Speaker 1 0:00

You might want to, uh, um, comfort comrade Doggo in the background there. Yeah, that's my dog in the background. She's very mad that I'm shutting her out so I can talk to people in the hall.

Speaker 2 1:04

Hello friends, calm rights. Random listeners. Welcome to another episode of North Bay. I am one of your hosts communal sauce

Speaker 1 1:13

and I'm the other host type areas. Krokus

Speaker 2 1:16

and host Aaron is not available right now. He is on his way to some far flung exotic location. I don't think it's anything that we said, but if he'd never comes back it might've been. And we are joined today by a Roxy from Florida. Roxy, if you'd like to go ahead and introduce yourself.

Speaker 1 1:37

Hi. Um, my name's Roxanne Palmer, but comrades can call me Roxy. Um, I'm with the central Florida Dsa, which is based in Gainesville, but we claim a lot of other counties around us. I'm Electra Omarion, other sorts of things, both University of Florida territory and horse farm country. And I'm at redrawn oxygen on Twitter.

Speaker 2 2:01

I was a Florida resident for seven, seven years or so, and the, the panhandle area. And that is some interesting organizing turf. I'm, I'm sure.

Speaker 1 2:14

Yeah. It's, um, I mean, I mean obviously in a very sort of liberal progressive area being in college town, but you know, you only have to go, you know, drive 10, 15 minutes before you're starting to see lots and lots of Trump signs and, you know, antiabortion billboards and things like that. And you know, it's, and there's still a fair amount of, there's this, it is still organizing in south, which has its own sort of culture and considerations and everything. Um, even other other stuff that might seem weird to other leftists from other parts of the country, like, like here, um, guns are a very different sort of issue. We have, um, uh, a great group in town called pink pistols. It's about Lgbtq Self-defence. And, um, I know that doesn't jive with the lot of people, but you know, it's just, uh, it's just where we are.

Speaker 2 3:04

And presumably also you have a redneck revolt around there as well.

Speaker 1 3:09

I haven't talked to anyone from there, but I know they're super active in Georgia and Georgia has a very active, several very active DSA chapter is both Metro Atlanta and uh, GEDs to Nick Nick ads in northeast Georgia at DSA and they're awesome.

Speaker 3 3:27

Yeah. Long time, uh, followers of ours, you know, all three of them that they should know that we are very pro self defense, especially for the working class. It's something that we think is very important that needs to be centered in a lot of the more oppressed and minority groups. And I think that actually gets us really nicely into what we're actually talking about today, which is anti fascist organizing and specifically the reaction to Richard Spencer coming down to a University of Florida.

Speaker 1 4:01

Yeah, I mean it was, so we found out originally that he was applying to speak at the University of Florida and September and that was less, we found out he was applying to speak in September, very shortly after the Charlottesville, you know, tragedy and debacle a happened and people immediately started coming together, both student, some student groups and um, leftist groups in town. Gainesville has a small but powerful leftist scene. We've got an IWW. Uh, we've got salt. Is that the DSA we've got. Why Dsa at the University of Florida? Um, Nwl uh, I'm probably leaving out some great groups. They're women's March has actually been like amazing. They were amazing and organizing no Nazis at f. Um, but yeah, it's, you know, as with almost any sort of anti fascist organizing, there's going to be a sizeable contingent of the population where their first sort of instinct is to tell you, well, you know, maybe if we just ignore him, he'll go away. Like he wants media attention, so let's not give it to him.

Speaker 2 5:05

And I think as we've shown, or at least as we've seen, that is not working. I know everybody listening is aware of that, but I have to say it every time that ignoring it is not valid tactic.

Speaker 1 5:17

Yeah. I mean it's, Spencer already gets glowing media profiles written about him. People find people find him interesting. Eh, I mean, reporters find them interesting. You know, mother Jones wrote about the dapper white nationalists or whatever. He is going to get his media attention no matter how big his crowd is. Um, it's just, it's up to us to sort of shape what that media attention is. Um, so I can, I can get more into it, but I think, you know, everyone in Gainesville feels immensely proud of how that went down because if we hadn't showed up and counter protested outside and inside the venue, it would have been all the news articles would have been about Spencer's ideas. Instead it was community comes together and is rude to a shithead Nazi, which that's always a, that's a fantastic headline. Every that should happen every time. Yeah. I mean it's, it's also these guys are, they are scary. They are intimidating. Obviously they've been responsible for deaths and injuries and you know, cling to a very violent ideology, but they're still at that point I think where if enough people just to show up and say, Hey, fuck you. He will be intimidated. I mean, we saw it just this weekend and uh, Shelbyville and Murfreesboro enough people showed up to counter these white lives matter guys that like they, I mean they're obviously still posing a threat. There's still threatening violence, but if people just stay home, that's just going to embolden them. I understand. I, I heard from a lot of people including like friends and neighbors that were, that were scared to come out and protest and I, I totally agree. It is scary. You don't know quite what's going to happen. What I, what I didn't like was local officials including the U F president, President Fox, you know, kind of spinning inaction into this grand strategy. Like, oh, we're going to beat him at his own game by sticking our heads in the sand. I don't know where that idea comes from because it's a historical and it's, it's also, it's, it's coming from a place of fear there. The, the atmosphere in Gainesville, the week before Richard Spencer came was utterly rife with tension. And you know, I, I would say even near hysteria, I work in a coffee shop. So literally everyone that was coming in was going bonkers. And our elected officials contributed in our university administration contributed to that air, not in the least, but basically encouraging an incredibly overbearing Marshall presence by the state. Um, $600,000 in a security national guard. You had policemen in Weird Khaki uniforms patrolling campus the day before and people thought they were the area in brotherhood and freaking out. Well, yeah, same thing, but cops and clan. Yeah. It was just, it was ludicrous. And um, and I mean, so much of it is even security theater, it's, it's unequally enforced on the day of the protest. Some people were allowed in with prohibited items and some were not. So again, it's, it's, it's not even just a overbearing. It's, it's like, what does it even buying you

