October 2, 2024 • 46 mins
Margaret continues talking with Katy Stoll about some amazing acts of mutual aid, both DIY and institutional.
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief: https://mutualaiddisasterrelief.org/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All Zone media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hi, everybody. Margaret Kiljoy here recording on a bad microphone
because I'm on tour, but I feel like I need
to interrupt your regularly scheduled podcast to talk about something
that's happening right now as many people are awhere. Hurricane
Helene hit western North Carolina as well as southern Apalachia
and Florida very badly over well. I guess last week
if you're listening to this when it comes out and
(00:26):
people need your help. And one of the mutual aid
organizations that is doing an incredible amount of work that
I can personally vouch for is mutual Aid Disaster Relief.
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is a network of people who
are locally embedded and know the area and are very
good at what they do. They are a grassroots organization
that get supplies and people and money to where they
(00:47):
need to go. I would encourage you to search out
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief on various social media to find
more information about how you can donate money, gear, or
potentially your skills and time if that is something that
you're interested in. However, it is important to know that
despite the importance of grassroots and DIY disaster preparedness. It
(01:09):
is still substantially better to work with existing grassroots and
DIY organizations because there's a lot that you need to
know before you can go into a disaster zone and
help people instead of wind up being someone who needs
to be helped. And so I would highly encourage people
to get involved, possibly by donating or by whatever is necessary.
(01:30):
Thank you so much. Hello, and welcome to Cool People
Did Cool Stuff? Your podcast? That's it. I'm your host,
Margaret Kiljoy and my guest is Katie Stole. Hi Katie,
how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Hello?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I'm doing well. I'm doing great. I'm excited for part two.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Now, I'm like I always after I do the real dark,
long ones that are still about cool people doing cool stuff.
But I still sometimes I'm like, I just I mean,
obviously dark things are happening in this but and now
I feel like a jerk being like this lighthearted thing
where thousands of people have died.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
So I don't know, right, I get you. But to
bring it back to where we were last week, it
is hopeful, It is inspiring, and it brings comfort because
we know that bad stuff is.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Going to continue to happen.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
We see it happen all the time, especially with climate change,
with our.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Wild politics.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
But the fact that the one through line is that
people support each other and show up in times of need.
I think at the end of the day, that's the
scariest part. It's like the unknown what's going to happen.
But if you can count on the fact that there
will be people, that there will be options, then that
(02:45):
it is. It's comforting for me. It is.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You ever heard a shepherd's tone, I feel like we
should splice this in so no matter how long you
listen to that sound, it'll keep going up.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Wow, that's intense.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah. They actually use it a lot in movies and
things like that. And you can also design them to
go down as well. The idea of it is you
can make something always sound like it's getting higher or
lower by having their multiple tones are playing at once,
and they're all going up and then down. Their sine
waves they go up and down, up and down, up
(03:33):
and down, right, but you put the volume emphasis on
the ones as they're rising. In this kind of complicated way,
your ear will always hear the one that is rising,
or always hear the one that is lowering. Okay, that
happens to us with the world. I think things are
(03:55):
always getting worse, things are always getting better. Yeah, and
it depends on where you put the emphasis. Now, there
is still real worse and better. Right, There's obviously things
that are worse, you know. World War two is a
worse time overall to be alive than almost anything that's
happened in human history. But then there's lots of other
stuff that's really bad too, right. I think about this
(04:16):
a lot. I think about how what we choose to
focus on literally changes as things get both better and
worse what we choose to focus on. But I don't
advocate us therefore being like only focus on the positive.
That's nonsense, right, because there's all this horrible stuff that's
happening that needs fighting. But we can be aware of
the bad stuff while still not losing track of the
(04:37):
stuff that's fighting it. Yeah, that's my hypothesis with my
strange metaphor.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Absolutely no, that totally works.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So the story that we're going to talk about today,
I want to think our producer Sophie, who I hadn't
introduced yet. Hi, Hi Sophie.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Sophie is the one who brought the story to my attention.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Good job, Sophie in advance.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
He also to do the rest of the credits because
I forgot our audio engineers Rory Hi Rory Hi, Ri
Hi Rory, and our theme music was written for us
by unwoman. And then the sort of credit I think
for sort of bringing this story to more people's attention
right now is the TikToker Kalia Please, who made a
short video about this story and got people talking about it.
(05:22):
And that's the chain of events that led to you
hearing it here. Maybe you've already heard it elsewhere, but
I'm going to tell you probably a bunch about it
that you haven't heard. Who knows here we.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Go, Yeah, I have several friends that grew up in Portland.
They had no idea.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, So we're gonna tell a story about mutual aid,
about how the city of Portland broke its own rules
to get seventy water workers and essential equipment to New
Orleans during Katrina. It's also though a story of the
bravery of the Sewerage and water Board of New Orleans.
Like I started off just looking at the Portland Angle,
and I loved the Portland Angle, And I'm still going
(05:56):
to go with that. But then I was like, learning
more about the sewerage and water board of New Orleans,
and they are fucking heroes. Yeah, they are the first
responders who get no credit. Never seen anyone fly a
thin sewerage and waterboard line flag off the back of
their pickup truck, although forty percent of cops do fly
(06:18):
that flag. If you want more information about that, just
google forty percent of cops. Okay, yeah, okay, anyway, if
anyone wants to know what joke that is, just google
forty percent of cops.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Anyway. The waterboard, the good waterboard.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
The good waterboard.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah. I kept wanting to call them the water borders
in this, and then I'm like, I probably can't, but
maybe I will anyway. The city of New Orleans has
always had water issues. It is shaped like a bowl,
it is right in a place that hurricanes like to go,
and most dangerous of all, it's poor and predominantly black.
So the infrastructure has been criminally underfunded since forever. During
(06:56):
the seventies, eighties, and nineties, there were record floods all
of the time, and the city desperately needed to update
its pumping stations and shit. They developed this whole big
plan in the federal government was supposed to pay for
about seventy five percent of the improvements, and then they
kind of and the infrastructure was underfunded. And then Hurricane
Katrina hit in two thousand and five. At the time
(07:17):
that that hit, the Sewerage and Water Board of New
Orleans had twelve hundred employees and seven hundred vehicles, but
five hundred of those vehicles were destroyed by the storm.
Pretty much immediately. A skeleton crew of three hundred employees
stayed for the storm, staffing various pumping stations and shit.
(07:39):
And then while they were doing that, the crisis of
a lifetime hit. The levees broke. Eighty percent of the
city was suddenly underwater, and as we talked about in
a common Ground episode, you saw some white folks from
richer neighborhoods forming militias and going through the streets and
killing black people, while black people, with the help of
some white people, wound up in armed standoffs to save
people's lives. People came out of the woodwork to help
(08:03):
one another. The national media, though, speaking of this elite
panic stuff, they panicked and they talked about like rape
and murder, gangs in the Superdome where people were hiding
from the storm. This was entirely a fabrication. The New
York Times, the paper that lost all of its credibility
over and over again, but you know whatever, we still
(08:24):
read it. Sometimes. They said that the city was quote
a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, and marauding thugs.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, this is completely a lie. Like the Superdome thing
was just like entirely a fabrication. It's just all rumors,
you know. Yeah, except for the white supremacist gangs defending property.
Those are the only people doing any of the things
that they were talking about. But that's not what New
York Times was talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Especially in contrast to what we know about what was
going on, which is just the most horrific tragic. Yeah,
loss of life, loss of property, people panicked, scared.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, no, absolutely, And then the looting overall was organized
groups getting together to get things that people couldn't get,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, there's always that the idea, is it looting or
were people desperate to survive?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah? Come on, and frankly, I would be in a
bad position to be mad at someone who was also
like and while I'm mad at I'm getting a TV
because I've been for my entire fucking life. But whatever.
But that's not what we actually.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Saw by and large there, right.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
But the Waterboard they had three hundred people, and they
were trying to do the work that took twelve hundred
people when the city wasn't in crisis. Yeah, and I
spent an awful lot of time this week reading their
reports about the whole thing, and I'm going to read
to you a bit about it. First of all, when
(09:51):
Katrina hit, this made eighty percent of the Waterboard homeless.
Their homes were destroyed by the storms. Yeah, they had
three hundredployees at first, while about fifty others returned within
a few days. By the end of the sort of crisis,
only about five hundred out of twelve hundred employees returned.
So they're working with like skeleton crew.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
They set up a home base in the Algiers Wastewater
Treatment Center, which is right across the river from the
rest of New Orleans. It's actually the same neighborhood that
Common Ground was set up in, because this is this
was the neighborhood that wasn't underwater. The wastewater treatment center
there was the only functioning station in the city, and
it provided most of the water for relief efforts and
firefighting and all of that. So they have to maintain
(10:33):
it right and keep water, which is classically the only
thing we need more than that is air you know, yeah,
I mean love, No, I actually need air water flow.
It probably has air water food. No air water love food,
that's probably yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
And our order of needs, hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah. And so they provided all of the water for
firefighting and all that shit, and they worked NonStop throughout
the city. Best as I can tell, they were like
only sleeping when they realized it was the best way
to help was to like get the fuck to sleep
for a couple hours.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You know, be rested. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
They lived in these disaster relief tents that get called yurts,
and they set up their offices under pavilions, and they
had no way of knowing if they would ever be
paid for this work. Years later, FEMA was still fucking
the contractors over that they like worked with Wow. And
so I'm not actually sure whether the issue was resolved
or not, because what happens is the press release eighteen
(11:31):
months after Katrina is like a condemnation of FEMA, and
then their later reports are less confrontational. They're like implying
FEMA still owes the money, but kind of trying to
softball it a little bit, and he's like corporate speak.
