there's something wrong with just offering to buy them groceries. Even if they're not at their last dollar, you can just be like, hey, I can help you out. And that can be a really great gesture for people who are in a tough situation. Also, they just know they're not alone.

And then as far as organizations, though, I just want to plug Bedstay Strong. We both live in Bedstay, and I have some friends that are involved in it. And I know that they actually do need some funds right now. So if you want to, like, give specifically to New York, that's one you could check out. And then it's going down the website. They have, like, a really long list of other organizations around the country that you could look at if you wanted to donate to one in your area. Most of the mutual aid funds are accepting, like, just cash donations because, like, some of the people that need grocery deliveries can't actually afford the groceries. It's just, like, an example of what's going on.

So just like check out that list and see if there's something that speaks to you. A lot of them just are accepting like Venmo and cash app donations. So it's it's very easy to donate. Another thing you could look at is bail funds across the country. So like those situation in prisons right now is always horrific. It's extra horrific right now. So I know that a lot of bail funds that have always been around are trying to get people out right now around this crisis. So in New York there's the Brooklyn Community Bail Fund and there's the Bronx Freedom Fund.

so either one of those I know are looking for donations, but there's bail funds across the whole country, so you can always look for one in your area. Wonderful. Well, Amy and Liz, thank you so much for coming on. It was an absolute honor to be able to have this conversation with you. Hopefully we can collaborate in the future again. I really love what you're doing with Rebel Steps. Keep up the amazing work.

Before I let you go, can you let listeners know where they can find you and your show online? Absolutely. You can find it on Rebel Steps.com or I think literally wherever you get your podcast, you can find it on iTunes, Spotify, and a whole number of other apps. We also have a Patreon, which we were able to buy a microphone with our Patreon funds because we have to record it home now. So we're really grateful to everyone that helped out with that. And then we're also on Twitter and Facebook. We're on Twitter a lot more, though maybe not good for my mental health, but I am on Twitter a lot. And then just again, just to plug the Channel Zero network, you know, we participate

in the Channel Zero network. You know, we're on their dream, and you can find a lot more anarchist content at channel zero network.com. All right. I will plug as much of that in the show notes as possible. Thank you again so much. And honestly, keep up the great work. It was a pleasure to talk to both of you. Thanks so much, Brett.

Yeah, thanks for having us. So on the notion of a free man to walk the land. Red, white, blue, red, the veil, sleight of hand. Good and stuff. sell a song so we sold this violin and bought a canvas to pin this final scene with access violin Clear

We'll ask us how to human progress even human boss man won't even let us form the union Musifference is used to sign your life away D-E-N-D-A Fallen chain to a market

slash pet entry The ATM is the only thing acknowledging your identity Your next door name is technically Your enemy I contacts a felony I can't see America

I can't see it I can't see America I can't see it I can't see America I'm going to switch is turn off I'm dying in the dark help me I can't see it

I can see America I can't see it I can't see America light switches ripped out of the wall dying in the dark no man Thank you.

Thank you. I don't know. I can't believe America I can't believe it I can't believe America I can't believe in America the smoke on the mirror is a slide I can't breathe America

I can't breathe it I can't breathe America I can't breathe it I can't breathe America you're receiving it The nation The nation I don't know.