Speaker 2 8:36

to jump back just a moment to the huge amount that you've spent on security and safety. I say in utmost sarcasm,

Speaker 1 8:49

inverted commas, inverted commas. How much has uff sought to increase next year?

Speaker 2 8:56

How little of a living wage are they paying their adjuncts and lecturers because they claimed there is not enough money?

Speaker 1 9:03

I can't, I can't give you exact figures, but there is the interesting fact in that they were not paying their temporary like a, are there like custodial staff? A half $1 million for time they miss due to a hurricane, which is almost exactly $500,000 to six versus $600,000. Um, the adjunct faculty at Usf do have a union. I believe that we have graduate assistants, United and United Faculty of Florida, but it's, it's still, there's still a lot of, like, they're, they're trying to get a better health plan and meanwhile, President Fox is like spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to renovate his, his, you know, the president students. Um, and uh, they're, they're spending, they're spending a lot of money on like theater, like shrubbery and like literally like, I am not joking. They were spending, uh Huh. Like tens of thousand dollars on shrubbery. Um, well, a graduate assistant dense and adjunct faculty are trying to get a healthcare plan that actually covers them.

Speaker 2 10:13

It's, it's kind of sickening.

Speaker 1 10:17

Yeah. And I mean, it's the WHO, who cares about treasury, who cares? How nice present Fox's swimming pool is. Yeah. Well I, I at some point I want to see what that swimming pool looks like cause I can see what a couple hundred thousand dollars by US

Speaker 2 10:32

maybe go in and redistribute the swimming pool to all of the graduate assistants and adjuncts.

Speaker 1 10:38

I keep, I keep saying there should be like a flash mob pool party at President Fox's house.

Speaker 3 10:45

That would actually be pretty fun. I actually do want to roll back a little bit and then uh, I sort of touched on, you know, they'll the liberal lack of response. We've been seeing it a lot and um, in the Waco or just before Charlottesville, we had Tina Fey going on SNL and saying everybody should just go home and eat sheet cake cause that's, that's going to solve the problem. And you know, the, I think a really big issue with this is that the, the sort of like liberal conception of liberal principles is that everybody has a right to free speech and everybody has a right to a platform depending on how, uh, you know, which liberals you're talking about. But obviously this only really applies to the kind of people that they are outta kind of fundamental level. Okay. With, you know, um, people like Richard Spencer, while they are scary for a lot of people, while they do advocate for some really horrendous things that they don't actually want to fundamentally change the systems that govern society, they just want them to be a much more extreme than they are now. Whereas people like us, the things that we are talking about is, is fundamental changes within society and therefore we get a lot less of these kinds of rhetorical protections. Then they would, you know, when Antifa goes out and shuts down a fascist rally, people get mad at us for shutting down a fascist free speech when it's really the fascist who are, are trying to rally support for a society that would see us murdered that old, uh, liberals hate leftists more than fascists. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 12:40

I really hate rudeness of all. Like, uh, you, you see that all the time. It's like, you know, any, any idea is fine and as long as you aren't rude. And I, I think I'm personally a little, a little more, um, of free speech fen then possibly a lot of the left side of DSA. But, but I totally like, it's, it's like, I think the concept of free speech is liberal. See, it is not really all that free speech because Richard Spencer having a platform doesn't mean that if his views aren't so fucking reprehensible that people have to sit and listen to him. You know, we were, I think free speech covers being brewed to Nazis. Like, cause, um, I, you know, I was in there with the Phillips Center when people were like shouting over him and it's, you know, and people talk about heckler's veto and all that. But, you know, my understanding of Heckler's veto, it's, it's not that, it's not that the supreme court ruled that you can't be heckled. It's that they can't deny you your platform, uh, based on fear of heckling or like fear of violence. I mean, once, once you've got it, like the audience has the right to use that voice, like protesters protest and protestors, that's, you know, people using free speech. Um, it's just that the state really devalues our free speech, more Burnet valleys. It, the state values are a free speech, much less than Richard Spencer's. Um, we didn't have, we weren't allowed to bring water to the protests like we went out. We went without water for close to five, six hours. Um, we didn't have bathrooms. Um, Richard Spencer got a police escort. I mean, who's, who's, who's really suppressing free speech.

