Season 6, Episode 12: Jenny McGrath and Organizer Mary Lovell Reality and Organizing in this moment

Mary Lovell is a queer grassroots organizer, visual artist, and activist who has been fighting oil and gas infrastructure and for social justice for their adult life - living up in the Kitsap Penninsula they are working on their first book  and love working with people to build power in their communities

Welcome to the Arise podcast. This is episode 12, conversations on Reality. And today we're touching on organizing and what does it mean to organize? How do we organize? And we talk to a seasoned organizer, Mary Lavelle. And so Mary is a queer, grassroots organizer, visual artist and activist who has been fighting oil and gas infrastructure and fighting for social justice in their adult life. Living in the Kitsap Peninsula. They're working on their first book and love working with people to build power in their communities. Join us. I hope you stay curious and we continue the dialogue.

Danielle (00:02):

Okay, Mary, it's so great to have you today. Just want to hear a little bit about who you are, where you come from, how did you land? I know I met you in Kitsap County. Are you originally from here? Yeah. Just take it

Mary (00:15):

Away. Yeah. So my name is Mary Lovel. I use she or they pronouns and I live in Washington State in Kitsap County. And then I have been organizing, I met Danielle through organizing, but I've spent most of my life organizing against oil and gas pipelines. I grew up in Washington state and then I moved up to Canada where there was a major oil pipeline crossing through where I was living. And so that got me engaged in social justice movements. That's the Transmountain pipeline, which it was eventually built, but we delayed it by a decade through a ton of different organizing, combination of lawsuits and direct action and all sorts of different tactics. And so I got to try and learn a lot of different things through that. And then now I'm living in Washington state and do a lot of different social justice bits and bobs of organizing, but mostly I'm focused on stopping. There's a major gas build out in Texas and Louisiana, and so I've been working with communities down there on pressuring financiers behind those oil and gas pipelines and major gas export. But all that to say, it's also like everyone is getting attacked on all sides. So I see it as a very intersectional fight of so many communities are being impacted by ice and the rise of the police state becoming even more prolific and surveillance becoming more prolific and all the things. So I see it as one little niche in a much larger fight. Yeah,

Yeah, totally. I think when I moved up to Canada, I was just finished high school, was moving up for college, had been going to some of the anti-war marches that were happening at the time, but was very much along for the ride, was like, oh, I'll go to big stuff. But it was more like if there was a student walkout or someone else was organizing people. And then when I moved up to Canada, I just saw the history of the nation state there in a totally different way. I started learning about colonialism and understanding that the land that I had moved to was unseated Tu Squamish and Musqueam land, and started learning also about how resource extraction and indigenous rights went hand in hand. I think in general, in the Pacific Northwest and Coast Salish territories, the presence of indigenous communities is really a lot more visible than other parts of North America because of the timelines of colonization.

(03:29):

But basically when I moved and had a fresh set of eyes, I was seeing the major marginalization of indigenous communities in Canada and the way that racism was showing up against indigenous communities there and just the racial demographics are really different in Canada. And so then I was just seeing the impacts of that in just a new way, and it was just frankly really startling. It's the sheer number of people that are forced to be houseless and the disproportionate impacts on especially indigenous communities in Canada, where in the US it's just different demographics of folks that are facing houselessness. And it made me realize that the racial context is so different place to place. But anyways, so all that to say is that I started learning about the combination there was the rise of the idle, no more movement was happening. And so people were doing a lot of really large marches and public demonstrations and hunger strikes and all these different things around it, indigenous rights in Canada and in bc there was a major pipeline that people were fighting too.

(04:48):

And that was the first time that I understood that my general concerns about climate and air and water were one in the same with racial justice. And I think that that really motivated me, but I also think I started learning about it from an academic standpoint and then I was like, this is incredibly dumb. It's like all these people are just writing about this. Why is not anyone doing anything about it? I was going to Simon Fraser University and there was all these people writing whole entire books, and I was like, that's amazing that there's this writing and study and knowledge, but also people are prioritizing this academic lens when it's so disconnected from people's lived realities. I was just like, what the fuck is going on? So then I got involved in organizing and there was already a really robust organizing community that I plugged into there, but I just helped with a lot of different art stuff or a lot of different mass mobilizations and trainings and stuff like that. But yeah, then I just stuck with it. I kept learning so many cool things and meeting so many interesting people that, yeah, it's just inspiring.