You know, I'm going to quote from the eighteenth month
later report because I love a good salty report. And
(11:52):
so this is a government agency being like, you know,
FEMA's not doing their fucking job. Quote, FEMA isn't posing
a national flood Insurance charge on all work perform totally
to date twenty million dollars. This situation leaves the Sewerage
and water Board short of funds to pay contractors for
work already performed. Later in the report, they say quote
(12:12):
FEMA's lack of action and bureaucratic malaise leaves the Sewerage
and water Board with thirty three of sixty six East
Bank sewer pumping stations operating on temporary and unreliable pumps.
And then the report ends, it must be realized that
if there is no water, no sewer, and no drainage,
there is no New Orleans. It must be further realized
(12:35):
by all that if the present FEMA response to our
ongoing crisis is not immediately heightened and sustained, we will
very soon find ourselves in a city with no potable
drinking water or wastewater services.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Wow, that is salty.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
This is eighteen months later. Yeah, good for them.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That's absurd and unacceptable. Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And so when the flood hits, everyone is working non stop,
much like we're working NonStop to get you the best
deals ever on your ads.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
It's all I can think about.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Here they go and we're back.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Those were some ads, all right.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I know they sure advertised. That is one thing I
can say about them. Love, unless you have cooler Zon media,
in which case the only ad you hear is me
making the ad for a product you already have.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Cooler Zon media.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Experts around the country were telling the water board that
it would take them months to dewater the city. They
did it in eleven days. So basically, they did the impossible.
This is like a very like I know, I keep
saying I watch a lot of like Star Trek and
things like that, but I do. And you know, you
have that scene where they're like, we gotta repair the ship.
We're all gonna die, it's going to take us three weeks,
and they're like, okay, well we did it in three
(14:02):
days by climbing into dangerous particle water whatever. You know.
That's what these people did.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
They actually did it.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah. A lot of employees were literally stranded in their
various pumping and treatment stations when the storm hit, and
they were kept working despite having no escape. Wow. To
quote a report from the Waterboard, quote, operators of two
pumping stations on the Industrial Canal clung to the rafters
for days with no food or water until teams of
(14:33):
employees in the coast Guard could reach them. In a
lot of cases, the coast Guard never reached them. Basically, hay,
were on our own. Call went out to all the employees,
and so waterboard employees, the water boarders, if you will,
went out in their personal boats to rescue their fellow workers. Yeah.
One of the stories I'm going to quote from the
(14:55):
winter two thousand and six edition of The Tulanian, which
is the magazine from Tulane University, and as talking about
a waterboard worker named Gerald Tilton who'd worked at the
Waterboard for twenty four years when this happened, about repairing
a pump. At the very start of the flood, quote,
water came over the flood wall surrounding the station. It
filled the pits in the station, and the water kept
(15:18):
rising and came within about a foot of the third
level of the pumping station, which is raised about fifteen
feet high. At the back of the pumping station, Tilton
and three pump operators walked in ankle deep high water.
Fearing that they might be electrocuted if the water rose higher.
They dismantled the motor and blades of a big ventilation
fan to make a potential escape hatch, but seeing a
(15:40):
vortex of swirling water beneath the pumping station, they realized
it would be impossible to escape the building.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
That's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, they're just in a literal succeed or die straight
out of fucking star trek. Yeah, these are the conditions
that they're working in. They look out and they see
the city as flooding, that the levees of broken in
without pumps running. They realize everything's going to be fucked,
so their work is essential. While they're there, they get
the call saying that they're on their own, that Coastguard
was not coming, that National Guard was not coming. So
(16:11):
they quote swam through floodwater to the generator building, not
swim out to go get somewhere safe. They quote swam
through the floodwater to the generator building next to pumping
station nineteen, hoping to start the generator necessary for the
pumps to work two feet down in the dirty, foul
smelling water where valves essential to the pumping operation that
(16:33):
had to be opened. So Tilton and another man dove in.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
They got so heroic they got what.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, they got the pump fixed, but they still had
to wait for the levee to be repaired to get
to draining the city. But they like did their piece
of it, you know. Yeh, fixing the levee isn't enough.
You also have to fix the pumps. Yeah, But then
New Orleans wasn't completely on their own obviously, as we've
talked about with other you know, in terms of the
people of New Orleans, all these relief organizations and like
(17:03):
Common Ground and you know, and also formal organizations are
showing up to try and help, and some are helping
someone getting in the way. But in terms of fixing
the water, you need specialists. Right. Three other cities helped
out the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, about two hours away,
since some cruise since their facilities were still working, they
(17:24):
ran the bacteriological samples in its lab. Wow. Okay, Little Rock, Arkansas,
the town that no one ever thinks of unless they're
thinking about. I think Bill clinks from there.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I went to a pretty good puncture there once. Really Okay, Yeah,
I was kind of jealous because everyone's rent was like
two hundred dollars for a house, because it's like this,
this is a while ago. But also it was a
real cheap place to live.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
I bet it's still cheap. Yeah, maybe not that cheap.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, it's probably up to six hundred dollars for I
don't know whatever. Maybe it's awful and gentrifying. Who knows,
I don't. But Little Rock, Arkansas is about seven hours away,
and they sent some staff and equipment and trucks. Both
of those cities are fanked. In every post Katrina report,
the water board is put out, or at least the
three to four that I read. But one city above
all earned the love of New Orleans and their water board,
(18:15):
the city of Portland, Oregon. And now you ever heard
of Portland, Oregon?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I have.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
I actually heard about it at the end of the
last episode that we did on this topic.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh right, Well, most people know about portlanduse of Portland, Maine,
or they all know about Portland, Arkansas, Portland, Colorado, Portland, Connecticut, Portland, Georgia, Portland, Indiana, Portland, Kansas, Portland, Kentucky, Portland, Michigan,
New Portland, Maine, Portland, Missouri, Portland, New York, Portland, North Dakota, Portland, Ohio, Portland, Pennsylvania, Portland, Tennessee,
or Portland, Texas. But it turns out there's a city
(18:48):
in Oregon named Portland too.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Jesus Christ, that's wild.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I can guarantee you I didn't know about any of
those other Portlands. So unoriginal.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Good Lord, Okay, but at least Portland, Oregon is a
port What the fuck is Portland, Kansas doing.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Dreaming of ports It's not the land of ports I'll
tell you that.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
The first time I moved to Portland, I was like nineteen,
and I like climbed up the hill in Forest Park
and I like looked out and there was like another city.
It's probably Tigered or some shit. I don't know, but
we were like but we left Portland, but there's another city,
and so we decided it was land Port and it
was the inversion of Portland. There you go. That's funny.
And maybe Tigered is the inversion of Portland. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Landport is a cooler name than Tigered because nobody can
pronounce Tiger correct. There's so many arguments about how that
town is the name of that town. Pronunciation on that.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I haven't heard it, and I'm afraid of the other pronunciations.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
They say seven different ways on the news here.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I believe you, yeah that.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, I won't make you say them.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Thank you, thank you, Katy.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So even before New Orleans put out a call for help,
the Water Bureau of Portland started putting together a plan
to help, and the plan was that we're going to
send thirty five engineers and other specialists to live and
work in New Orleans and help their waterboard, plus send
as much equipment as they could. And as soon as
New Orleans was like yes, please, can people help, they
were en route and they did this illegally, as was
(20:15):
proven in court later.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
And it's funny they had to go to court later.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, how dare you do that good thing. Yep,
that's what happened. They did it with approval from the
city government, but the city government was found in court
to have broken its rules about money spending in order
to do this. And I think they knew that they
were breaking all the rules when they went in and
(20:37):
they were like, Yeah, we just got to do this.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
We don't care, we'll figure it out later. Yeah, people
are dying. All of the people who went seventy people
in total, and two teams of thirty five were volunteers,
and nearly all of them were union. It seems to
have happened by basically the unions in the city being like,
all right, you want to break all the rules and
get this done. Yeah, I'll break all the rules and
get it done. You know, they broke you union rules
(21:00):
and city rules both.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
M hmm.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Good for them.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard said during the sendoff of
the first volunteers, quote, we're violating about one hundred provisions
from each of their contracts, and we couldn't do it
without our union brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
The first team included sixteen members of the American Federation
of State County Municipal Employees Local one to eighty nine,
two members of the Electrical Workers Local forty eight, two
members of Operating Engineers Local seven oh one, and three
members of the City of Portland Professional Employees Association. I
don't have the numbers for the second team. The first
team gets all the glory. That's when the photos in,
you know, like, but but there were two teams, yep, totally,
(21:38):
that's what's important. Yeah, the equipment was sent on October third,
and on October eighth, people flew there. And now this
is not right away like, this is the like slow
grinding gears of bureaucracy to make things happen for belief,
which still matters, right Like, it was not too little,
(21:59):
too late. It was a still in time, very useful thing.
But Katrina hid in the end of August. Red tape
slowed them down, but it didn't stop them. And when
they showed up, they stayed in those same tents at
the command center at the wastewater Treatment Plant Algiers and
they worked twelve hour shifts and a second group replaced
them on November sixth, thirty days later. They did the
(22:22):
same skilled labor that the water boarders were doing. They
fixed things. They completed three hundred and seventy seven work
orders in the sixty days they were there. They rebuilt
pumps and motors and fixing vehicles, and they also what
all of the formal relief groups had to do. They
spent a lot of their time going around and documenting
things so that FEMA would ostensibly pay for repairs. And
(22:43):
then the thing about having, you know, sent a whole
bunch of its workers to New Orleans is that it
wasn't just the people who went to New Orleans who
had to work hard as a result, because everyone who
stayed had to do that much more work. Michael str
the now former director of the Water Bureau, told Portland
dot gov, which is the official blog of the city,
I wonder if all the other Portlands are mad about that.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They might be, They really might be.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Maybe they all share it. Maybe there's like a like
Portland Arkansas has like, you know, a little page on there.