Speaker 3 14:36

It's surprising for a lot of people, but it really shouldn't be when you're looking at the history, because a lot of the history of the United States is specifically about, you know, building institutions in power structures that specifically weaken the, the quote unquote mob, the voice of the mob, the voice of the people. Because I can't remember who said it, but, um, if you, if you allow the average person to have real democracy, they would eventually vote away the privileges of the few. And that's absolutely true. And that that's why you see people decrying quote unquote mob justice, that that's why you see people saying, oh no, don't touch Richard Spencer because you have to let him talk. And these, uh, radical antifa terrorists, you have to, you have to do something about them. Uh, so if you could actually talk about the, what happened the day of, and I kind of want to focus specifically on the crowd reaction there in the hall with Spencer. And there was one anecdote I heard about a guy who, uh, basically turned to the crowd and said, is this, is this not our community? Are we not members of this community and are we not here to decry Richard Spencer and to tell him to go the fuck home?

Speaker 4 16:01

Yeah. Um, so just, uh, even before the day of the pro, a bunch of leftist groups we're organizing in the no Nazis that you have commissioned. So we had been meeting once in a while to like sort of plan, but it was hard because we had so little information about, you know, what the security matters we're going to be like inside the protest. So there was, so in the morning of the 19th, there was a lot of, um, you know, uh, unknowns. So if anybody's been involved in an action, they'll probably know a lot of the frustrations we went through. Cause it was like trying to find, we found like sort of a good rally. We had a good rallying point. Um, women's march came and set up a tent with like a bottle of water, a sign making stuff. All various groups were trying to get people to fill out jail support forms and you know, keep track of that. But I'm, I'd be shocked if like 10% of the people there had done Jill support. So I mean, on the morning of a women's march in National Women's liberation was organizing shuttles to like get people to that. It was a grocery store parking lot, um, were where we were meeting. And um, I outside of the prohibited zone where we wouldn't be able to bring in things like backpacks, water bottles, um, highlighters and things like that. So there's a lot of little logistical things of like, you know, Oh, I'm going in with a granola bar and chapstick in my pocket and my id and my back pocket and assign and not much else. Um, and I mean, it was, it was a really tense, weird mood, um, because you never, you never quite know what's gonna happen, especially since sticky tickets to the event had still not been out because usually that stuff is done through the venues box office, but you know, and we thought that that would be done long before the event. So they were plans to get all the tickets and like give them away or just give them to activists. Um, but you f changed that and get instead gave it over to Spencer's people to sort of handle ticketing. Um, so we weren't quite sure if they were going to be like checking ids are taking names or how that was going to work. So again, it was, it was really, and that was going to affect, you know, plans for who goes inside, what do you do once you go inside. And then of course the other big, you know, question is what are the police gonna do? They've spent $600,000 on this. We know they can make recoup that by like mass arresting a lot of people. So there was there, I mean, I started out that morning kind of fatalistically thinking that a lot of us, we're probably going to get arrested just so the state could recoup its money, but you know, that that didn't happen. We went in, there was, you know, a lot of, you know, the usual protest stuff of walking around chanting, you know, trying to, you know, keep it, keep each other's spirits up. Um, when we, when we finally like heard that the tickets are being given away, it was, um, you know, a bunch of Nazis, weeds with the from identity Europa, um, with the white shirts and the little triangle pins and sunglasses, um, that were just sort of checking people. And um, it was, it was kind of, it was kind of weird. They were like racially profiling some people and they let you know, but they didn't, I was surprised. They let it in a fair number of people of color. Um, and they were turning some people away. They're turning people away that had kind of obvious political slogans on their tee shirts. I had a friend that had a PSL shirt on and you know, they turned him away instantly. Um, once we got in a, and so I got in, um, I got inside, um, and they were metal detectors. Um, again, it was very tense. It was the Phillips Center where this talk was being held, can hold, I think about a thousand people, but it was, it was not even like half full. And so you saw the fash sitting in a, you know, a couple of dozen fresh sitting up front. And it was a weird, it was, it was a mixture of, you know, kind of identity Europa white shirts and dweeby a couple dweeby old right. Kids sprinkled out throughout there and like, uh, kind of bikery white nationalists. And before anybody came up on stage to speak, there was some announcements about people reserving or the them reserving the right to like remove people that caused a disturbance. So again, not quite sure what's going to happen if people start saying anything. And of course there were tons of police everywhere, like police and huge like bulky body armor, you know, up top around on the sides and lot and lots of media. Once the first guy started speaking, there was like occasional heckling. Um, I think that was Nathan Demicco or I dunno who fucking cares. But, and then like the second guy, like the guy right before Spencer and like more people are heckling. Finally when Spencer came on, first one person and then another and everyone just, just started yelling. And as soon as like, people saw that if you yelled, it wasn't like the cops immediately like fell on you and hustled you off. More and more people started standing up and shouting and like very quickly he was just completely drowned out. And it was really beautiful. Yeah, it was, it was, it was a sight to see. And He, there's probably, there's some videos cause I mean he obviously was Mike, so there's some videos with his audio boosted, but if you were in that auditorium, he, he did not get basically any words out. Um, and um, yeah, it was, there were people, uh, and again I was just really struck by what a Dorky is. He called, he when people did the gators chance of like orange and blue, orange and blue and like, let's go gators. Uh, he, he made snide comments about sports bowl. Um, he also did a really dweeby dance. Um, yeah, it's, it's very giftable if you can find it. And yeah, someone did make a point about community and he got really, he got really fired up about, about community and I actually later heard the audio about that. And um, he's, to him, the idea of either university as a community is, is false. I think he's just basically not had friendships that were based around hate I guess. Um, and for him has his concept of the university seems to be, I don't know, really weird and sterile. I remember that there was a, there was a question or that said something about like, why are you coming into my community? Like, and, and he's, he said something like, your community, like this isn't a community. And I was struck by that too. Cause it's like just the idea that a community that people would sort of take ownership of that to some degree. I think that these guys and their liberal counterparts kind of see the stage and po like public life and the world as debate club. And like politics is debate club. You, you put forward your points and someone counters and you have a conversation. But that's not how life is. Life is, life is a, life is more about struggles of power. And it's, it's not, uh, it's not debate club. It's not, you know, the West Wing.

