Live Like the World is Dying—S1E68
This Month in the Apocalypse
Episode Summary
This time on This Month in the Apocalypse, Margaret, Brooke, and Inmn talk about a lot of stuff that happened in April. They explore the history of Mayday, what will happen if the US defaults on its debts, Brooke’s reasons for not wanting to become a Dracula, strikes, a report from the Sudanese Anarchist Gathering on the current conflict in Sudan, a horrible string of murders, guns, syphilis, cheetahs, more syphilis, shirt slinging neo-Nazis, and some new news about the Stop Cop City movement.
Host Info
Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Brooke can be found on Twitter or Mastodon @ogemakweBrooke. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery.
Publisher Info
This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness.
Transcript
Margaret 00:15
Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the End Times. This is a This Month in the Apocalypse special where we talk about this month in the apocalypse, but even more than that it's the Mayday special because it's Mayday--not when you're listening but when we're recording--and that's what matters to me is the things that affect me. I'm one of your hosts Margaret Killjoy.
Brooke 00:33
Hi, I'm Brooke.
Inmn 00:35
Hi, I'm Inmn
Margaret 00:36
Inmn is joining us. Is this is your first time co-hosting the show?
Inmn 00:41
This is...yes...this is my first time co-hosting.
Margaret 00:45
That's very exciting.
Inmn 00:46
Yes, I'm excited and under....I'm here for playful banter.
Margaret 00:53
Great.
Brooke 00:53
If there's three co-hosts, should it be co-co-host?
Margaret 00:57
Or co...tri... No, I got nothing. Okay. So, co-co-hosts but not Coco Chanel because she's a Nazi.
Brooke 01:08
Yeah. Bad.
Margaret 01:10
Yep. Alright. So, this podcast is proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Bop! [Said like the note of a song] That was my song.
Brooke 01:23
Beautiful.
Margaret 01:24
Thanks.
Margaret 01:42
And we're back. Okay, so, today is Mayday. What's Mayday, you might ask? Eh? Eh?
Inmn 02:26
What is...What's a May Day?
Margaret 02:29
Thanks. It's the thing you say when you're in trouble and you're in an airplane. [Brooke makes sad trumpet noise] Okay, so, Mayday is the international working holiday. I don't have any notes about this in front of me. So, I'm going to be off the top of my head. But I've have given this as a spiel multiple times in my life. Mayday has been celebrated in various forms, kind of going back to 1886. And going back to 1886 in Chicago, let's like [Makes scifi time machine noises]...now we're in 1886 in Chicago and there's this vibrant anarchist scene and it's an almost entirely immigrant culture, mostly German in this particular time and place as well as there are some like born in the United States anarchists who are part of it, kind of most famously, the power couple Albert Parsons and Lucy Parsons. Albert Parsons is a white guy who used to be a Confederate soldier, realized he was on the wrong side when he as a teenager, spent the next huge chunk of his life trying to fight actively against the thing he had fought for. He managed to get shot in the process. And then he illegally married a black woman, Lucy Parsons, because it was illegal for interracial marriages. So, they actually moved to Chicago even before it was legal there. They moved from Texas up there. And they were rad organizers, and Lucy Parsons was like actually way more interesting than Albert. No offense to Albert, you know. He's one of today's martyrs for May Day. And Lucy Parsons has all these quotes about like, "What I want is for every greasy grimy tramp to arm himself with a knife and a gun and wait outside the homes of the rich. And, as they leave, stab or shoot them." Lucy Parsons did not fuck around. Lucy Parsons knew that class war was a thing that was already happening to marginalized people and wanted to see it returned to the rich. And so, the anarchists on Mayday during this time, they would do things like they'd have these huge parades where they like, marched to the homes of the rich with like banners that said, shit, like, "We're gonna fucking kill you," or whatever, you know. I'm sort of paraphrasing here because I don't have my notes. Yeah. And so they had this like culture and they were building this amazing culture and there was also this, like...they had community defense organizations, they had plays, they had like--it's very actually parallel to a lot of the stuff that's getting built now--only we'll survive repression better than they did; I hope. Okay, and so at the same time there's this massive fight for the eight hour workday. And the anarchists were a little bit like, "I mean, that's cool, I guess. Like we kind of want the no-hour workday. Like, we're in it for the abolition of capitalism, but we'll put up with it. Right, that's all right." And so, they were a big part of the organizing, and--kind of in a similar way that anarchists participate in organizing now--and there was basically this idea that we're like, "Alright, on May 1, 1886, we're just declaring the eight hour day, and no one will work more than that, and it's gonna be this massive general strike." And it was it was this massive general strike all across the country. And in Chicago, at the McCormick harvester factory where they made harvesters,which were, you know, big combine machines used for farming or whatever, a bunch of people were like, "Fuck this. We're not working." And so they brought in scabs, and then people were like, "Fuck you," and they like threw rocks at the scabs and stuff. And then the cops were like, "Well, what if we just shot you?" and people were like, "We'd rather you didn't shoot us," but the cops weren't listening. So, they shot them anyway. And some people died. And it was bad. And that was on May 1st. And then there were several days of protests after that. But the anarchists were like, "Man, they're just shooting us now." And these were not the first labor people who were getting shot in the US during this fight, but they were like, "You know, if they're shooting us like, let's put out this thing that's like, you know, in both German and English, it's like, "Show up at Haymarket Square and get ready to fight. This is our time." you know, and it's this big kind of bravado thing. But then,the day of everyone was like, "Actually, let's just show up and be peaceful because it's like, kind of sketchy. Like, you know?" and I feel like we've all been in this kind of situation. And so then all of these people go up and give these speeches. And some of the speeches are, like, "Let's murder all the people who are trying to murder us." And some of them were a little bit more restrained. And...but, it was like, overall peaceful, and so this was on May 4th, 1886. And then the chief of police, he was like, "No, I want to fuck everyone up." And I'm not even like--I'm putting words in his mouth, but I'm not putting motives into his mouth--this guy like fucking hated the anarchists. And so he marched on down there with a ton of people. And basically was like...it was like, starting to clear anyway. It was starting to rain. A lot of people were like, "Hey, let's go hang out at the bar instead of listening to the speakers." And the guys who were out there being like...I think was Samuel Fielden, and he's up there, He's like, trying to give a speech, and everyone's like, "Oh, like, that's cool. We could go hang out the bar instead of listening to you." It's like just one of those protests, right? It's actually not a big deal protest. And then the cops are fucking up everyone. So, someone--unknown to history, probably a German anarchist, hard to say--someone honks a bomb at the cops. A bomb goes boom. The cops start shooting wildly into the crowd. And they just like murder a ton of people. I actually literally have no idea the number. I don't remember off top my head at all. And they also shoot a bunch of themselves. Cops, as we're gonna talk about in this episode, cops are really good at shooting each other. Critical support to the police for shooting the police.