I don't think it does.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
It's like Portland dot go click your.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
State, Yeah, totally, which Portland. Michael Sturr said, it was
more than just the people who went down to New Orleans.
In some ways, that was almost the easy part. Then
there were the people back here. We were short the
number of crews usually had to do our daily business,
and everyone picked like basically, it's like everyone had to
pick up the load. Yeah, and I think that that
part matters too. In the end, Moltnomah County Circuit Court
(23:43):
Judge Stephen Bouchong ruled that the Portland taxpayers shouldn't have
had to pay the two million it cost, and it
should have come from general funds instead. FEMA eventually reimburses
the city for one point eight million of this, Butuchong
has since been elected to the Oregon Supreme Court, where
he currently serves, and I can find nothing about his politics.
He carefully is not saying that.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Two million dollars. I know that that's a lot of money,
but for a city, and yeah, the size of this catastrophe,
that's like nothing.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, I'm looking at the Portland City budget annual right now. Yeah,
eight point two billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Is and and how much of that goes to the cops?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I know, right, yeah, two million, that's like pennies for
each citizen.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But okay, yeah, and in the end, I think that
it was two hundred thousand dollars that wasn't reimbursed by
FEMA in the end.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
That's okay whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, have you seen that like TikToker, I don't know
what thing was originally on, where the guy is like, oh,
who wants their tax money to pay for these Tongu
group people? I do. That's what I want.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, I do. That's literally what I would like it
it's spent on. I would like it spent on things
like this, please, that's what it should be spent for.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Also just not for not them, but just the cost
of like having some sort of hearing trial or taking
people out of work for the day. But you just
wasting our time and our money. Yeah, fucks anyway.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, I'm willing to bet if you ask, if you
just like did a little quick direct pull of the
people living in Portland. Are you proud of your city
or are you mad that four dollars out of your
paycheck went to this? Like, Yeah, the easiest four dollars
I've ever spent in my life is to feel good
about the city I live in.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
Best money I've ever spent.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
There's not a lot of positive Portland stories in the news,
my guy, Yeah wild Okay, Katrina was in essence a
wake up call for disaster relief for groups big and small,
bureaucratic and day. But what really is a wake up
call is deals. Oh thank god, Yeah, they just get
(25:55):
me out of bed in the morning. These deals, I know,
I know, what do you do? You could have been
buying long swords.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I could have been maybe I still have time.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, a good arming sword, which is distinct from a
long sword by certain people's pedantic views. You know, if
you want to spend a lot of your time on
YouTube watching people talking about medieval weaponry, that's up to you.
But you don't have to do it, because we've done
all of that work for you, and that's why we
advertise only the finest medieval weapons. If what we advertise
doesn't sound like a medieval weapon, it's actually code for
a medieval weapon. So whatever you buy from these following sponsors,
(26:30):
including sports betting, it'll somehow come to you in sword form.
I don't promise. I'm lying. Here's ads and we're back.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Well that was fun, but I am dying to hear
how this results.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I don't know. I mean it did more or less. Okay,
so actually some really amazing things come out of it.
With Katrina, it was a wake up call for disaster
relief right and small. That's what I already read in
my script, and here I am reading it again and
figure out what I was trying to say, and to
common Ground in New Orleans was a major inspiration for
matter mutual aid disaster relief. The group I was talking
(27:12):
about last time, as for the various water boards. Because
of Katrina as well as nine to eleven and some flooding.
In two thousand and seven, they formed worn Water Slash
Wastewater Agency Response Network. Their goal basically, they're doing the
same thing. They're creating these national networks. To quote their
press release from two thousand and seven, their goal is
(27:34):
to quote encourage local utilities in every state to establish
intrastate mutual aid and assistance agreements between both drinking water
and wastewater utilities. It basically exists to streamline the red
tape that was slowing everything down. They are like looking
at the failures of bureaucratic stuff and trying to figure
out how to get around it. And it allows them
(27:55):
all to quote sign a single agreement covering issues such
as indemification, workers' compensation and reimbursement, and it quote allows
for utilities to share equipment, personnel, and other resources required
to respond effectively to any crisis. WARN helps utilities reduce
the typical response gap end quote.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's rad. I know, I should talk to my My
brother works for the water department. Yeah, in his city,
his town, not saying where.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, I should talk to him about Portland, Colorado, Portland,
color We all live in Portland.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
We all live in Portland somewhere. Yeah, one way or another,
we all live in Portland.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, it's this is the first
I had heard about WARN, because it's like, there's this
thing that happens where like I do this, at least
I don't know if other people do it. Where I
see some of the DIY projects and then I see
some of like the failures of the large scale projects,
but I don't necessarily always see the wastewater worker who
(28:57):
is hanging on by rafters and fixing pumps, you know,
like the specialized person doing their professional job that is
a working class job that exists to serve the people.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Like well, and the truth is, I mean, and I
mentioned my brother, but I don't even think about it
that closely. But yeah, my brother's right now, going through
a period, there's always somebody on call and stuff does
go very bad, and training is significant because they're handling
stuff that could kill us if wild water isn't treated properly,
(29:31):
or if something goes wrong a busted pipe. There're as
much as storms in There was a huge pothole and
it busted up some pipes, and you know, I mean,
they're always on call trying. It's a different kind of
emergency response than I've ever thought about, just our water department.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, we don't always notice the work that people are doing,
and in some strange ways, because we don't see what
they do, we don't notice climate change getting worse, at
least not as obviously as we would otherwise, because there's
all of these people getting this stuff done, making our
infrastructure more resilient. I mean, obviously our resilient. Our infrastructure
is also falling apart. Right, It's like both things are
(30:10):
happening at once. It's that tone. It's the thing where
things are always getting better and worse, and it's not
just an illusion where like it's all samey, samey, but
there are things that are people are trying to fix
and make more resilient. Yeah, and ooh, this chapter is
called conclusion. I never I usually subheadings, but I usually don't.
(30:31):
Usually they're not as like conclusion. This one is my conclusion.
In that voice up at top, I quoted a paper
by Stanford's psychologist Jamil Zaki, and then they conclude that
paper with for all the suffering they produce. Social behavior
during and after disasters provides a counterpoint to the prevailing
(30:52):
cynicism of our culture. Catastrophe compassion presents people with a
view of ourselves that might surprise us, driven by otherishness
rather than by selfishness during crucially important moments. One way
to honor and extend this positive behavior is to not
be surprised by it any longer, but instead to realize
that pro sociality is common, and thus to expect and
(31:16):
demand it from others and from ourselves. Okay, I've been
watching the Internet terror part this like homesteader influencer couple recently,
and they're really cringing, annoying, and I like don't mind
the people tearing them apart because I think that they're posers. There.
There's like white couple that uses hand tools and is like,
oh the rusty saw. Yeah, yeah, totally mm hm. And
(31:36):
it's like, you know, there's photos where a woman with
brushed but not braided hair and clean clothes is like
moving manure around. And it's like anyone who's working outside
with long hair for long enough is braiding their fucking
hair or like putting it up in some way.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Getting it out of their face in some capacity.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And the guy's like hand sawing a log between sawhorses,
which means it'll pinch the blade, and it sure doesn't
seem like he knows what he's doing, but people have
accused him of that. In the common this is like
what I spend my time doing is watching people make funs.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I saw a little bit of it, maybe because you are.
I don't know if Yeah, it doesn't matter. I saw
it briefly.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, And I don't know. I don't know about these
two people one way or the other. They seem like
annoying and probably right wing based on their like, oh
we The real thing to do is everyone has a homestead.
They are selling a lie, whether they know it or not.
Homesteading the way it's sold is a lie. It is
(32:29):
a foundational lie in American culture. But forever and always
the supposedly rugged frontiersman has a few exceptions, been supported
by massive infrastructure that relies on those frontiersmen conquering territories
from indigenous peoples. It is nearly impossible to grow all
your own food as like a nuclear family. Anthropologically, whenever
humans live in small self sustaining groups, they are bigger
(32:50):
than husband, wife and children. There are a lot of
extended families. There's like clan structures. There's all kinds of
shit happening.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Community, yeah, a commune sorts perhaps.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, And they are generally trading with one another or
building infrastructure together. I am an introvert and as hermit
as it gets, I live me and my dog alone
in the mountains, but I am not lying to myself.
We rely on each other, and we rely on society.
The sort of father of mutual aid as an academic
topic of study is the regular friend of the pod
(33:22):
of the anarchist and evolutionary biologist Peter Kropotkin. He was
like a Russian prince who was like, I don't think
this prince thing is for me. I think actually we
should have a horizontal society of groups that help each other.