Speaker 3 23:46

Could you talk a little bit more about the, uh, the person who stood up and asked the questions about community and kind of what they asked and, and how that was received?

Speaker 4 23:58

So there was, there was a man who came, who's asked Richard Spencer, why he was coming into his community. And, uh, the, I mean, that was basically it. That's basically what I remember of just like, why are you coming into my community? And you know, what do you think you have the right to and and Spencer, uh, I mean a lot of it will just wasn't answering the question. It was just getting, getting mad at the idea of a community and the idea that a university could be a community. He seems to like just sort of see the university as a place to have like academic conversations and books and things and obviously a university is for that. But a university is a community. I live in a college town you F is, it is the big fish in our pond. Um, a lot of people's livelihoods rely upon it. It, it a university kind of warps the space time continuum around it because it is an institution that supports a lot of things and um, you might not will, you might find it a little cheesy to call it a community. You might not and you don't have to like everyone in a community, a community isn't like just your friends. It is the people that you are kind of forced to interact with. And Gainesville is a small Gainesville's a pretty small town. It's, it is a community. It May, you might not, Richard Spencer might not like that, but that's what it is.

Speaker 3 25:31

So if you can talk actually a little bit more about that community. I know that we have seen in recent years, uh, arise of the college Republicans as the defacto fascist groups on campuses. That's something that we've seen a lot in. For example, a UC Berkeley, um, Richard Spencer, he's come, he's gone. He, he, he is, you know who you fuck him, you know, you still live there and there are people still in your community. So can you talk about the kind of ongoing problems and your efforts to combat them?

Speaker 1 26:11

Yeah. Well, I mean, um, so in terms of like college conservative groups, there's a couple of those, uh, young Americans for liberty at, at USF. Um, my why DSA comments would be better, sort of poised to, to talk about that then as a turning point. USA

Speaker 3 26:30

good old toilet paper USA.

Speaker 1 26:32

Yeah, the diaper kids. Uh, yeah, they're, they're big thing. Recently was bringing Ben Shapiro to campus. Um, and they weren't, you know, they weren't coming out for Spencer at USF, but they weren't denouncing him either. You know, they're, they're Vishi kind of, yeah, they're, they're very much like, they would rather stand off and not denounce a white nationalist. I guess the University of Florida is, it's, it's very different from Berkeley and, and other sort of, and other very liberal college campuses. I mean, the general vibe is kind of liberal, but, um, it's not an intensely political university yet. One can always hope. I, the University of Florida, why DSA is great and it's, you know, um, it's, it's still, it's still growing. It's, it's very new, like a lot of DSA and why DSA chapters, but it's, it's very outsized, uh, hearts and work being done. So props to all those kids. I love them

Speaker 2 27:37

in Gainesville and Alachua County and the Duval County, Jacksonville kind of area as well. What do you see as the main campaigns that, that your, your chapter is, is working on? It's kind of, I guess, distinct from the ones that, uh, why DSA at Uaf is he's focusing on,

Speaker 1 27:56

yes. I mean, we, we are interested in talking to people about healthcare. Um, you know, college kids, a lot of them are still on their parents' insurance. Um, I mean they'll have to deal with it soon. But, um, I think that, can you, you'd be surprised how people respond really well to talking about health care around here. And I mean environmentalism is, this is, you know, environmentalism here is, is not always the, it's not the best word to say environmental ism, but to talk about like conservation or land preservation. I was actually at like a party recently and one of the, and one of the kids there, sorry, I kids young adults there, um, was, was talking about reaching out to farmers and other people. And for them it's like environmentalism immediately makes them think that you're going to be an addict to them. Um, but if you talk about land, um, that's, that's something that resonates. And I think, you know, I'm still learning. I definitely have to like just canvassing and talking more to people, not just in Gainesville, but in Alachua about, you know, how like what are their concerns, um, where there's, uh, the other big things are in Gainesville are a living wage campaigns. Um, we have a very, very cool group called the electric county labor and that we weren't, that we're working with or a lot of us are. There's a lot of crossover between a lot of the leftist groups in Gainesville. I have like tee shirts from everything. Um, but yeah, the ACLC is targeting some of the, uh, the 10 biggest employers, Gainesville, to try and get them to enact living wages. Um, we can't actually pass like a, like Seattle or other cities. We can't pass a living wage ordinance because that's been denied to us by the state legislature. So you have to go after the employers directly. Um, so Santa Fe college, which is the s, uh, the other, uh, learning, uh, higher education institution that is not us, is the, the one is the big one in the ACLC these sites right now. So there's a lot of good organizing being done there around that, uh, as well. Um, and then I just went to my first national women's liberation, uh, Gainesville chapter meeting and that is awesome. And we're going to be doing a lot of stuff around a plan B access and, and also just sort of, you know, uh, combating misinformation at crisis pregnancy centers and the like.