Brooke 02:47
Comrade police? Hmmm. No.
Margaret 06:30
Comrade Friendly Fire?
Inmn 07:37
Comrade Friendly Fire.
Margaret 07:39
And like, one of the reasons we know this is a lot of like people go through and look at the evidence and the direction of the bullets in the lampposts and all this stuff--there's this huge trial, right--and so all of the evidence that comes out is like, basically the cops all shot each other, right? Which is like...Whatever, I wouldn't get mad at someone who shot back if they're being shot at, but I don't think that that's what happened. So this thing happens. And it's like, "Oh, fuck, that's a really big deal," right? And then the anarchists...the cops are just like, "We're gonna fucking arrest everyone now." Like all the anarchists "You're done." And they just start sweeping the city. They're showing up at everyone's houses, like not only all the organizers but all the just like the regular non organizer folks, and they're just like raiding everything, shutting everything down. One of the most interesting arrests, they show up at this guy's house, and they're like, "Hey, we want this guy!" and this guy who answers the door, Louis Lingg, is like, "Oh, that guy's not here." And they're like, "Well, you'll do. We'll take you." And so Louis Lingg is like, "Fuck you!" And he pulls out a gun and tries to shoot the cop. And so the cop manages to get him and then, theoretically, according the New York Times--which is not an unbiased source now was like really not an unbiased source in 1886--In the carriage, Louis Lingg, who was I think 22 at this time, he says the quote, "It all would have been worth it if only I had been able to kill that police officer." So, they all get taken to jail. And it's mostly not firebrands like Louis Lang. It's all of these organizers. So, it's like Samuel Fielden who's just like this guy--he ends up a Wobbly later in his life--he survives. And he's...or maybe he's like a rancher. I can't remember. He stays rad, but he just like chills out after he survives this nasty shit. And so they arrested a bunch of them, and there's eight 'martyrs'--that they get called, right, and they're all put on trial. And, the thing that they're accused of is literally being anarchists. There is no evidence that links any of them to the bombing. There's plenty of counter evidence. Some of them have interesting alibis, like Louis Lingg, our aforementioned 22 year old. He's 23 at the time that he dies. His defense in court is, "I could not have made that bomb because I was at home making bombs." which was true. He did not throw the bomb Yeah. Oh my god. And then Louis Lingg was also like, he was this like, he was super hot and everyone like copied his style. Like all the boys would like do their hair up like Louis Lingg in order to like, look hot at all the anarchy dances and shit. And you just have this like wide variety of different people. You've got this guy who...this like toy maker named George Engel--who I've got tattooed on my arm--and he's like the oldest of them--I want to say that he's in his early 50s, I can't remember--and he's just this like, he's like born fucking poor in Germany and he ran a toy shop and he's an anarchist. And I used to think of him as just like the low key down to earth one, right? But it actually turns out, he was like, part of the like, super radical faction. Whereas like Albert Parsons, right, he was like, kind of like one of the more like, liberally anarchists who was like, "Oh, let's like have good messaging and shit." And George Engle was like, in the background planning how to take over the city by force of arms to institute anarchism. He still didn't throw the fucking bomb. And so yeah, they were all put on trial. And they were found guilty. And five of them were sentenced to death. Three of them were sentenced to not-death. I think two to life imprisonment, one to 15 years. There's a whole thing where like, some of them asked for a pardon from the governor. There's like a...and then five of them were like, "Man, we're not fucking asking for a pardon from the governor. Fuck you. Like, we're done. It's over. Fuck it." And then while they're awaiting their death, Louis Lingg, someone smuggles him in some explosives, probably in cigars, and he takes his own life. And the other four are led up to the platform and hanged. And there's like this massive unrest outside, and Lucy Parsons--her husband is about to get hanged--and she's trying to break in. And they have really heartbreaking last--their speeches in court are something worth reading--And their last words are stuff that sticks with me, including two of them that basically just said, "Hoch the anarchy!" or, ""up" the anarchy, hurrah for anarchy." And, you know, they they believed very strongly in a world without the state and without capitalism, and they fought and they died for it. And, it was complete miscarriage of justice everyone knew was a miscarriage of justice. At the time, no one cared because it was a big anti anarchists fervor. But, as the trial went on, people started being like, "Wait, what?" And so it actually, it crushed the anarchist movement in Chicago; the movement that had been building in Chicago fell apart. And it was it was awful because it was an incredibly vibrant, beautiful movement with like eight different newspapers in different languages, and like, it's like, it's all a bigger deal than...I think sometimes anarchists think we were like really marginal throughout history. And that is like, just not the case. And before state communism became a stronger force, anarchism was absolutely the primary voice of the left besides like, kind of like liberalish, like progressive movements. So, it crushed the Chicago movement. But, what it did is it inspired a generation and it inspired a generation of anarchists and inspired a generation of labor organizers. And so Mayday has been the International Workers holiday ever since. And within a couple of decades, you could go anywhere in the world and go into a union hall, even if it's not an anarchist Hall, even if it's a communist Hall, or whatever, and you'll see the martyrs on the wall who stood for that. And so, I love Mayday. I love this story. I love seeing myself in these people from our past, I think that we can have heritages that are not just direct ancestral like blood lineage. And I believe that the anarchists who are alive today are part of the lineage from the 1880s. And that, that spirit lives. So I get real emotional about it. And anyone who wants, I would really recommend going to Chicago going out to I think it's Waldorf Cemetery, but I might be wrong. Again. I didn't take any notes for this. It's off top my head. And, there's a monument to the martyrs and it's also where you'll see Emma Goldman's grave and Lucy Parsons grave. And, yeah, it's beautiful. And it has always the cutest graffiti on it, because I don't think they would have minded. Maybe Albert Parsons would have minded, right, but like Lois Lingg would have done it, you know.