And I'm an anthropologist and I'm basing all of this
by watching all of these different groups. And his nineteen
oh two book mutual Aid, A Factor and Evolution. It's
(33:44):
a pretty literal title. It presents the idea that counter
to what social Darwinists at the time we're saying, mutual
aid is a factor in evolution. H He follows mutual
aid throughout the animal kingdom and then anthropologically through a
ton of different society and it's one of the foundational
texts of the modern study of cooperation. It's like understanding
(34:05):
how different species can have mutually beneficial relationships, right the
like birds that clean the teeth or the alligators or whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
The fuck.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I don't know, it's been a while since read the
science books that talk about this shit. And it's not
that competition doesn't happen or doesn't matter, but it's that
cooperation also matters. Like when you were talking about at
the very top of all of this, about how, like
many other things, we have this in it human desire
to help each other, we also have in a human
desire to hurt each other and.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Shit, right, absolutely, but like we can pick you know, yeah,
that's part of evolving and culture and growth is understanding
where some of our instincts come from. That's a benefit
of where we live at this point in time. But
in general, I mean, we're hardwired to survive, but we're
(34:53):
also hardwired for community. And at the end of the day,
we've never not relied on each other, right to some degree,
depending on how big your community is, but that is
how we have arrived where we are today. Yeah, the
evolution of society and culture.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, no, it's it's interesting because it's like it it
turns out the argument is that it's not survival of
the fittest at each other's throats. Sometimes it's survival of
the fittest communities, and the fittest communities are communities that
are cooperative and so like, it's kind of interesting. Actually,
one of the first times I read about all this
stuff was I like, I'll probably talked about this on
the show before, but it's like lives in my head
(35:32):
a lot, you know. I found this article talking about
like scientists. It was like a science journal talking about
like why are there gay animals? Right? And I'm reading
this random science article and they're like evolutionary biologist Peter
Krapacken writing about this thing, and I'm like, oh, my god,
my guy, he's in the science and uh that like
the gay animals and like the animal kingdom, I'm talking
(35:53):
about humans here. I mean humans are animals too, but
like the gay animals will like the gay couple birds
will adopt to the fucking birds that are orphans and
shit or like, yeah, animals that have lost their mate
and aren't find you know, like they still find like
love and companionship with each other. Yeah, and so like
even though they can't reproduce sexually, some of them can,
(36:14):
some can't, whatever, mostly they can't, they are still providing
that species to be more survivable. So it is literally
part of evolution that some of us are gay.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Oh that's beautiful too. All of this is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yeah, thanks, and so the end of that book, Peter
Kapokin writes, in the practice of mutual aid, which we
can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus
find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions,
and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man,
mutual support, not mutual struggle, has the leading part in
(36:55):
its wide extension. Even at the present time. We also
see the guarantee of a still loftier evolution of the
human race.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, love that.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah. So taking care of ourselves in each other, it's
what we evolve to do. We're good at it, we
should do it, and.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
That's how you grow too. I mean, there's so many
thoughts swimming around in my brain about this tangential but like, oh,
I might not have so much in common with that
person up the street, but we're going to come together
in this situation and learn and be on the same team.
And there's a humanizing element from that, And yeah, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, I mean it's hard because, right, some people, some
of your neighbors might be like fucking Nazis, Yeah, right, exactly,
And there might be people who are trying to kill you.
But by and large, there's people I disagree with about
pretty major stuff that I do not want to see
starved to death, that do not want to see me
starve to death, right, like right, Yeah, And even the Nazis,
(38:01):
I want them to just stop being Nazis, you know,
I want them.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
To stop being Nazi.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
I'm not wishing physical harm on them unless it's I
guess very well deserved here, But I'm not gonna cry
myself to sleep. But I'm not out here wishing the
worst for anybody or a traumatic experience. I'm gonna try
to help. There was this conversation and I remember in
college this debate about altruism. You know what, I don't
(38:27):
need to go down that path, Okay, but well it
just does altruism exist? If like, if you're is there
any can you is there an altruistic act? And I
kind of took up and I'm not sure if I
stand by this, but that there isn't. But it doesn't matter.
You can use that word because at the end of
the day, for example, your friend hopping in that plane
(38:49):
that you referenced a very scary choice. A lot of people,
you probably wouldn't fault somebody for not wanting to do it. However,
I bet your friend, and it meant so much like
I don't know how I would live with myself if
I had the opportunity to help somebody and I didn't, right,
And so maybe there's something selfish in that, But at
(39:11):
the end of the day, I don't think it's selfish.
It's just recognizing that what I want is the best
for people.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
This is a tangent, but I have been it's been
floating in my head a bit.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
This is such an important tangent because we get presented
all the time, right, does altruism exist? Right? You can
find the selfish reason. You know, I want to be
the kind of person who does not let fear prevent
me from doing what I believe is right. So therefore,
if I get in that plane, which I didn't, but
like you know, I wasn't an option I presented to myself.
(39:41):
It was somewhere else in the country. I don't remember
where I was. But like, if I had gotten into
that plane, I would feel good about myself later. I mean,
at a time i'd be like, what the fuck am
I doing? What's wrong with like terrified? But yeah, yeah,
and so I would be proud, So I would get
something out of it. Right. But the argument that we
get presented with all the time by society and the
Cold War, this awful is the community versus the individual.
(40:04):
And the thing that I love about mutual aida factor
in evolution is he's not saying, oh, being good is good,
and anyone who doesn't sucks, and you know we should
suffer for each other. Instead, he's saying, what is good
for the individual is to be good for the community. Yes, yes,
so we need to find where it's not two polar opposites,
(40:27):
you know, And I just like deeply believe that, and
like basically I do too. Yeah, I want to be
part of a healthy community where people take care of me,
and the cost of entry is to be a person
who takes care of people. And then I feel good anyway,
because like when I have like extra and I give
it to someone, I am like, I probably got more
out of that than they did. I'm like, I am
(40:48):
the best person. I just came twenty bucks to that guy.
I'm like a fucking here. They should make us. I'm
a saint.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yeah, like but a statue up of me.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, Like I'm floating all day.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
And the thing is, as if you follow the trajectory
of this entire conversation of these two episodes, I extend
that to times of non crisis as well. Yeah, that's
my whole philosophy about society and communities. And you know,
part of the thing that I love about being in
a smaller community at the moment is that there's more effect.
(41:19):
My individual actions have a bit more of an effect
in here. But like I say this all the time
when people talk about, you know, housing crisis or this
that or the other, like different things. I'm like, well,
whether you like it or not, this is all.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
Of our issue.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, totally our.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
That's a selfish that's coming at it from a more
selfish perspective, But it's like, we need to collectively approach
this problem because if not, the downsides that are all
of us. We just because you're like, that's not me,
doesn't mean that that's not you know, in cert different
hazards or things that can happen. Again the selfish way
(42:00):
looking at it, but I believe fundamentally that healthy community,
you know, where we don't ignore the problems, that the
crises that people are going through, is better for all
of us at the end of the day. Yeah, and
just knowing that if something then happened to me that
there are infrastructures or people places that I can't go
out yeah for help anyway.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
No, And I even wonder whether the reason that we're
seeing like Elon Musk pretending like he's ever going to
go to Mars or Facebook robot man buying all of Hawaii, Zuckerberg,
you know, is like they're trying to find a way
to nimby climate change. They're trying to be like or
they're trying to find a way to make it not
(42:42):
their problem, right, because it is everyone's problem, and so
they're like, well, how can I be safe in this?
And then the answer is like you kind of can't.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Absolutely no, They're going to build their bunkers, and they're
different like things like advocate against policies because they're going
to continue making as much money as possible, but shure
up their own bunkers and their own backup plans.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Yep, but that's going to only take you so far.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
But I love the like there was some report. I've
only read the pop science version of this, but the
you know, I read an article a long time ago
that was talking about how when the super rich we're
talking about all their bunkers. One of the meetings that
they had at the convention was how the fuck are
we going to get our security guards to keeping on
our side when there's like no money in the world's over, Like,
(43:28):
how do we make them still are subordinates? You know what?
Speaker 3 (43:31):
A good question and it seems so.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Funny because the obvious answer is to make them your equals,
and you're like, weird little bunker cult, you know, but
they're like, oh, fuck, what are we gonna I mean,
the answers, they're probably going to kidnap those people's children
and shit, you know, I don't know because yeah, there's
that other quote that I don't have source. That's like
from like the nineteen hundreds or eighteen whatever, nineteenth century.
That's like, oh, I can just hire one half of
(43:53):
the working class to kill the other half. You know.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Yeah, anyway, probably is where they bring I'm focusing on that.
We've had a very hopeful conversation.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yes, I think, don't get hired just to kill the
working class. That is the takeaway.
Speaker 5 (44:07):
That's a bad deal.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, don't do that, and do use your specializations to
help each other. And listen to even more news.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah, listen to even more news and some more news.
We're available as a podcast or the YouTube show for
both shows. Some people weren't thrilled that we started putting
the video of our podcast up on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
A lot of people were, yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Look, if you prefer just audio, just go listen to it.
It's still in your podcast feed. I love you very much.
But he got both options now, and that's a good thing. Yeah,
so yeah, you can watch or listen to both of
those shows. And we are in the throes of election prep,
so busy.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
And if you want my take on random stuff, I
have a substack. It is Margaret Kildroyd at substack dot com.
All of the posts that are like meaningful and about
how I feel about election years and whatever. You can
find that there for free. And if you want more
of the like Margaret tells stories about hitchhiking or complains
about her day than those are for the people who
(45:13):
pay me. And that's Marta Kiljoyd at substock dot com.
And also you should listen to the rest of cools
on media because Selfie's nodding this genuinely really good because like, honestly,
I'm glad that more shows got added because sometimes at
the end of the week, I've listened to all of
the cools on media that week, and I'm like, now.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
What, Who's going to keep me company today?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I know, like, while I'm you know, working on the
land that I live on, I was about to say
burning cardboard, but I would never do that. I totally
don't have a barrel in my front yard where I
burn all my cardboard. I don't know about the ethics
or laws around that, so I don't do that. But
if I did, I'd be listening to coolson Media while
I did it.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah. Anyway, don't burn things during fire season. Yeah, and
put a great over your barrel and don't tell your neighbors. Yep. Absolutely,
see you all next week.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,
visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
All Zone media.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Hi, everybody. Margaret Kiljoy here recording on a bad microphone
because I'm on tour, but I feel like I need
to interrupt your regularly scheduled podcast to talk about something
that's happening right now as many people are awhere. Hurricane
Helene hit western North Carolina as well as southern Apalachia
and Florida very badly over well. I guess last week
if you're listening to this when it comes out and
(00:26):
people need your help. And one of the mutual aid
organizations that is doing an incredible amount of work that
I can personally vouch for is mutual Aid Disaster Relief.