Speaker 2 30:37

Yeah, I was, I was thinking from what I remember of, you know, when you first moved to an area and you don't have the Internet set up and you flip through the yellow pages of just how many crisis pregnancy centers I saw listed in there and it's presumably only only getting worse.

Speaker 5 30:55

Okay.

Speaker 1 30:56

Yeah. I mean, I, I had to go to planned parenthood just, just last week. Um, and uh, just going to this place and just seeing the, Eh, you know, the, the crisis pregnancy centers like just sprout up like mushrooms around it and just biking pests, all these weirdly kind of cheerfully dystopian. I know it's, it's, it's some bullshit.

Speaker 3 31:27

So there's a lot of, there's a lot of work that you guys are doing there. A lot of cross left solidarity work. Uh, that's, that's going on. Um, but while it is important in anti fascist organizing that we do things to break the power of fascist to directly organize, really the, the primary way to, to prevent fascist organizing is to counter organize a left movement that promotes solidarity with other people in the working class and in the, in the lower classes that helps people materially in their lives, helps them build class consciousness. And you've talked a little bit about that, but how specifically do you see the, the, the other solidarity work that you've been doing as influencing or playing a part in a anti he or antifascist work and you know, in, in specifically a countering groups like identity ever opa in that kind of stuff?

Speaker 5 32:36

Yeah, it's, it's again, Gainesville is like a lot of cities, very class and race divided. The east side of town is largely African American, much poorer grocery stores, nonexistent. Um, the closer you get to the university, the wider, the richer, the Bougie or it gets. And the leftist scene is, you know, pretty white still. It's, it's not completely white, but it, it could be better. And doing that work to advance the interests of people. I mean it's hard. I don't have all the answers to that and I don't want to like come off as like, um, I'm going to go in to the side and she show all those people what they've been missing. It's hard to me. I just look at it as like a series. I have to have a lot of like conversations and build solidarity with, you know, lots of different groups. There are some cultural differences. There are some African American groups that are, they come at the police from a different sort of perspective. I'm not talking about black lives matter. Um, but there are some, you know, organizations that have like ex cops, ex military and, but they still were interested in preventing Spencer from coming to campus. Um, so it's, it's, it's a hard road to tread sometimes because we're dealing with a lot of a delicate things. And then there are also little sort of, um, cultural things. Um, so the University of Florida Mascot is the gators. And so we were, I was doing a lot of like propaganda, propaganda, you know, gators, Trump Nazis and stuff like that. And I was showing this to, um, uh, Fay, this older African American lady who runs a Mama's club. And she mentioned to me like, Oh, well, you know, people out in porters and that's a black neighborhood. He was like, you know, don't really like the gators because uh, people, you know, after he used to be that after like football games, uh, white people would go through the porter section and like, you know, like throw rocks and shout and like be assholes. So that's why you see a lot of, like on the east side of town, you see a lot more sort of non gator football, a flags and apparel and stuff like that. So yeah, it's, it's, it's hard and it's, and there's a lot of little details and questions and cultural and like if I'm cultural differences and awkwardness that is sometimes hard to get hard to get past,

Speaker 2 35:21

I would like just to highlight something. And, well, I guess on my get on my socialist feminist soapbox here, that hearing from from you kind of the questions and the uncertainty and the acknowledgement that it is difficult and that it's not perfect and everything is not going. You know, you don't have a 100% plan that you're trying, dammit. I so very rarely hear that from male calm rights, they will be far more likely to say, oh yeah, it's going great. It's fine with we're doing this. Like have the confidence of a mediocre white man.

Speaker 5 36:01

Yeah, but sometimes I get that line, but I also kind of don't want to get it because they can really blind you.

Speaker 2 36:10

Yeah, exactly. I think maybe if nobody had the confidence of a mediocre white man, yeah, we could perhaps think things through and find alternate. Do you notice it is supposed to, in the way that I talk compared sometimes with the way that Malcolm rights talk that I have to double back and and adjust my words and kind of rephrase things because I constantly have in the back of my head the wait, no, hold on. That's not right. Rather than just, look, I, I'm not actually gesturing at Youtube areas to say that you do that. It's just me using my arm there is, there is less of the, of the second guessing or I suppose what's what's called imposter syndrome going on with white men in the left than there is with women in the left or marginalized people in the left who are not straight white CIS men.