Inmn 14:09
I've heard it's become a new rite of passage to make out on their graves. Or at least it was it was like 10 years ago.
Margaret 14:21
I just go there and cry.
Inmn 14:26
That's also reasonable.
Margaret 14:27
Yeah, whatever floats your boat.
Brooke 14:28
If it makes you feel any better, they would have been dead by now anyway.
Margaret 14:32
Or would they have? Because, what if they're Dracula's?
Brooke 14:38
Not this again? No. No.
Margaret 14:42
What if a Dracula threw the bomb?
Margaret 14:43
And [that Dracula] now has a podcast. What if I threw the bomb at Haymarket? Is this a conspiracy theory I should spread?.
Brooke 14:43
No!
Brooke 14:52
Never.
Inmn 14:53
Yes, yes. You heard it here, Margaret. Killjoy is a Dracula.
Margaret 14:58
Yeah.
Brooke 14:58
You know, as we've talked about before, famous podcasters have superpowers that make things come true. So, you should not do any of that.
Margaret 15:07
Become a Dracula? Okay, so I'm really...I've given us a lot of thought. Actually, I'm curious about you all. Let's get your answers first. Brooke, would you become a Dracula?
Brooke 15:16
No.
Margaret 15:18
Inmn, would you become a Dracula?
Inmn 15:24
Yes. Yes.
Margaret 15:26
Okay. Let's get both your reasons. Brooke why no Dracula becoming? This is what people tune in for. This is about what This Month in the Apocalypse is about.
Brooke 15:36
Because I have seen and read every vampire novel, story, romance, you know, whatever. There's one for every generation and I've read them all. And it never goes well. It just never goes well. There's no...There's no history of it going well for Dracula.
Margaret 15:54
That's true.
Brooke 15:55
So, that doesn't seem like a good choice.
Margaret 15:58
Into it.
Brooke 15:59
I don't like living enough as it is that I don't want to do it extra long. I look forward to dying someday. Yes. I don't want to not die. I want to get off this fucking planet.
Margaret 16:15
Alright, Inmn what do you got? Why are you becoming a Dracula?
Inmn 16:19
Despite my belief that it actually is like an interesting thing to know that we are going to die, which I mean, I could still die as Dracula, can absolutely still die as Dracula. I think the like middle school version of Inmn that was and is still obsessed with like different fantasy worlds would never forgive myself if I passed up the opportunity to become a Dracula.
Margaret 16:53
That is fair.
Inmn 16:54
Yeah, I'm holding myself to the standard of 12 year old Inmn. That is the only standard that matters.
Margaret 17:01
I make decisions like that. I think that's a reasonable...like when you're like, "Do you want to do something or not do something?" and be like, "What would 12 year old me think?"
Brooke 17:09
I think 12 year old may be crying in her bedroom about, you know, whatever cute boy won't talk to her. So, she shouldn't get a say in my life.
Margaret 17:18
Yeah, okay, fair. Okay, I would become a vampire, or a Dracula as it's fun to call them, even though I'm incredibly squeamish, I'm vegan, I don't like blood, I don't like meat, I would hate to kill someone, but I feel like it would be like, it's just like, I feel like I owe it. It's like, like, who am I to turn down superpowers? Like, imagine what you could do if you were an immortal until proven otherwise by the sun or a stake?
Brooke 17:57
Could you solve the current conflict in the Sudan?
Margaret 18:01
I don't know. Would direct application of violence successfully solve that problem? And I don't know the answer.
Brooke 18:08
What about global warming?
Margaret 18:11
I respectfully declined to answer the question about whether direct application of violence would be useful in solving global warming.
Brooke 18:19
Would your powers help us with the government debt default problem?
Margaret 18:24
Oh, I could help with the government problem.
Brooke 18:28
Yeah, your superpowers could do something about that?
Margaret 18:30
Yeah. Because, imagine antifa super soldiers if everyone was like, 15 times stronger, immune to almost all damage, can only come out at night [inflected to be a disadvantage], and have to have a mutual aid blood bank. But I bet there would be volunteers, you know.
Brooke 18:51
You don't know for sure that that's what would happen if you become a Dracula because not all Dracula mythology has them getting superpowers other than just like living forever.
Margaret 19:04
Yeah?
Brooke 19:04
They might not be extra strong or fast or...
Margaret 19:08
Oh, they're like almost always like...but, you know, and if you're rolling the dice, you might be able to turn into a bunch of bats. If you could turn into mist...If I could turn into mist I like would volunteer to be tried for every crime that an anarchist does. "It was me. Oh, no." And then I turned into mist and I leave the prison. You know? Until they figure out I'm a vampire. And then they hit me with the sun. But...there's like some holes in this plan.
Brooke 19:36
Some? Some? Okay.
Margaret 19:38
Yeah, enough that bats can fit through.
Inmn 19:44
There are wilder concepts, you know, wilder things have happened in history than you becoming a Dracula.
Brooke 19:54
Like the Rutgers University strike that happened last month. That kind of wild thing?
Margaret 19:58
Is that what we're switching into? Is this a transition?
Brooke 20:00
You see how desperately I'm trying to divert to what we're going to be talking about.
Margaret 20:05
All right, let's go. Let's go. What do you got? What happened this month in the apocalypse? [last word said with an eerie reverb voice]
Brooke 20:11
Well, strikes being good things, the staff at Rutgers University went on strike for a grand total of five whole days in April. They did a pretty good job of planning it in secrecy, though, because everyone was super surprised when they sent out the email on April 9th in the evening, like, "Hey, we're going on strike tomorrow." And then suddenly, they were on strike. And everyone's like, "Wait, what the fuck?" So. It's very similar to what was going on with...whichever one of the Cali...UCLA? Whichever one of the California universities was doing strike stuff recently too, arguing for better pay and better treatment of graduate students and such.