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is a network of people who
are locally embedded and know the area and are very
good at what they do. They are a grassroots organization
that get supplies and people and money to where they
(00:47):
need to go. I would encourage you to search out
Mutual Aid Disaster Relief on various social media to find
more information about how you can donate money, gear, or
potentially your skills and time if that is something that
you're interested in. However, it is important to know that
despite the importance of grassroots and DIY disaster preparedness. It
(01:09):
is still substantially better to work with existing grassroots and
DIY organizations because there's a lot that you need to
know before you can go into a disaster zone and
help people instead of wind up being someone who needs
to be helped. And so I would highly encourage people
to get involved, possibly by donating or by whatever is necessary.
(01:30):
Thank you so much. Hello, and welcome to Cool People
Did Cool Stuff? Your podcast? That's it. I'm your host,
Margaret Kiljoy and my guest is Katie Stole. Hi Katie,
how are you?
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Hello?
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I'm doing well. I'm doing great. I'm excited for part two.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Now, I'm like I always after I do the real dark,
long ones that are still about cool people doing cool stuff.
But I still sometimes I'm like, I just I mean,
obviously dark things are happening in this but and now
I feel like a jerk being like this lighthearted thing
where thousands of people have died.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
So I don't know, right, I get you. But to
bring it back to where we were last week, it
is hopeful, It is inspiring, and it brings comfort because
we know that bad stuff is.
Speaker 5 (02:15):
Going to continue to happen.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
We see it happen all the time, especially with climate change,
with our.
Speaker 5 (02:22):
Wild politics.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
But the fact that the one through line is that
people support each other and show up in times of need.
I think at the end of the day, that's the
scariest part. It's like the unknown what's going to happen.
But if you can count on the fact that there
will be people, that there will be options, then that
(02:45):
it is. It's comforting for me. It is.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You ever heard a shepherd's tone, I feel like we
should splice this in so no matter how long you
listen to that sound, it'll keep going up.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Wow, that's intense.
Speaker 5 (03:11):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Yeah. They actually use it a lot in movies and
things like that. And you can also design them to
go down as well. The idea of it is you
can make something always sound like it's getting higher or
lower by having their multiple tones are playing at once,
and they're all going up and then down. Their sine
waves they go up and down, up and down, up
(03:33):
and down, right, but you put the volume emphasis on
the ones as they're rising. In this kind of complicated way,
your ear will always hear the one that is rising,
or always hear the one that is lowering. Okay, that
happens to us with the world. I think things are
(03:55):
always getting worse, things are always getting better. Yeah, and
it depends on where you put the emphasis. Now, there
is still real worse and better. Right, There's obviously things
that are worse, you know. World War two is a
worse time overall to be alive than almost anything that's
happened in human history. But then there's lots of other
stuff that's really bad too, right. I think about this
(04:16):
a lot. I think about how what we choose to
focus on literally changes as things get both better and
worse what we choose to focus on. But I don't
advocate us therefore being like only focus on the positive.
That's nonsense, right, because there's all this horrible stuff that's
happening that needs fighting. But we can be aware of
the bad stuff while still not losing track of the
(04:37):
stuff that's fighting it. Yeah, that's my hypothesis with my
strange metaphor.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
Absolutely no, that totally works.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
So the story that we're going to talk about today,
I want to think our producer Sophie, who I hadn't
introduced yet. Hi, Hi Sophie.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Sophie is the one who brought the story to my attention.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Good job, Sophie in advance.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
He also to do the rest of the credits because
I forgot our audio engineers Rory Hi Rory Hi, Ri
Hi Rory, and our theme music was written for us
by unwoman. And then the sort of credit I think
for sort of bringing this story to more people's attention
right now is the TikToker Kalia Please, who made a
short video about this story and got people talking about it.
(05:22):
And that's the chain of events that led to you
hearing it here. Maybe you've already heard it elsewhere, but
I'm going to tell you probably a bunch about it
that you haven't heard. Who knows here we.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Go, Yeah, I have several friends that grew up in Portland.
They had no idea.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, So we're gonna tell a story about mutual aid,
about how the city of Portland broke its own rules
to get seventy water workers and essential equipment to New
Orleans during Katrina. It's also though a story of the
bravery of the Sewerage and water Board of New Orleans.
Like I started off just looking at the Portland Angle,
and I loved the Portland Angle, And I'm still going
(05:56):
to go with that. But then I was like, learning
more about the sewerage and water board of New Orleans,
and they are fucking heroes. Yeah, they are the first
responders who get no credit. Never seen anyone fly a
thin sewerage and waterboard line flag off the back of
their pickup truck, although forty percent of cops do fly
(06:18):
that flag. If you want more information about that, just
google forty percent of cops. Okay, yeah, okay, anyway, if
anyone wants to know what joke that is, just google
forty percent of cops.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Anyway. The waterboard, the good waterboard.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
The good waterboard.
Speaker 4 (06:34):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah. I kept wanting to call them the water borders
in this, and then I'm like, I probably can't, but
maybe I will anyway. The city of New Orleans has
always had water issues. It is shaped like a bowl,
it is right in a place that hurricanes like to go,
and most dangerous of all, it's poor and predominantly black.
So the infrastructure has been criminally underfunded since forever. During
(06:56):
the seventies, eighties, and nineties, there were record floods all
of the time, and the city desperately needed to update
its pumping stations and shit. They developed this whole big
plan in the federal government was supposed to pay for
about seventy five percent of the improvements, and then they
kind of and the infrastructure was underfunded. And then Hurricane
Katrina hit in two thousand and five. At the time
(07:17):
that that hit, the Sewerage and Water Board of New
Orleans had twelve hundred employees and seven hundred vehicles, but
five hundred of those vehicles were destroyed by the storm.
Pretty much immediately. A skeleton crew of three hundred employees
stayed for the storm, staffing various pumping stations and shit.
(07:39):
And then while they were doing that, the crisis of
a lifetime hit. The levees broke. Eighty percent of the
city was suddenly underwater, and as we talked about in
a common Ground episode, you saw some white folks from
richer neighborhoods forming militias and going through the streets and
killing black people, while black people, with the help of
some white people, wound up in armed standoffs to save
people's lives. People came out of the woodwork to help
(08:03):
one another. The national media, though, speaking of this elite
panic stuff, they panicked and they talked about like rape
and murder, gangs in the Superdome where people were hiding
from the storm. This was entirely a fabrication. The New
York Times, the paper that lost all of its credibility
over and over again, but you know whatever, we still
(08:24):
read it. Sometimes. They said that the city was quote
a snake pit of anarchy, death, looting, raping, and marauding thugs.
Speaker 5 (08:34):
Unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, this is completely a lie. Like the Superdome thing
was just like entirely a fabrication. It's just all rumors,
you know. Yeah, except for the white supremacist gangs defending property.
Those are the only people doing any of the things
that they were talking about. But that's not what New
York Times was talking about.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Especially in contrast to what we know about what was
going on, which is just the most horrific tragic. Yeah,
loss of life, loss of property, people panicked, scared.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, no, absolutely, And then the looting overall was organized
groups getting together to get things that people couldn't get,
you know.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Yeah, there's always that the idea, is it looting or
were people desperate to survive?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Yeah? Come on, and frankly, I would be in a
bad position to be mad at someone who was also
like and while I'm mad at I'm getting a TV
because I've been for my entire fucking life. But whatever.
But that's not what we actually.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
Saw by and large there, right.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
But the Waterboard they had three hundred people, and they
were trying to do the work that took twelve hundred
people when the city wasn't in crisis. Yeah, and I
spent an awful lot of time this week reading their
reports about the whole thing, and I'm going to read
to you a bit about it. First of all, when
(09:51):
Katrina hit, this made eighty percent of the Waterboard homeless.
Their homes were destroyed by the storms. Yeah, they had
three hundredployees at first, while about fifty others returned within
a few days. By the end of the sort of crisis,
only about five hundred out of twelve hundred employees returned.
So they're working with like skeleton crew.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
They set up a home base in the Algiers Wastewater
Treatment Center, which is right across the river from the
rest of New Orleans. It's actually the same neighborhood that
Common Ground was set up in, because this is this
was the neighborhood that wasn't underwater. The wastewater treatment center
there was the only functioning station in the city, and
it provided most of the water for relief efforts and
firefighting and all of that. So they have to maintain
(10:33):
it right and keep water, which is classically the only
thing we need more than that is air you know, yeah,
I mean love, No, I actually need air water flow.
It probably has air water food. No air water love food,
that's probably yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:50):
And our order of needs, hierarchy of needs.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
Yeah. And so they provided all of the water for
firefighting and all that shit, and they worked NonStop throughout
the city. Best as I can tell, they were like
only sleeping when they realized it was the best way
to help was to like get the fuck to sleep
for a couple hours.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You know, be rested. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
They lived in these disaster relief tents that get called yurts,
and they set up their offices under pavilions, and they
had no way of knowing if they would ever be
paid for this work. Years later, FEMA was still fucking
the contractors over that they like worked with Wow. And
so I'm not actually sure whether the issue was resolved
or not, because what happens is the press release eighteen
(11:31):
months after Katrina is like a condemnation of FEMA, and
then their later reports are less confrontational. They're like implying
FEMA still owes the money, but kind of trying to
softball it a little bit, and he's like corporate speak.
You know, I'm going to quote from the eighteenth month
later report because I love a good salty report. And
(11:52):
so this is a government agency being like, you know,
FEMA's not doing their fucking job. Quote, FEMA isn't posing
a national flood Insurance charge on all work perform totally
to date twenty million dollars. This situation leaves the Sewerage
and water Board short of funds to pay contractors for
work already performed. Later in the report, they say quote
(12:12):
FEMA's lack of action and bureaucratic malaise leaves the Sewerage
and water Board with thirty three of sixty six East
Bank sewer pumping stations operating on temporary and unreliable pumps.