Speaker 5 37:09

No, I, I've just, the thing that was just running through my mind constantly on, on the days leading up to this Spencer protest and um, on the day I was just impressed with the chaos and the chaos because there's so much uncertainty and so much you don't know so much that you might never know. Yeah. I, I, I definitely feel you on that and it is kind of, it is kind of annoying sometimes to be confronted with male leftists who, uh, already have a all of it figured out in their heads.

Speaker 2 37:43

Yeah. Not, not meaning to bait you into this kind of avenue of conversation, but it's something that's kind of been on my mind a little bit recently.

Speaker 5 37:51

Yeah. Which is again, why I really recommend going to old women's spaces as long as they're not shit. That's why I really liked going to the NWL meeting. Um, it and why if you're a person of color, I can imagine it would be very, very refreshing to be in an LTAC space and imagine, um, yeah, we need, we need those avenues, uh, weight from white men.

Speaker 3 38:19

Well, I kind of feel like maybe I should just, uh, you know, toss this question out and they just turn it over to you guys for the rest of the conversation. But I think that, you know, you and saucer bringing up a really important point that often doesn't get centralized in our conversations on the left, which is what has been the role of women fen, you know, nonwhite, cis, heterosexual men, uh, in, in terms of, uh, the organizing that you've been doing both in terms of building, you know, community solidarity and in directly antifascist work. Because, you know, as far as I can see, I think that it, maybe I'm wrong here, but it feels to me that the people who aren't these white cis men tend to actually be doing a hell of a lot more work. And I, I think the part of the reason is because you guys are a lot Worsley affected by these kinds of people who are going to be organizing against us from the right and can benefit the most from these community is this communal solidarity

Speaker 2 39:36

at some of it also in my mind, uh, is because cis men, especially cis straight men, do not do things without being asked. So there's the, there's a French artists comic. It was like, you should have asked me as the title and it's one that I did, I share fairly frequently and it's the story of how women and not men have this constant mental load, which is us tracking what needs to happen at the, the example when they did they use is I ask my spouse to take out the baby's bottle. When the dishwasher was done, it was done doing and I went down in the middle of the night and they had the dishwasher door was open, the baby's bottle was on the counter. Nothing else in the dishwasher had been emptied. Like it was just that one thing. And I feel like some of that assumption that just doing the one thing is enough that there isn't a bunch of other stuff around that it also needs to be considered. Is, is something that is more common to a white CIS men and I suppose also men in general because the socialization that CIS men receive is significantly different.

Speaker 4 40:49

Um, yeah, I think a lot of the basic sort of logistics and material organizing in any sort of leftist space tends to be done by women. Um, in the, you know, Nazis, it, US stuff, the people that set up the tent that had water and sign making and other informs and snacks and stuff for protesters, that was the women, the channels that got the protests that got tons and tons of protesters. Um, to that rallying point. That was the women's group. Um, the material needs of organizing are basically a kind of domestic labor. Um, you know, how do we get people to a place, do we feed them, how do we water them? Um, and unsurprisingly it is women that tend to think of these things. Um, and, and you know, credit credit is often given, but I almost feel even more credit should be given because it is the very basic thing of, of organizing is getting people to a place and making sure they stay there. Um, the sort of like slogans you chant or almost secondary to just having the numbers.

Speaker 6 42:03

Yeah,

Speaker 3 42:04

yeah. I can't remember. Is it Napoleon? I think an army marches on its stomach. I mean, you know, it's, it's fine if you have a group of people who are going to go out and do stuff, but if you don't have the logistics behind it, which is often, you know, not right. Like you said, treated like domestic labor. And is, is typically not the kind of sexy work that most men want to do. So it tends to get ignored by then, but it really is something that a, you know, we are finding up here and I'm sure other DSA chapters and leftist organizations are finding is that, you know, the basic, a domestic labor logistics work is the most important part. And without that, we really don't have all of the big sexy stuff. We don't have canvassing efforts. We, we don't have, you know, even like basic things like getting people out with signs at a protest, like these kinds of things that aren't sexy, that don't get the main focus are the most important and what the rest of the organization runs on. And, um, I think centering that work and expecting that like myself, we as men, uh, it would really take it upon ourselves to not leave that as a, this, this unsexy women's work is, is really important.

Speaker 6 43:32

Yeah.

Speaker 7 43:32

Yeah. I obviously the, the solution, I want to advocate for his men volunteer for more shit that isn't sexy. And also, you know, be more uncertain. Like you don't know everything. Um, I'm not saying I know everything. Um, like Saas brought up imposter syndrome a while back and you know, I'm, I've actually, I'm just in personally with my organizing, like I, I am fine with being uncertain. Like I have embraced the chaos. Um, you know, it's, it's, it's a very flexible position to be in because I don't feel like I have to like defend any hill or die on any hill. Um, you know, obviously I have principles and whatnot, but um, in terms of tactics and strategy, like, like not being incredibly certain allows you to kind of see, you know, oh, this is a really good idea. It's going to better than the thing I was thinking. So let's do that.