Margaret 20:55
How did the Rutgers one end up?
Brooke 20:58
They have a tentative agreement.
Margaret 21:00
Fuck yeah.
Brooke 21:00
They still haven't finalized contracts, but it was impactful enough that it got the necessary people to come back to the negotiating table and, you know, get some progress towards their goals there.
Margaret 21:14
Fuck yeah.
Brooke 21:15
Yeah. Yay, Strikes,
Inmn 21:17
Yay, strikes,
Brooke 21:19
There was some other strike that's going on, or maybe going on soon, but I can't remember where or what it is, other than President Biden wouldn't comment on it.
Margaret 21:30
He's like, he's trying so hard to be the pro-labor President as he continues to do all kinds of anti-labor shit.
Brooke 21:35
Right? Fuckface. Yeah. Speaking of the government and how much it sucks, we're at risk of defaulting on our debt here in the US, again, which is a fun thing they like to battle every once in a while.
Margaret 21:54
Okay, so this is such an abstract thing that people keep talking about it and it's something that means nothing to me.
Brooke 22:01
Yeah.
Margaret 22:01
What does it mean? Not because it doesn't mean anything, but because the way it's presented just like, I don't get it.
Brooke 22:08
Well, so in order to prop up our whole fake monetary system that we've created, the government sometimes makes itself have to follow some rules so that we all...the rest of us still believe in it, too. And it likes to flirt with not following those rules in order to have drama that we can all talk about. That's what's going on. That's all you need to know,
Margaret 22:34
Well, what happens if they default? If they default do I lose? Like, like, what happens?
Brooke 22:40
Well, technically, then the government doesn't have money to pay for things like sending out welfare checks, or paychecks for federal workers, or funding to states for various programs that the federal government funds, paying for the military. Basically, all the things that the federal government pays for.
Margaret 23:04
So like, lots of bad and one good.
Brooke 23:07
Yeah, kind of.
Margaret 23:08
Well, from our point of view
Brooke 23:10
Internationally, you know, people who've invested who own government bonds, for instance, basically if you've loaned money to the federal government, you'd be like, "You're not gonna you're not gonna pay back the money that you owe us? Fuck you." and can affect the value of the dollar and international trade, and blah, blah, blah. The reason I'm being so whatever about it is because the government's not going to default on its debt. It just never...it's not that it's never has, it has four times in history, but it's just it could be potentially so disastrous to the economy and to our fake belief or belief in the fakeness of the monetary system that the government, just they're not gonna let it happen. Just want to make news.
Inmn 24:06
I hate that my brain can only think about things in terms of fantasy novels. But is this similar to like in Game of Thrones when they have to borrow money from the Lannisters? And the Lannisters are like "Nah, we're not giving you any more money." and then they try to get it from a bank and the banks like "Y'all are really broke. We're not going to give you any money." And...
Brooke 24:33
That's actually a really good analogy for what's going on because yeah, like the US in order to fund all the shit we do has borrowed money from, you know, other governments, other people outside the country, like, you know, we talk about how you can just print money, you can just make up money, we just say what it's worth, but the only reason that whole system, the monetary system, works is because we all agree to believe in it. And if the government breaks its own rules about the monetary system, the whole belief system can start to unravel.
Inmn 25:15
I see. What is it that kind of keeps? Like, is it just the belief in that that keeps that? Like, what? What keeps the cycle functioning?
Brooke 25:27
The monetary cycle?
Inmn 25:30
Yeah. It's something I've always been curious about, like, if the US is so in debt then like, why is the US a global economic power still?
Margaret 25:41
Well, what's wild is that it's because it's so in debt is how it's a global economic power. There's like weird ways of having people--I'm not going to do this justice and maybe Brooke knows it better--but I'm just, I read "Debt" once by David Graeber and now I'm smart about money because I don't remember anything--but literally, at least that book talks about the fact that if you're the hegemonic power, loaning money to people makes them invested in your success or failure. They don't want you to fail because if you default on a loan, they're never seen that money back. It's like actually a weird power play for the United States to have a debt like that. And it's like the King used to loan money or borrow money from people all the time in a way that there's like a question mark profit that I don't quite get grasp in there.
Brooke 26:30
Yeah, people will talk about, especially like Republican side of conversation, will talk about how we're heavily in debt to China, like the Chinese government has bought a lot of US Treasury bonds, basically loaned us a whole bunch of money, if you will. They'll say "Oh, well, you know, they can just call in their debt and fuck us up anytime they want to." But that would fuck them up too because they've loaned out all of this money and capital. And if they're just like, "Hey, you need to give it back." when they know, we can't pay it back then that's just gonna send the whole system into chaos, which will echo back to them and just fuck up the whole global economy. If that makes sense?
Margaret 27:13
Yeah. Okay, so what else we got? We got default.
Brooke 27:18
Well, the other thing I wanted to say about the default is it is different from--because there's another debate that crops up pretty often--and it's about government shutdowns and it's easy to get the two conflated, but they're actually about different things. The debt ceiling one that's being talked about right now is about 'can the government borrow more money.' Basically, it's going to sell more treasury bonds that were bought by China or, you know, whatever other nations in order to bring money into the US so the US can pay for things. That's the, that's the debt ceiling. That literally like...it's like, if you want to go to your credit card and get a higher spending limit on your credit card. That's what they're doing there. The other thing is the government shutdowns because of budgetary debates. So, the government has to create a budget for itself. And if it can't agree on that budget by a certain deadline then it doesn't know how much it is or isn't allowed to spend on things. And the response to that is that the whole government shuts down, the federal government, because they don't know how much they're allowed to spend on things even though there's money there. So, they're two, the debt ceiling is one thing that's going on right now and then government shutdowns are another thing that happens for different reason. They're all money related, but they're actually quite different.
Inmn 28:36
I see.