And then the report ends, it must be realized that
if there is no water, no sewer, and no drainage,
there is no New Orleans. It must be further realized
(12:35):
by all that if the present FEMA response to our
ongoing crisis is not immediately heightened and sustained, we will
very soon find ourselves in a city with no potable
drinking water or wastewater services.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Wow, that is salty.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
This is eighteen months later. Yeah, good for them.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
That's absurd and unacceptable. Yeah, obviously.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And so when the flood hits, everyone is working non stop,
much like we're working NonStop to get you the best
deals ever on your ads.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
It's all I can think about.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Here they go and we're back.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
Those were some ads, all right.
Speaker 2 (13:27):
I know they sure advertised. That is one thing I
can say about them. Love, unless you have cooler Zon media,
in which case the only ad you hear is me
making the ad for a product you already have.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Cooler Zon media.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Experts around the country were telling the water board that
it would take them months to dewater the city. They
did it in eleven days. So basically, they did the impossible.
This is like a very like I know, I keep
saying I watch a lot of like Star Trek and
things like that, but I do. And you know, you
have that scene where they're like, we gotta repair the ship.
We're all gonna die, it's going to take us three weeks,
and they're like, okay, well we did it in three
(14:02):
days by climbing into dangerous particle water whatever. You know.
That's what these people did.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
They actually did it.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yeah. A lot of employees were literally stranded in their
various pumping and treatment stations when the storm hit, and
they were kept working despite having no escape. Wow. To
quote a report from the Waterboard, quote, operators of two
pumping stations on the Industrial Canal clung to the rafters
for days with no food or water until teams of
(14:33):
employees in the coast Guard could reach them. In a
lot of cases, the coast Guard never reached them. Basically, hay,
were on our own. Call went out to all the employees,
and so waterboard employees, the water boarders, if you will,
went out in their personal boats to rescue their fellow workers. Yeah.
One of the stories I'm going to quote from the
(14:55):
winter two thousand and six edition of The Tulanian, which
is the magazine from Tulane University, and as talking about
a waterboard worker named Gerald Tilton who'd worked at the
Waterboard for twenty four years when this happened, about repairing
a pump. At the very start of the flood, quote,
water came over the flood wall surrounding the station. It
filled the pits in the station, and the water kept
(15:18):
rising and came within about a foot of the third
level of the pumping station, which is raised about fifteen
feet high. At the back of the pumping station, Tilton
and three pump operators walked in ankle deep high water.
Fearing that they might be electrocuted if the water rose higher.
They dismantled the motor and blades of a big ventilation
fan to make a potential escape hatch, but seeing a
(15:40):
vortex of swirling water beneath the pumping station, they realized
it would be impossible to escape the building.
Speaker 5 (15:47):
That's terrifying.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Yeah, they're just in a literal succeed or die straight
out of fucking star trek. Yeah, these are the conditions
that they're working in. They look out and they see
the city as flooding, that the levees of broken in
without pumps running. They realize everything's going to be fucked,
so their work is essential. While they're there, they get
the call saying that they're on their own, that Coastguard
was not coming, that National Guard was not coming. So
(16:11):
they quote swam through floodwater to the generator building, not
swim out to go get somewhere safe. They quote swam
through the floodwater to the generator building next to pumping
station nineteen, hoping to start the generator necessary for the
pumps to work two feet down in the dirty, foul
smelling water where valves essential to the pumping operation that
(16:33):
had to be opened. So Tilton and another man dove in.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
They got so heroic they got what.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, they got the pump fixed, but they still had
to wait for the levee to be repaired to get
to draining the city. But they like did their piece
of it, you know. Yeh, fixing the levee isn't enough.
You also have to fix the pumps. Yeah, But then
New Orleans wasn't completely on their own obviously, as we've
talked about with other you know, in terms of the
people of New Orleans, all these relief organizations and like
(17:03):
Common Ground and you know, and also formal organizations are
showing up to try and help, and some are helping
someone getting in the way. But in terms of fixing
the water, you need specialists. Right. Three other cities helped
out the city of Lafayette, Louisiana, about two hours away,
since some cruise since their facilities were still working, they
(17:24):
ran the bacteriological samples in its lab. Wow. Okay, Little Rock, Arkansas,
the town that no one ever thinks of unless they're
thinking about. I think Bill clinks from there.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
I went to a pretty good puncture there once. Really Okay, Yeah,
I was kind of jealous because everyone's rent was like
two hundred dollars for a house, because it's like this,
this is a while ago. But also it was a
real cheap place to live.
Speaker 5 (17:48):
I bet it's still cheap. Yeah, maybe not that cheap.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Yeah, it's probably up to six hundred dollars for I
don't know whatever. Maybe it's awful and gentrifying. Who knows,
I don't. But Little Rock, Arkansas is about seven hours away,
and they sent some staff and equipment and trucks. Both
of those cities are fanked. In every post Katrina report,
the water board is put out, or at least the
three to four that I read. But one city above
all earned the love of New Orleans and their water board,
(18:15):
the city of Portland, Oregon. And now you ever heard
of Portland, Oregon?
Speaker 1 (18:19):
I have.
Speaker 5 (18:20):
I actually heard about it at the end of the
last episode that we did on this topic.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Oh right, Well, most people know about portlanduse of Portland, Maine,
or they all know about Portland, Arkansas, Portland, Colorado, Portland, Connecticut, Portland, Georgia, Portland, Indiana, Portland, Kansas, Portland, Kentucky, Portland, Michigan,
New Portland, Maine, Portland, Missouri, Portland, New York, Portland, North Dakota, Portland, Ohio, Portland, Pennsylvania, Portland, Tennessee,
or Portland, Texas. But it turns out there's a city
(18:48):
in Oregon named Portland too.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Jesus Christ, that's wild.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
I can guarantee you I didn't know about any of
those other Portlands. So unoriginal.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
Good Lord, Okay, but at least Portland, Oregon is a
port What the fuck is Portland, Kansas doing.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Dreaming of ports It's not the land of ports I'll
tell you that.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
No.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
The first time I moved to Portland, I was like nineteen,
and I like climbed up the hill in Forest Park
and I like looked out and there was like another city.
It's probably Tigered or some shit. I don't know, but
we were like but we left Portland, but there's another city,
and so we decided it was land Port and it
was the inversion of Portland. There you go. That's funny.
And maybe Tigered is the inversion of Portland. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Landport is a cooler name than Tigered because nobody can
pronounce Tiger correct. There's so many arguments about how that
town is the name of that town. Pronunciation on that.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
I haven't heard it, and I'm afraid of the other pronunciations.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
They say seven different ways on the news here.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
I believe you, yeah that.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah, I won't make you say them.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Thank you, thank you, Katy.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So even before New Orleans put out a call for help,
the Water Bureau of Portland started putting together a plan
to help, and the plan was that we're going to
send thirty five engineers and other specialists to live and
work in New Orleans and help their waterboard, plus send
as much equipment as they could. And as soon as
New Orleans was like yes, please, can people help, they
were en route and they did this illegally, as was
(20:15):
proven in court later.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
And it's funny they had to go to court later.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, how dare you do that good thing. Yep,
that's what happened. They did it with approval from the
city government, but the city government was found in court
to have broken its rules about money spending in order
to do this. And I think they knew that they
were breaking all the rules when they went in and
(20:37):
they were like, Yeah, we just got to do this.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
We don't care, we'll figure it out later. Yeah, people
are dying. All of the people who went seventy people
in total, and two teams of thirty five were volunteers,
and nearly all of them were union. It seems to
have happened by basically the unions in the city being like,
all right, you want to break all the rules and
get this done. Yeah, I'll break all the rules and
get it done. You know, they broke you union rules
(21:00):
and city rules both.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
M hmm.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Good for them.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard said during the sendoff of
the first volunteers, quote, we're violating about one hundred provisions
from each of their contracts, and we couldn't do it
without our union brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
The first team included sixteen members of the American Federation
of State County Municipal Employees Local one to eighty nine,
two members of the Electrical Workers Local forty eight, two
members of Operating Engineers Local seven oh one, and three
members of the City of Portland Professional Employees Association. I
don't have the numbers for the second team. The first
team gets all the glory. That's when the photos in,
you know, like, but but there were two teams, yep, totally,
(21:38):
that's what's important. Yeah, the equipment was sent on October third,
and on October eighth, people flew there. And now this
is not right away like, this is the like slow
grinding gears of bureaucracy to make things happen for belief,
which still matters, right Like, it was not too little,
(21:59):
too late. It was a still in time, very useful thing.
But Katrina hid in the end of August. Red tape
slowed them down, but it didn't stop them. And when
they showed up, they stayed in those same tents at
the command center at the wastewater Treatment Plant Algiers and
they worked twelve hour shifts and a second group replaced
them on November sixth, thirty days later. They did the
(22:22):
same skilled labor that the water boarders were doing. They
fixed things. They completed three hundred and seventy seven work
orders in the sixty days they were there. They rebuilt
pumps and motors and fixing vehicles, and they also what
all of the formal relief groups had to do. They
spent a lot of their time going around and documenting
things so that FEMA would ostensibly pay for repairs. And
(22:43):
then the thing about having, you know, sent a whole
bunch of its workers to New Orleans is that it
wasn't just the people who went to New Orleans who
had to work hard as a result, because everyone who
stayed had to do that much more work. Michael str
the now former director of the Water Bureau, told Portland
dot gov, which is the official blog of the city,
I wonder if all the other Portlands are mad about that.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They might be, They really might be.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
Maybe they all share it. Maybe there's like a like
Portland Arkansas has like, you know, a little page on there.
I don't think it does.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
It's like Portland dot go click your.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
State, Yeah, totally, which Portland. Michael Sturr said, it was
more than just the people who went down to New Orleans.