Speaker 2 44:31

And one of the things that you tie areas can, can do is, is take a look at that meeting planning Gantt chart that I came up with back in June because I remember listing out so many things that need to be done for meetings.

Speaker 3 44:43

Yeah, yeah. That's getting called out of the podcast, not just to you. Just if anybody could use it, it will be wonderful because I put a lot of work into it. You really did actually, that was a, that was a fantastic chart that we really should be using more.

Speaker 7 45:00

Oh, I just, uh, I'm reading October by China Mieville right now. And it's also, it is really, it is really comforting to see, I don't know, we tend to look at history, you know, as Oh, here is this narrative that had a very like, certain path and it is, it is really comforting feel all the, like all, all the various third twists and turns and setbacks that that happened to them. Like, I mean, so many of, there was that initial revolution in like 1905 and then a lot of bullshit Bolsheviks um, you know, I had to leave the country and we're out for a decade or more watching their numbers dwindle. Um, I think there's a passage about Lennon, the spiritedly looking for any signs of hope, like a rise in the number of leftist publications. Um, and yeah, it's, it's just comforting to kind of realize that it be correct course is not always the, you know, it's not always clear where we're just always living in history and it's always a big old mess.

Speaker 3 46:12

Also that, you know, the 1917 revolution really was spearheaded by women and you know, uh, they, they played a very central role in making that possible.

Speaker 7 46:25

Yeah. And you know, a lot of people will bring up the USSR and the Bolsheviks embracive woman's, uh, embrace of women's rights, but I'm in had to demand those. It wasn't, it wasn't like a natural outgrowth of Bolshevism, um, you know, the men can't take credit for that because we have to, we have to be, you know, pitches to get, to get even just like, you know, the basic rights and that we deserve.

Speaker 2 46:58

That's like the right to not be harassed or to not have it be assumed that we're going to be doing all of the work or, uh, the right to have our voices heard and all sorts of things like that.

Speaker 7 47:12

Again, it's, I, it's, it's almost like, I can't even conceive of another way, but it's just a, in a lot of communities that in, it's just, there's the initial, like anytime there's a harassment issue, it's like, it's, Oh, is the women doing all the work to resolve it? It's all as the woman writing the grievance policy, it's always the women sort of like following through on it and it's just, uh, on top of being harassed all the time. You have to like make the systems to deal with harassment and it's, it's, it's a huge pain.

Speaker 2 47:45

I did hear one, I'm assuming male cameraed, I don't know, but based on what they said, I'm, I'm assuming male comrades say that they figured that women did all of the, the stuff on like the harassment and the grievance procedures and stuff so that it, so that it wouldn't be another thing controlled by straight white men. That this was something that straight white men kind of gave to the women in the chapter or gave to marginalize people to do,

Speaker 4 48:14

I mean, I under, I understand and it's, it's good to, it's great to, to have control over that, but can we control a lot of other things too?

Speaker 3 48:25

Yeah. This is, um, you know, this is, this is a conversation that has sort of been

Speaker 6 48:32

okay

Speaker 3 48:33

bubbling up in fits and starts within the left community. Um, you know, talking about the problems in DSA chapters and to an extent national, um, you know, the, the whole, I don't want to dismiss it as a kerfuffle, but I don't know, I don't really have a better word to describe it, but the issue, uh, you know, over Chapo Trap House and their control. Mercy, yes, thank you. Or controversy depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on. But yeah, it's, it's something that has been, you know, coming up and I see a lot of people talking about, um, how this is a huge problem in DSA and people should be in DSA because of it. And, and I get where that's coming from, but at the same time, and, and I'm sure you can speak to it better than I can either. Um, you, Roxy or sauce can speak to it better than I can, but I don't think that this is a DSA specific issue. It's, I really think that this is something that any, um, any organization that has gotten to this size, this fast or really any leftist organization is still going to have the exact same problems.

Speaker 4 49:53

Oh yeah, I'll totally agree with that. I think I'm more, I'm more relieved that it is out in the light. Um, cause it happens literally everywhere. And if the stuff doesn't come forward, come forward or isn't talked about, I think that just means that people are just quietly leaving or covering up things. So yeah, it's x, but I'd rather have it out in the open because it, it will, it goes on in literally every community. Um, so

Speaker 2 50:27

just, if something got to deal with, as we are all, every single one of us, profoundly damaged creatures and we take that with us in whatever groups were in. So no doubt this is going to happen in any group, in any group, that you're a part of, a generic you in any group of more than just one human being. These things are going to come up because our, the way that we've been shaped by the systems of oppression under which we live, and we're going to be reproducing that unless we explicitly book structures and expectations in place to either to hopefully prevent them or at the very least limit them and allow us to come to terms with our damage and give us an avenue for redress. We can't, we can't solve everybody's problems purely by guillotine all the bourgeoisie. Although that would be a good start. That's a, that would be a great cathartic start. Then after that, or maybe in parallel with that, for those who, uh, not big fans of public executions, we could also work on healing ourselves and healing each other from our social reproduction of the superstructure and our, the copy inside our minds and the, the capitalist inside our hearts.