Brooke 28:38
Turning towards international news, I suppose y'all might have heard about this, but conflict is broken out in Sudan earlier in April, was like the mid month. I wanna say was like the 15th or so. Which, Sudan has a really long history of violence and unsteadiness as a country, a lot of conflict. It's been ruled by an autocrat for a long time. And that person was overthrown a few years ago around 2020 or either a little before or a little after. I can't quite remember. So, they've been in the process of trying to form a democratic government in the last few years since that autocratic leader was overthrown, but they haven't got there. And it's been a very tense place. And then, just a couple weeks ago the army and a paramilitary force started fighting in the Capitol, and I think a few hundred people have died already, and Western countries that have workers there, principally the US and the UK, have started to try to evacuate people who were there. They had a really short ceasefire over this last weekend in order for the Western governments to try and get their people out of the country, but it's, you know, looking to be another refugee crisis. People are are starting to pack up and migrate. And the fighting looks like it could get much worse. And it's also another one of those places in the world where it's kind of a proxy fight because Russia has a lot of interest in Sudan and what's going on in that region, and the US has shown a lot of interest, too. And so, you know, some of our old tensions between our countries are flaring up. Yes, Margaret?
Margaret 30:33
So, okay, a couple questions about that. I'm really curious about it. I've been following it a little bit. And I've only been able to kind of get a little bit of a picture. There's a...Okay, so I believe that the militia that is currently trying to take power is the Rapid Support Forces...
Margaret 30:52
Versus the existing government. And, do you know which side the US and Russia are each supporting?
Brooke 30:52
Yeah.
Brooke 31:01
I was not clear on that as I was reading through it. It sounded like the military, some of the military leaders, there's a general in particular, who's trying to become a politician and then possibly reelected as president, which we all know how that goes when the military then takes the power, which seems more like the thing that Russia would support versus the other forces being more in favor of democratic institutions.
Margaret 31:30
I know there's a there's a group called the Sudanese Anarchists Gathering. There's a group of anarchists who organize there that have been...I've been reading their dispatches through "Organise Magazine," which is spelled incorrectly. They use an S because they're British.
Brooke 31:46
<laughing> Terf island nonsense,
Margaret 31:48
Yeah, and to be fair "Organise," they are fighting against all of the things that is bad about the UK, including the UK monarchy, and colonialism, and terfs. But they, I believe, through different anarchist federation, organizing are in contact with the Anarchists Gathering in Sudan. And so there if folks are interested, they can read these firsthand accounts of how people are handling it. And the one thing...the impression that I left with, which is again, I didn't do a deep dive, was that it's kind of like whoever wins, the people lose. But it sounds like if the militia wins, the people especially lose because that's like a thing that's like worth...you know, anytime you hear people are like, "Oh, there's people trying to overthrow the government," you're like, well, "That's a crapshoot." Like, maybe I like that, you know? I do not like that at this point. The the quote from--I pulled up because I wanted to get the group's name right--the quote...is this okay that I...I don't mean to [interrupt]
Brooke 32:49
Please. Please, go ahead.
Margaret 32:50
Okay, so, so "Organise" asks, "If the Rapid Support Forces achieve control, how will they behave towards social movements like yours? And would their control be more fragile than the current government?" You know, cuz that's the thing that people think about too, right? But and so the response from the Sudanese anarchists is "The Rapid Support Forces are merciless militias. Any peaceful demonstrations will be like protests against the Afghan Taliban." And so, I believe that the overall the anarchist position that I have read is like, "Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, oh, fuck." Well, I'll see that. And then people are like, trying desperately to organize for mutual aid and to not die, you know? Rather than having a like "Yay, this team." or whatever, you know. But again...
Brooke 33:41
Russia is helping supply arms in the conflict. So that's part of its interest there is selling military equipment. Yeah, thanks for sharing the...I didn't know about the anarchist group and their report so I'll check that out after this. That sounds super interesting.
Margaret 34:03
Yeah, I think that's like something that I can accidentally fall behind on is like, you know, people only looking at anarchist stuff within, you know, the Western world or whatever and that's just like absolutely not the case. And and I will say that the groups that I've seen do the most work in English that I've been able to access have been actually "Organise" and or the Anarchist Federation of the UK and the larger International Anarchist Federation, and then Crimethinc are the two groups that I'm aware of that do a lot of work trying to get in touch with anarchists on the ground about what's going on. But I didn't know the bigger picture stuff so I really appreciate that. Thank you.
Brooke 34:45
Go team. Virtual High five. Yeah. Inmn, what else is going on in the country and our world?
Inmn 34:57
Well, Have y'all ever I heard that April is the cruelest month?
Margaret 35:04
I believe that involves breeding lilacs out of dead land?
Inmn 35:10
What?
Margaret 35:11
Sorry. Earlier today I told Inmn that April is the cruelest month. But it's a reference to T.S. Eliot's poem "The Wasteland." The first lines are "April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land." I was pretentious teenager at one point. Yes.
Inmn 35:25
You know, when you know when you know the first part of a quote and not the rest of it?
Margaret 35:33
Yeah.
Inmn 35:36
Whatever, I make fun of people for that, in regards to Shakespeare all the time. So I'm glad to get got. So my thing is just a little note on gun violence in April, in specifically in the United States. As of April 17th, there had already been 30 mass shootings in the US. And I know for a fact that there have been a handful more since then. Including, there was one yesterday in Mississippi. In the...after I think it was like a prom or something, like four or five teenagers were killed. April has not been a good month for teenagers, specifically. I'm sure most people have heard of these in the headlines already, but Andrew Lester shot Ralph Yarl, a 16 year old, who went to his door to pick up his sibling, and just, you know, went to the wrong house.
Brooke 36:47
Oh, geez.
Inmn 36:49
Yeah. Andrew Lester, like opened the door. And there was a glass door. And he just shot him in the head through the glass door. Like, like, no words were exchanged. Yeah, it's pretty wild. And what's also heartbreaking about it is that Ralph was not immediately killed--and has...is expected to recover still, which is a great thing after getting shot in the head.
Brooke 37:23
Yeah, geez.
Inmn 37:25
And he crawled through the neighborhood and went to three different houses before receiving help. And it's like three different houses I think like where people like answered the door, you know, and didn't help him before someone finally, you know, called an ambulance. Lester was charged with two felonies, weirdly, not attempted murder.
Brooke 37:57
Really?