In some ways, that was almost the easy part. Then
there were the people back here. We were short the
number of crews usually had to do our daily business,
and everyone picked like basically, it's like everyone had to
pick up the load. Yeah, and I think that that
part matters too. In the end, Moltnomah County Circuit Court
(23:43):
Judge Stephen Bouchong ruled that the Portland taxpayers shouldn't have
had to pay the two million it cost, and it
should have come from general funds instead. FEMA eventually reimburses
the city for one point eight million of this, Butuchong
has since been elected to the Oregon Supreme Court, where
he currently serves, and I can find nothing about his politics.
He carefully is not saying that.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Two million dollars. I know that that's a lot of money,
but for a city, and yeah, the size of this catastrophe,
that's like nothing.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah, I'm looking at the Portland City budget annual right now. Yeah,
eight point two billion dollars.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Is and and how much of that goes to the cops?
Speaker 3 (24:23):
I know, right, yeah, two million, that's like pennies for
each citizen.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But okay, yeah, and in the end, I think that
it was two hundred thousand dollars that wasn't reimbursed by
FEMA in the end.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
That's okay whatever.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, have you seen that like TikToker, I don't know
what thing was originally on, where the guy is like, oh,
who wants their tax money to pay for these Tongu
group people? I do. That's what I want.
Speaker 3 (24:47):
Yeah, I do. That's literally what I would like it
it's spent on. I would like it spent on things
like this, please, that's what it should be spent for.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Also just not for not them, but just the cost
of like having some sort of hearing trial or taking
people out of work for the day. But you just
wasting our time and our money. Yeah, fucks anyway.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Yeah, I'm willing to bet if you ask, if you
just like did a little quick direct pull of the
people living in Portland. Are you proud of your city
or are you mad that four dollars out of your
paycheck went to this? Like, Yeah, the easiest four dollars
I've ever spent in my life is to feel good
about the city I live in.
Speaker 5 (25:28):
Best money I've ever spent.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
There's not a lot of positive Portland stories in the news,
my guy, Yeah wild Okay, Katrina was in essence a
wake up call for disaster relief for groups big and small,
bureaucratic and day. But what really is a wake up
call is deals. Oh thank god, Yeah, they just get
(25:55):
me out of bed in the morning. These deals, I know,
I know, what do you do? You could have been
buying long swords.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
I could have been maybe I still have time.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah, a good arming sword, which is distinct from a
long sword by certain people's pedantic views. You know, if
you want to spend a lot of your time on
YouTube watching people talking about medieval weaponry, that's up to you.
But you don't have to do it, because we've done
all of that work for you, and that's why we
advertise only the finest medieval weapons. If what we advertise
doesn't sound like a medieval weapon, it's actually code for
a medieval weapon. So whatever you buy from these following sponsors,
(26:30):
including sports betting, it'll somehow come to you in sword form.
I don't promise. I'm lying. Here's ads and we're back.
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Well that was fun, but I am dying to hear
how this results.
Speaker 2 (26:51):
I don't know. I mean it did more or less. Okay,
so actually some really amazing things come out of it.
With Katrina, it was a wake up call for disaster
relief right and small. That's what I already read in
my script, and here I am reading it again and
figure out what I was trying to say, and to
common Ground in New Orleans was a major inspiration for
matter mutual aid disaster relief. The group I was talking
(27:12):
about last time, as for the various water boards. Because
of Katrina as well as nine to eleven and some flooding.
In two thousand and seven, they formed worn Water Slash
Wastewater Agency Response Network. Their goal basically, they're doing the
same thing. They're creating these national networks. To quote their
press release from two thousand and seven, their goal is
(27:34):
to quote encourage local utilities in every state to establish
intrastate mutual aid and assistance agreements between both drinking water
and wastewater utilities. It basically exists to streamline the red
tape that was slowing everything down. They are like looking
at the failures of bureaucratic stuff and trying to figure
out how to get around it. And it allows them
(27:55):
all to quote sign a single agreement covering issues such
as indemification, workers' compensation and reimbursement, and it quote allows
for utilities to share equipment, personnel, and other resources required
to respond effectively to any crisis. WARN helps utilities reduce
the typical response gap end quote.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
That's rad. I know, I should talk to my My
brother works for the water department. Yeah, in his city,
his town, not saying where.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yeah, I should talk to him about Portland, Colorado, Portland,
color We all live in Portland.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
We all live in Portland somewhere. Yeah, one way or another,
we all live in Portland.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, it's this is the first
I had heard about WARN, because it's like, there's this
thing that happens where like I do this, at least
I don't know if other people do it. Where I
see some of the DIY projects and then I see
some of like the failures of the large scale projects,
but I don't necessarily always see the wastewater worker who
(28:57):
is hanging on by rafters and fixing pumps, you know,
like the specialized person doing their professional job that is
a working class job that exists to serve the people.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Like well, and the truth is, I mean, and I
mentioned my brother, but I don't even think about it
that closely. But yeah, my brother's right now, going through
a period, there's always somebody on call and stuff does
go very bad, and training is significant because they're handling
stuff that could kill us if wild water isn't treated properly,
(29:31):
or if something goes wrong a busted pipe. There're as
much as storms in There was a huge pothole and
it busted up some pipes, and you know, I mean,
they're always on call trying. It's a different kind of
emergency response than I've ever thought about, just our water department.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Yeah, we don't always notice the work that people are doing,
and in some strange ways, because we don't see what
they do, we don't notice climate change getting worse, at
least not as obviously as we would otherwise, because there's
all of these people getting this stuff done, making our
infrastructure more resilient. I mean, obviously our resilient. Our infrastructure
is also falling apart. Right, It's like both things are
(30:10):
happening at once. It's that tone. It's the thing where
things are always getting better and worse, and it's not
just an illusion where like it's all samey, samey, but
there are things that are people are trying to fix
and make more resilient. Yeah, and ooh, this chapter is
called conclusion. I never I usually subheadings, but I usually don't.
(30:31):
Usually they're not as like conclusion. This one is my conclusion.
In that voice up at top, I quoted a paper
by Stanford's psychologist Jamil Zaki, and then they conclude that
paper with for all the suffering they produce. Social behavior
during and after disasters provides a counterpoint to the prevailing
(30:52):
cynicism of our culture. Catastrophe compassion presents people with a
view of ourselves that might surprise us, driven by otherishness
rather than by selfishness during crucially important moments. One way
to honor and extend this positive behavior is to not
be surprised by it any longer, but instead to realize
that pro sociality is common, and thus to expect and
(31:16):
demand it from others and from ourselves. Okay, I've been
watching the Internet terror part this like homesteader influencer couple recently,
and they're really cringing, annoying, and I like don't mind
the people tearing them apart because I think that they're posers. There.
There's like white couple that uses hand tools and is like,
oh the rusty saw. Yeah, yeah, totally mm hm. And
(31:36):
it's like, you know, there's photos where a woman with
brushed but not braided hair and clean clothes is like
moving manure around. And it's like anyone who's working outside
with long hair for long enough is braiding their fucking
hair or like putting it up in some way.
Speaker 5 (31:50):
Getting it out of their face in some capacity.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
And the guy's like hand sawing a log between sawhorses,
which means it'll pinch the blade, and it sure doesn't
seem like he knows what he's doing, but people have
accused him of that. In the common this is like
what I spend my time doing is watching people make funs.
Speaker 3 (32:03):
I saw a little bit of it, maybe because you are.
I don't know if Yeah, it doesn't matter. I saw
it briefly.
Speaker 2 (32:08):
Yeah, And I don't know. I don't know about these
two people one way or the other. They seem like
annoying and probably right wing based on their like, oh
we The real thing to do is everyone has a homestead.
They are selling a lie, whether they know it or not.
Homesteading the way it's sold is a lie. It is
(32:29):
a foundational lie in American culture. But forever and always
the supposedly rugged frontiersman has a few exceptions, been supported
by massive infrastructure that relies on those frontiersmen conquering territories
from indigenous peoples. It is nearly impossible to grow all
your own food as like a nuclear family. Anthropologically, whenever
humans live in small self sustaining groups, they are bigger
(32:50):
than husband, wife and children. There are a lot of
extended families. There's like clan structures. There's all kinds of
shit happening.
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Community, yeah, a commune sorts perhaps.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
Yeah, And they are generally trading with one another or
building infrastructure together. I am an introvert and as hermit
as it gets, I live me and my dog alone
in the mountains, but I am not lying to myself.
We rely on each other, and we rely on society.
The sort of father of mutual aid as an academic
topic of study is the regular friend of the pod
(33:22):
of the anarchist and evolutionary biologist Peter Kropotkin. He was
like a Russian prince who was like, I don't think
this prince thing is for me. I think actually we
should have a horizontal society of groups that help each other.