Speaker 4 52:04

So I wanted to tell a little that makes me think of a little story that I wanted to tell. It was something that I saw at the DSA convention. Um, and it's a little thing, but I think it gets at that sort of healing are, you know, broken minds and ways of interacting with the world. There's another delegate, uh, that I was sitting with who had like, have this like university campus for the, for the, uh, convention. And he was like trying to find water or something. And like one of the, uh, sort of university staffers was, was rude to him and you know, didn't let him go into a place to find water. And, and he got really steamed any, you know, went out in and complained to Dylan's manager and you know, he came back and was like telling us to one of the other people at the table. And, uh, and the other delegate was like, wait, at a socialist convention, you narked on a worker and it, and there was like some, some talk and he's like, Oh, you know, I worked in customer service, you know, blah, blah, blah. And there was some talk and it was, it was really, it got really heated. Um, and then we were sort of just saying, you know, let's take a breather or something. And then after a little bit he's like, you're right. That was shitty and like it and it was, and you know, we're going to fuck up. Cause we've, again, we've, we've had our, our minds poisoned by capitalism and just sort of seeing other people is a leavers upon which to try and get the things we need to survive. But the, the other, the guy who I'm sort of realizing that and then the other guy that was talking to him being like, you know, I just, anything really like it's not like you're a shitty person forever, you know, it was just like that conversation happened and yeah, let's say it's not the best store in the world cause I don't know what happened to the worker. So it's an incomplete story. And, and again, it's not a totally comforting story, but it is, it is a sort of peek at how we can kind of start moving forward. Just sort of being honest and trying, trying to unstart to undo those weird tangles that we have in our heads.

Speaker 2 54:22

A lot of things happened at convention. Like I, I met so many amazing people, but it's the, it's the little things of like, you know, somebody realizing how they've been indoctrinated in, in, in these ways. Do you said it may not be the most hopeful story, but I, it is pretty how hopeful that to my mind that these automatic thoughts or automatic methods that we have for interacting with the world can be brought out and discussed and,

Speaker 3 54:54

yeah,

Speaker 4 54:55

and I mean, I work in the food service industry, so I, I see these people seeing me as a lever every day and, and it is a little dispiriting, I guess, you know, I guess a Marxists would say alienating to sort of become, become that. But being an organizer has, has helped me retain some of that humanity even in the midst of alienation.

Speaker 3 55:19

Yeah. And you know, I think about a good third to a half of a, what I do is literally standing behind a register, you know, as, as a, um, as a cashier gives me a real, I think, appreciation for the way that this isn't treats people in a way that people are sort of indoctrinated to see anybody standing behind a register or you know, holding a plate of food as a means to an end, not, not as a person trying to get by in their life. Um, but I, I think that, uh, so we are about an hour right now and I think this is, um, I think we stumbled onto a conversation that deserves a lot more time than we sort of have four. So I would really hope that, you know, would we, when we come back to this issue of sort of deprogramming the, the left of its, uh, of its liberal biases, uh, that she would come and share your perspective with us again.

Speaker 4 56:25

Oh yeah, totally. I'd love to, I can radicalizing, you know, phoresis

Speaker 3 56:32

and before we actually do sign off, I just want to throw it over to you to say, is there anything else that you wanted to talk about that we didn't get to? Or if you have plugs for anything that you feel should be a, that people should know about, um, you know, open the floor to you and, uh, which you have your say.

Speaker 4 56:50

Yeah, I, I just want to say I'm anti fascist organizing. It's, um, dis, despite maybe what Fox News says about Antifa, I'm seeing like people come out and oppose Nazis, helps radicalize the, some of the lips, you know, um, our community is so proud that people showed up. The general feeling is pride in protestors and, um, I think, I think we have to, we have to, you know, harness that and like we're, we're not gonna we can't give up and it, and it actually feels, it actually feels pretty awesome. I mean, if you haven't been out to a direct action before, like, like the good ones are amazing. Um, I found a cigarette on the ground after, uh, after the Spencer protest and, uh, it was broken in half, so it was smoking it with no filter and it was the best cigarette of my entire life. And it has, um, eh, plug it plugs. Let's see. I mean, I'm just, you know, like central Florida, DSA on Facebook and, um, um, I dunno, just listened to the women men volunteer for war. You Boring Shit, I guess. Um, and your chapters and embrace the chaos. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. This was really fun. Thanks again.

Speaker 3 58:17

Yeah. Thank you for sharing your perspective with us. Uh, all the way he'd done there in the, on the opposite side of the United States for us.

Speaker 4 58:26

Yes. America's, you know,

Speaker 2 58:31

yeah. The, the panhandle is kind of the taint area, so I wasn't gonna,

Speaker 4 58:37

I'm sort of in the middle of the upper shaft. Okay. Okay.

Speaker 2 58:43

And Yeah, you know, the, the weather, it's kind of moist and swampy and,

Speaker 4 58:46

oh, yeah, yeah. Well, I got to go table at a bar for DSA, so,

Speaker 2 58:53

right. And now, uh, we've disabled type areas, so we're gonna sign off. Thank you again. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Comrades.