Inmn 37:57
Which, yes, yes, he was not charged with attempted murder.
Margaret 38:02
Is it cause they were afraid that it wouldn't stick because of Stand Your Ground Castle Doctrine bullshit, or?
Inmn 38:08
I think so. I think so. The prosecutor has been kind of tight lipped, and I think is not trying to talk about the case too much in the media.
Margaret 38:16
Yeah.
Inmn 38:17
From what I saw. But yeah, it's something about the tiers of laws and stuff, and they're claiming that it like didn't...or evidence hasn't come out yet to classify it as attempted murder as opposed to these assault charges. Which is wild. And you know, the context here, Andrew Lester's like these like an 84 year old white guy, and Ralph Yarl is a 16 year old black teenager. And there's kind of been like a string of things similar to this happening in April. In New York, four teenagers or four young people, not quite teenagers, were driving around and got lost and they pulled into someone's driveway to turn around and the owner of the house came out and just also did not try to talk to them at all and just started shooting at the car.
Brooke 39:25
Jesus.
Inmn 39:27
And Kaylin Gillis, who was 20, was wounded by the gunfire. The group had to drive six miles before they were able to successfully contact emergency services. And Kaylin was pronounced...wasn't dead when the ambulance arrived but died soon after.
Margaret 39:50
Fuck
Inmn 39:53
Yeah, it's it's pretty...it's pretty bad. In the limited research I did before a this episode, I was looking for a couple more instances that I'd heard of, but wasn't able to get real information on, but it seems like in April, I feel like there were like a lot of similar instances of these, like someone going to the wrong house, it's like this cultural mentality shift that's happening where people in their homes are like responding a lot more volatilely to people that they don't know coming to their houses, and then like responding with like, immediate deadly force.
Brooke 40:38
That's so wild.
Margaret 40:41
One of the things that I think about a lot when I think about the fact that we're building a new gun culture, you know, for anti-authoritarians and leftists and stuff, is that I think we need to get rid of this myth that an armed society is a polite society. There's this idea that I believe is an essentially a right wing myth that a lot of left wing people hold as well, that if everyone's armed, like no one will fuck with each other, or whatever. It's just not true and just statistically not true. And it's like, you can have all of the, you know, anecdotes you want about people like not getting in a fight, because there was a gun involved or whatever. But it's just like, the statistics bare it out that when everyone is armed, more people shoot each other. And that isn't surprising to think about. And that's not--from my point of view, that's not argument for disarmament because of the larger context that we're facing--but it is something that I think needs to be thought about when we talk about, like, sort of celebrating gun ownership as I thing that reduces crime and violence. I mean, obviously, it's not the guns fault that these racists exist or that you know, I don't...I don't believe race was a factor in the the second shooting that you talked about, but these, you know, people hiding out in their houses ready to shoot everyone who comes near them, you know, that's not the guns fault. That's something wrong with those people, and their decision making, and their moral values. But I don't know. It's fucking sad.
Brooke 42:04
Yeah, it is.
Inmn 42:05
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, like, there have been over 163 mass shootings in 2023 so far. And there, yeah...Stuffs just getting out of control and to bring bring this into the police. Obviously, the police are not the only people shooting people right now. But the police did kill like over 86 people in the month of April alone across the country. And yeah, oh, and that's the last thing that I remembered was in Texas. There was another mass shooting. I think it was like last week. It was the one with five undocumented people were killed in like an execution style shooting by someone. I think the last I heard the shooter had not been identified, or I think maybe he had but is...Yeah, I didn't dig enough into that one. But just big, big headlines.
Margaret 43:28
Yay [said very sadly]
Inmn 43:29
Yeah, that's all I got about shootings. I'm sorry to folks out there. I did not do a ton of...get to do a ton of research on this. Just a general impression of gun violence being horrible right now.
Margaret 43:42
We roped Inmn in at the last moment. So. My turn?
Brooke 43:50
Please.
Inmn 43:52
Let's start with guns.
Brooke 43:54
No!
Margaret 43:56
The SIG Sauer P320. This is actually not a new issue. It's been hitting the news in the last month. But since 2016, possibly 2017, depending on the source, the SIG Sauer P 320, which is a fairly common handgun--is not one that I personally have a ton of experience with, although a lot of my friends carry SIGs of various types--It's it sucks. It's bullshit. It fucks up. It fires without the trigger being pulled. This is literally the one thing that a gun should never do. There are...over 100 people have come forward about their gun going off on its own, usually in the context of it being dropped, it being in your holster as you run down the stairs, like some sort of like jostling motion, right? A well designed...a competently designed handgun is something called 'drop safe' where you can drop the gun and there's literally no way for it to go off. You know, even guns without manual safeties have drop safeties. They have mechanical safeties built into them. And clearly the ones on the SIGs don't work. There's a lawsuit going on right now...Sorry, 'allegedly.' The over 100 people 'allegedly' because there's still a lawsuit about it going on right now. 80 People have been hurt so far by these like...there's a story about a guy who's, you know, his gun on his bedroom table as he's, you know, going about his day or whatever, and the gun just like goes off and shoots him in the butt while he's just like hanging out in his house. And critical support, it has injured three ICE agents.
Brooke 45:27
Yay!
Margaret 45:28
This is a fairly common I believe, like military and police issue handgun. But I mean, whatever. It's like a handgun...
Brooke 45:35
I would say we should issue more of them to police and ICE agents, but they'll just hurt other people and not just themselves.
Margaret 45:41
I know. And they'll be like, "Oh, I didn't mean to shoot that person." I mean, whatever.
Brooke 45:45
They can blame the gun.
Margaret 45:47
Yeah, yeah. So, okay, that's one of my headline-y things. Okay, another fun thing. Did y'al know that Syphilis is back and it's like having a day?
Brooke 45:56
Oh, great.