And I'm an anthropologist and I'm basing all of this
by watching all of these different groups. And his nineteen
oh two book mutual Aid, A Factor and Evolution. It's
(33:44):
a pretty literal title. It presents the idea that counter
to what social Darwinists at the time we're saying, mutual
aid is a factor in evolution. H He follows mutual
aid throughout the animal kingdom and then anthropologically through a
ton of different society and it's one of the foundational
texts of the modern study of cooperation. It's like understanding
(34:05):
how different species can have mutually beneficial relationships, right the
like birds that clean the teeth or the alligators or whatever.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
The fuck.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
I don't know, it's been a while since read the
science books that talk about this shit. And it's not
that competition doesn't happen or doesn't matter, but it's that
cooperation also matters. Like when you were talking about at
the very top of all of this, about how, like
many other things, we have this in it human desire
to help each other, we also have in a human
desire to hurt each other and.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Shit, right, absolutely, but like we can pick you know, yeah,
that's part of evolving and culture and growth is understanding
where some of our instincts come from. That's a benefit
of where we live at this point in time. But
in general, I mean, we're hardwired to survive, but we're
(34:53):
also hardwired for community. And at the end of the day,
we've never not relied on each other, right to some degree,
depending on how big your community is, but that is
how we have arrived where we are today. Yeah, the
evolution of society and culture.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah, no, it's it's interesting because it's like it it
turns out the argument is that it's not survival of
the fittest at each other's throats. Sometimes it's survival of
the fittest communities, and the fittest communities are communities that
are cooperative and so like, it's kind of interesting. Actually,
one of the first times I read about all this
stuff was I like, I'll probably talked about this on
the show before, but it's like lives in my head
(35:32):
a lot, you know. I found this article talking about
like scientists. It was like a science journal talking about
like why are there gay animals? Right? And I'm reading
this random science article and they're like evolutionary biologist Peter
Krapacken writing about this thing, and I'm like, oh, my god,
my guy, he's in the science and uh that like
the gay animals and like the animal kingdom, I'm talking
(35:53):
about humans here. I mean humans are animals too, but
like the gay animals will like the gay couple birds
will adopt to the fucking birds that are orphans and
shit or like, yeah, animals that have lost their mate
and aren't find you know, like they still find like
love and companionship with each other. Yeah, and so like
even though they can't reproduce sexually, some of them can,
(36:14):
some can't, whatever, mostly they can't, they are still providing
that species to be more survivable. So it is literally
part of evolution that some of us are gay.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Oh that's beautiful too. All of this is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yeah, thanks, and so the end of that book, Peter
Kapokin writes, in the practice of mutual aid, which we
can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus
find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions,
and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man,
mutual support, not mutual struggle, has the leading part in
(36:55):
its wide extension. Even at the present time. We also
see the guarantee of a still loftier evolution of the
human race.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Yeah, love that.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Yeah. So taking care of ourselves in each other, it's
what we evolve to do. We're good at it, we
should do it, and.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
That's how you grow too. I mean, there's so many
thoughts swimming around in my brain about this tangential but like, oh,
I might not have so much in common with that
person up the street, but we're going to come together
in this situation and learn and be on the same team.
And there's a humanizing element from that, And yeah, I think, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
Yeah, I mean it's hard because, right, some people, some
of your neighbors might be like fucking Nazis, Yeah, right, exactly,
And there might be people who are trying to kill you.
But by and large, there's people I disagree with about
pretty major stuff that I do not want to see
starved to death, that do not want to see me
starve to death, right, like right, Yeah, And even the Nazis,
(38:01):
I want them to just stop being Nazis, you know,
I want them.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
To stop being Nazi.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
I'm not wishing physical harm on them unless it's I
guess very well deserved here, But I'm not gonna cry
myself to sleep. But I'm not out here wishing the
worst for anybody or a traumatic experience. I'm gonna try
to help. There was this conversation and I remember in
college this debate about altruism. You know what, I don't
(38:27):
need to go down that path, Okay, but well it
just does altruism exist? If like, if you're is there
any can you is there an altruistic act? And I
kind of took up and I'm not sure if I
stand by this, but that there isn't. But it doesn't matter.
You can use that word because at the end of
the day, for example, your friend hopping in that plane
(38:49):
that you referenced a very scary choice. A lot of people,
you probably wouldn't fault somebody for not wanting to do it. However,
I bet your friend, and it meant so much like
I don't know how I would live with myself if
I had the opportunity to help somebody and I didn't, right,
And so maybe there's something selfish in that, But at
(39:11):
the end of the day, I don't think it's selfish.
It's just recognizing that what I want is the best
for people.
Speaker 5 (39:17):
Anyway.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
This is a tangent, but I have been it's been
floating in my head a bit.
Speaker 2 (39:21):
This is such an important tangent because we get presented
all the time, right, does altruism exist? Right? You can
find the selfish reason. You know, I want to be
the kind of person who does not let fear prevent
me from doing what I believe is right. So therefore,
if I get in that plane, which I didn't, but
like you know, I wasn't an option I presented to myself.
(39:41):
It was somewhere else in the country. I don't remember
where I was. But like, if I had gotten into
that plane, I would feel good about myself later. I mean,
at a time i'd be like, what the fuck am
I doing? What's wrong with like terrified? But yeah, yeah,
and so I would be proud, So I would get
something out of it. Right. But the argument that we
get presented with all the time by society and the
Cold War, this awful is the community versus the individual.
(40:04):
And the thing that I love about mutual aida factor
in evolution is he's not saying, oh, being good is good,
and anyone who doesn't sucks, and you know we should
suffer for each other. Instead, he's saying, what is good
for the individual is to be good for the community. Yes, yes,
so we need to find where it's not two polar opposites,
(40:27):
you know, And I just like deeply believe that, and
like basically I do too. Yeah, I want to be
part of a healthy community where people take care of me,
and the cost of entry is to be a person
who takes care of people. And then I feel good anyway,
because like when I have like extra and I give
it to someone, I am like, I probably got more
out of that than they did. I'm like, I am
(40:48):
the best person. I just came twenty bucks to that guy.
I'm like a fucking here. They should make us. I'm
a saint.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yeah, like but a statue up of me.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, Like I'm floating all day.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
And the thing is, as if you follow the trajectory
of this entire conversation of these two episodes, I extend
that to times of non crisis as well. Yeah, that's
my whole philosophy about society and communities. And you know,
part of the thing that I love about being in
a smaller community at the moment is that there's more effect.
(41:19):
My individual actions have a bit more of an effect
in here. But like I say this all the time
when people talk about, you know, housing crisis or this
that or the other, like different things. I'm like, well,
whether you like it or not, this is all.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
Of our issue.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Yeah, totally our.
Speaker 3 (41:37):
That's a selfish that's coming at it from a more
selfish perspective, But it's like, we need to collectively approach
this problem because if not, the downsides that are all
of us. We just because you're like, that's not me,
doesn't mean that that's not you know, in cert different
hazards or things that can happen. Again the selfish way
(42:00):
looking at it, but I believe fundamentally that healthy community,
you know, where we don't ignore the problems, that the
crises that people are going through, is better for all
of us at the end of the day. Yeah, and
just knowing that if something then happened to me that
there are infrastructures or people places that I can't go
out yeah for help anyway.
Speaker 2 (42:21):
No, And I even wonder whether the reason that we're
seeing like Elon Musk pretending like he's ever going to
go to Mars or Facebook robot man buying all of Hawaii, Zuckerberg,
you know, is like they're trying to find a way
to nimby climate change. They're trying to be like or
they're trying to find a way to make it not
(42:42):
their problem, right, because it is everyone's problem, and so
they're like, well, how can I be safe in this?
And then the answer is like you kind of can't.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Absolutely no, They're going to build their bunkers, and they're
different like things like advocate against policies because they're going
to continue making as much money as possible, but shure
up their own bunkers and their own backup plans.
Speaker 5 (43:04):
Yep, but that's going to only take you so far.
Speaker 2 (43:06):
But I love the like there was some report. I've
only read the pop science version of this, but the
you know, I read an article a long time ago
that was talking about how when the super rich we're
talking about all their bunkers. One of the meetings that
they had at the convention was how the fuck are
we going to get our security guards to keeping on
our side when there's like no money in the world's over, Like,
(43:28):
how do we make them still are subordinates? You know what?
Speaker 3 (43:31):
A good question and it seems so.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Funny because the obvious answer is to make them your equals,
and you're like, weird little bunker cult, you know, but
they're like, oh, fuck, what are we gonna I mean,
the answers, they're probably going to kidnap those people's children
and shit, you know, I don't know because yeah, there's
that other quote that I don't have source. That's like
from like the nineteen hundreds or eighteen whatever, nineteenth century.
That's like, oh, I can just hire one half of
(43:53):
the working class to kill the other half. You know.
Speaker 5 (43:56):
Yeah, anyway, probably is where they bring I'm focusing on that.
We've had a very hopeful conversation.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Yes, I think, don't get hired just to kill the
working class. That is the takeaway.
Speaker 5 (44:07):
That's a bad deal.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
Yeah, don't do that, and do use your specializations to
help each other. And listen to even more news.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Yeah, listen to even more news and some more news.
We're available as a podcast or the YouTube show for
both shows. Some people weren't thrilled that we started putting
the video of our podcast up on YouTube.
Speaker 5 (44:30):
A lot of people were, yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Look, if you prefer just audio, just go listen to it.
It's still in your podcast feed. I love you very much.
But he got both options now, and that's a good thing. Yeah,
so yeah, you can watch or listen to both of
those shows. And we are in the throes of election prep,
so busy.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
And if you want my take on random stuff, I
have a substack. It is Margaret Kildroyd at substack dot com.
All of the posts that are like meaningful and about
how I feel about election years and whatever. You can
find that there for free. And if you want more
of the like Margaret tells stories about hitchhiking or complains
about her day than those are for the people who
(45:13):
pay me. And that's Marta Kiljoyd at substock dot com.
And also you should listen to the rest of cools
on media because Selfie's nodding this genuinely really good because like, honestly,
I'm glad that more shows got added because sometimes at
the end of the week, I've listened to all of
the cools on media that week, and I'm like, now.
Speaker 3 (45:33):
What, Who's going to keep me company today?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
I know, like, while I'm you know, working on the
land that I live on, I was about to say
burning cardboard, but I would never do that. I totally
don't have a barrel in my front yard where I
burn all my cardboard. I don't know about the ethics
or laws around that, so I don't do that. But
if I did, I'd be listening to coolson Media while
I did it.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Yeah. Anyway, don't burn things during fire season. Yeah, and
put a great over your barrel and don't tell your neighbors. Yep. Absolutely,
see you all next week.
Speaker 1 (46:13):
Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of
cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,
visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out
on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
your podcasts.
Host
Margaret Killjoy
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