Margaret 45:57
Syphilis is higher than it has been in 70 years. And I believe this is calculated to percentage of population, not raw numbers of people, but it is higher than it's been in 70 years. It is four times higher than it was in the early aughts. It's probably related to the fact that people haven't been going in for routine check-ins as much. And so I would, I would basically just say, like, "Hey, the more people who get this untreated, the harder is to treat, right? You know, you get more problems with antibiotic resistance and things like that. But overall, is a treatable handle-able thing that used to like, kill the shit out of all the cool hedonists in the 19th century. And so we just like shouldn't bring that back, right? Because we should get to be cool hedonists, and so good to get tested. If you fell off getting tested because going to the doctor got scary, or hard, or weird, or whatever, just struggling to get tested again. I will say...
Brooke 46:56
I'm doing...we're recording the sex podcast in a couple of hours.
Margaret 46:59
Nice.
Brooke 46:59
So, it's funny that you mentioned this because then we'll do a secondary plug for it in that one.
Margaret 47:05
Hell yeah.
Brooke 47:05
Yes. How all the sex you want, just be safe, be responsible. Get tested.
Margaret 47:10
What's the name of that podcast?
Brooke 47:12
The Stranger Sides of Sex brought to you by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness.
Margaret 47:17
So, that is a podcast that people can listen to maybe now? Maybe in the near future?
Brooke 47:22
Soon. Very soon.
Margaret 47:24
Okay, so another thing that's happening to tangent from that, not from the sex part, but the antibiotics part, Strep is been going real bad. I think a lot of people are aware that. There was an antibiotic shortage that includes amoxicillin, which is one of the common things used to treat Strep. It's not as bad of antibiotic shortages...This isn't a like, "Oh, fuck, the sky is falling antibiotic shortage," but it's like not good. There's a lot of like stuff that antibiotics manufacturers like aren't required to release about their own production and stuff. So no one's entirely sure why it's happening and things. And at the moment, it's mostly the children's version. It's possibly just the children's version, like the pink syrup version of this, that is...rather than like the raw drug itself, but there are some supply chain problems that people are running into. Other stuff....
Brooke 48:14
I think you and I have had the fish-mox debate before as well.
Margaret 48:18
Yeah. Fish antibiotics are not registered...are not controlled by the FDA. They're not tested. The dosage is not regulated. But, there is a thing where you can buy antibiotics if they're for small animals. And so if you have fish, and you need to stockpile amoxicillin you can do so, but I feel like I'm being like "Eh? Eh?" and but like, don't do this unless...like maybe have some for your fish, but like don't fucking self prescribe yourself. Don't fucking...like that's for if you cannot get it. That is for a fucking emergency. That's my take on fish amoxicillin. All right, okay, so....
Brooke 49:03
I'm fine.
Margaret 49:04
In climate change news, obviously, the western half of the United States got record snowfall. And now it's all starting to melt, which of course is fine and easy, and obviously the biggest problem for this is that I can't go to Yosemite next week because it's closed because it's flooding. But another thing that's happening as a result of this...you ever heard of Tulare Lake?
Inmn 49:30
Is that a place>
Margaret 49:32
It used to be a lake in central California and it was there for a very long time, like you know, until basically until humans...until white people fucked it up. There was this lake, it's 790 square miles. It's fucking big, right? It's the biggest inland freshwater west of the something-something. And it's in Cal...it's in Kings County, California. The Central Valley.
Brooke 49:56
Oh my god.
Margaret 49:57
It dried up because people started clearing up all the marshes for agricultural space and started diverting all the rivers and, you know, basically just like all of the things that fed it, right, and that was over the course of like 100 years or whatever. And now, it's back. And that means it's fucking up a ton of things. It's fucking up a $2 billion agricultural industry. Hundreds of homes have been evacuated.
Brooke 50:25
Yay. I'm happy that the lake is taking back the land. Cause fuck white people. They're settlers.
Margaret 50:35
No, that's a reasonable position for the indigenous anarchist to hold. I admit that I, in my notes even wrote the like, "This is complicated and will fuck shit up." And then I wrote, "But to be honest, it's sort of 'nature's healing' moment."
Brooke 50:54
My people were originally from Chicago area, and we were taken off our lands. And then when they tried to like build Chicago, it kept getting like flooded and fucked up and like, screwed over. And it was like one source of great joy for my people that even though we had been relocated to other states, like nature was totally fucking with all of the settlers coming to take our lands. Thanks nature.
Inmn 51:19
I just don't understand why...I feel like in, you know, in the United States, I feel like a lot of like, white colonial settlers have, like, really taken to wanting to build things on marshes, because that was the deal in Chicago too, was like it was all like marsh and swamp land.
Brooke 51:36
Yeah. Yeah. Don't build on wetlands, morons.
Margaret 51:41
I know, it was a bad idea and 80 years later mostly poor people are suffering as a result of it.
Brooke 51:48
Okay, that sucks
Margaret 51:49
But, I can't tell someone how to feel about this particular piece of news. You know? It's just fucking...The surface of the ocean is point two degrees Celsius warmer than it's ever been at this time of year. But that's been true, don't worry, that's not out of the ordinary. It's been getting that much warmer every year.
Brooke 52:09
And so that's normal. That's just what we do now. It's fine.
Margaret 52:11
Yeah, totally. This month in Nazi news. Last week, the white supremacist group of Blood Tribe made its debut on being viral on Twitter. They're not the debut in terms of people actually noticing about and paying attention about them, but there was footage of....there was a drag...wasn't even...it was a drag brunch for adults and the Nazis showed up, and they're literal Nazis. They're flying swastikas and are led by this guy named Christopher Pohlhaus, who is half the time reinvents himself as a cowboy, half the time is this like Viking guy, but he raises money on a Christian site and he has like rune tattoo on his face. And it's clear he makes his living selling T shirts. And this is...this is footage that was designed to go viral. I feel bad for having retweeted it. And they just stood outside of a drag show screaming like basically, "There will be blood." or whatever the fuck "No trans transgenders on the streets," or whatever. And they suck. They're bad. Hopefully we won't be seeing too much more of them in the news except for when they buy the SIG Sauer p320.
Margaret 53:17
And injure only their adult stupid selves.
Margaret 53:31
Yeah, exactly. Positive news. Actually positive not sarcastic news. Cheetahs are being reintroduced into India. They've been...it took a long time for India to basically accept having like more predators there, right. And cheetahs, it's the only large carnivore that has been like, no longer in India and now they're coming back. The US is putting $350 million towards wildlife crossings, basically like green bridges that go over roads. I think this is an incredibly personally, I think this is incredibly important step as we like, deindustrialized--we're not deindustrializing but in a positive version of the world, right--Allowing wildlife to move over roads reduces human wildlife interactions aka 350 million vertebrate animals are killed every year as roadkill. I don't know if it's a coincidence, or they're literally like, "We'll throw one buck towards each of them." But, there have been more and more places experimenting--usually outside the US, the US is catching on a little bit late--that if you built these greenways over roads, you can help populations of animals incredibly well and reduce the number of people are getting into car accidents also. And let's see, okay, that kind of last thing. I don't think we can get into it super long. But I want to say a couple things about Atlanta and the Stop Cop City thing that's been happening. I think people are probably aware of it. And if not just like, look up Stop Cop City. The short version is that the police want to build a training center in a forest in Atlanta. Atlanta is like actually one of the greenest cities in the world in terms of like...or in the country in terms of like sheer number of trees and stuff and they're like, "Well, let's just like cut down a whole bunch of them to help the police train, how to fucking kill insurgents," or whatever, you know, 'us.' How to kill us, not just like the anarchists, but just like people, right? So they're setting up a people killing center. And so they're building this thing to practice killing us, not just anarchists, but you know, people in the United States, right. And they've already been getting a start on that. In January, they killed an indigenous anarchist, named Tortuguita, who was part of the Stop Cop City movement, and was sleeping in the forest at the time that they were executed by the police. And when I say executed, the information that we have gained as of April is that both an independent autopsy as well as a official autopsy have come back and they both seem to confirm certain things--and I don't remember exactly which one came from which one of these autopsies--but Tortuguita was sitting cross-legged when they were killed by the police. And also there was no gunpowder residue on Tortuguita's hands is the newest revelation that has come forward. And it's just completely destroying the police's account of what happened. And of course, there's like, already we had some body cam footage-- not from the shooting--but of nearby of a cop saying like, basically like "Whoa, they fucked themselves up" or whatever, like implying heavily that it was a comrade friendly fire moment. I shouldn't have tried to do the callback joke in this. So that is a thing we are starting to have. And not we...I'm not part of this, but like, you know, the movement has been saying since the beginning, like it was not consistent with Tortuguita's character to have chosen to try to shoot the police or whatever. And just specifically, like knowing that the cops are practicing murdering people as part of this is fucked up. And then the other bit of sad news, in addition to that, although, you know, obviously, Tortuguita's death was in January, is that this month, the cutting of the forest, which was delayed incredibly long, and will continue to be delayed by the actions of protesters, but some of the cutting of trees has started. And I would encourage people to look into that. That's This Month in the Apocalypse.
Margaret 54:19
Okay. The apocalyptic joy of another month gone by.
Margaret 57:37
Yay.
Brooke 57:39
By joy, I just mean depression.
Margaret 57:41
Okay, wait, should I try and do a rousing non doom...Go ahead.
Inmn 57:46
Did anything nice happen?
Margaret 57:49
Yeah, the cheetahs are coming back to India. And there's gonna be more green crossings. And oh, shit. And then like, today...it's not April. Well, whatever. Today, Mayday, like, fucking hundreds of thousands of people are rioting in France. There's some like cops on fire. As we record, the spirit of revolt continues. And I believe is growing. We look at all this bad stuff that's happening, but, the spirit of revolt is growing as the situation becomes more dire. And the other positive thing is that more and more people are starting to look at all of this stuff and take it seriously. More and more people are starting to look at what it really means to confront climate change, what it really means to be part of a changing world, what it really means to confront capitalism, what it really means to confront colonialism. That's my positive news is that I keep like...I'm on tour right now. And I'm talking about preparedness and stuff. And there's like way more people who are interested than ever would have been interested before. And there's whole new generations of people who are coming in and they're coming in and fucking coming in strong. And also, there's more and more people of my generation and older who are either coming back in or haven't left, as compared to, I would say 10-20 years ago, where I think we lost more people to attrition. I think that we are building multigenerational communities. I think that we're building communities that are more welcoming...there's more work to be done, but more welcoming to parents and more welcoming to children more welcoming to elders. I think we're fucking doing it. I am incredibly proud to be part of this movement. It is weird to have my like doom and gloom, you know, thing that we do once a month.
Brooke 59:24
I think of you as being the optimist in the group.
Margaret 59:27
Yeah, which is not a good sign.
Brooke 59:30
Well, if you need something to laugh about. We have this really great book that just came out. And I actually gave my copy of it to a friend this weekend who read the cover and laughed out loud and can't wait to read it and share it.
Margaret 59:41
Is that the move into plugs thing you're doing?
Brooke 59:45
No, just I genuinely thought of how enjoyable that. It made a smile and I want to share that if people need something to be happy about because "Escape from Incel Island" is fantastic and entertaining.
Margaret 59:57
Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, become part of that movement. You probably already on some level are, and listen to my dog shake as he stands up after lying at my feet calmly during most of this whole thing, and support us on Patreon. It's one of the best ways to support us. You can also just tell people about all the stuff that we do or tell people about all the stuff that you do. But, if you support us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness--because this podcast is produced by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which is an anarchist collective that publishes cultural stuff like this podcast. We also publish books. We make zines. One of our other podcasts is called Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Another one of our podcasts is called Anarcho Geek Power Hour. Another one of our podcasts is called...
Brooke 1:00:48
The Stranger Sides of Sex.
Margaret 1:00:49
Thank you. We used to have a different name, but it was taken. So I keep forgetting the new name. And if you support us on Patreon, you will get all kinds of stuff. You'll get access to some like what...basically we send a zine out every month. That's like one of the main things that we do. And also, in particular, I would like to thank Anonymous, which could be any of you, and Funder, who also could be any of you, and people have good names lately. And Jan's and Oxalis, Janice and O'Dell, Paige, Al, paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, Theo, Hunter, Shawn, S.J., Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Cat J., Staro. Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Michaiah, and of course, Hoss the dog. Our longest term backer is really cute dog too. That's all I got. Bye.
Brooke 1:01:49
Bye bye.