Jenny (06:14):

No, that's okay. I obviously feel free to get into as much or as little of your own personal story as you want to, but I was thinking we talk a lot about reality on here, and I'm hearing that there was introduction to your reality based on your education and your experience. And for me, I grew up in a very evangelical world where the rapture was going to happen anytime and I wasn't supposed to be concerned with ecological things because this world was going to end and a new one was going to come. And I'm just curious, and you can speak again as broadly or specifically if the things you were learning were a reality shift for you or if it just felt like it was more in alignment with how you'd experienced being in a body on a planet already.

Mary (07:08):

Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting question. I think. So I grew up between Renton and Issaquah, which is not, it was rural when I was growing up. Now it's become suburban sprawl, but I spent almost all of my summers just playing outside and very hermit ish in a very kind of farm valley vibe. But then I would go into the city for cool punk art shows or whatever. When you're a teenager and you're like, this is the hippest thing ever. I would be like, wow, Seattle. And so when I moved up to Vancouver, it was a very big culture shock for me because of it just being an urban environment too, even though I think I was seeing a lot of the racial impacts and all of the, but also a lot of just that class division that's visible in a different way in an urban environment because you just have more folks living on the streets rather than living in precarious places, more dispersed the way that you see in rural environments.

(08:21):

And so I think that that was a real physical shift for me where it was walking around and seeing the realities people were living in and the environment that I was living in. It's like many, many different people were living in trailers or buses or a lot of different, it wasn't like a wealthy suburban environment, it was a more just sprawling farm environment. But I do think that that moving in my body from being so much of my time outside and so much of my time in really all of the stimulation coming from the natural world to then going to an urban environment and seeing that the crowding of people and pushing people into these weird living situations I felt like was a big wake up call for me. But yeah, I mean my parents are sort of a mixed bag. I feel like my mom is very lefty, she is very spiritual, and so I was exposed to a lot of different face growing up.

(09:33):

She is been deep in studying Buddhism for most of her life, but then also was raised Catholic. So it was one of those things where my parents were like, you have to go to Catholic school because that's how you get morals, even though both of them rejected Catholicism in different ways and had a lot of different forms of abuse through those systems, but then they're like, you have to do this because we had to do it anyways. So all that to say is that I feel like I got exposed to a lot of different religious forms of thought and spirituality, but I didn't really take that too far into organizing world. But I wasn't really forced into a box the same way. It wasn't like I was fighting against the idea of rapture or something like that. I was more, I think my mom especially is very open-minded about religion.

(10:30):

And then my dad, I had a really hard time with me getting involved in activism because he just sees it as really high risk talk to me for after I did a blockade for a couple months or different things like that. Over the course of our relationship, he's now understands why I'm doing what I'm doing. He's learned a lot about climate and I think the way that this social movements can create change, he's been able to see that because of learning through the news and being more curious about it over time. But definitely that was more of the dynamic is a lot of you shouldn't do that because you should keep yourself safe and that won't create change. It's a lot of the, anyways,

I imagine too getting involved, even how Jenny named, oh, I came from this space, and Mary, you came from this space. I came from a different space as well, just thinking. So you meet all these different kinds of people with all these different kinds of ideas about how things might work. And obviously there's just three of us here, and if we were to try to organize something, we would have three distinct perspectives with three distinct family origins and three distinct ways of coming at it. But when you talk about a grander scale, can you give any examples or what you've seen works and doesn't work in your own experience, and how do you personally navigate different personalities, maybe even different motivations for getting something done? Yeah,

Mary (12:30):

Yeah. I think that's one of the things that's constantly intention, I feel like in all social movements is some people believe, oh, you should run for mayor in order to create the city environment that you want. Or some people are like, oh, if only we did lawsuits. Why don't we just sue the bastards? We can win that way. And then the other people are like, why spend the money and the time running for these institutions that are set up to create harm? And we should just blockade them and shift them through enough pressure, which is sort of where I fall in the political scheme I guess. But to me, it's really valuable to have a mix where I'm like, okay, when you have both inside and outside negotiation and pressure, I feel like that's what can create the most change because basically whoever your target is then understands your demands.

(13:35):

And so if you aren't actually clearly making your demands seen and heard and understood, then all the outside pressure in the world, they'll just dismiss you as being weird wing nuts. So I think that's where I fall is that you have to have both and that those will always be in disagreement because anyone doing inside negotiation with any kind of company or government is always going to be awkwardly in the middle between your outside pressure and what the target demand is. And so they'll always be trying to be wishy-washy and water down your demands or water down the, yeah. So anyways, all that to say is so I feel like there's a real range there, and I find myself in the most disagreements with the folks that are doing inside negotiations unless they're actually accountable to the communities. I think that my main thing that I've seen over the years as people that are doing negotiations with either corporations or with the government often wind up not including the most directly impacted voices and shooing them out of the room or not actually being willing to cede power, agreeing to terms that are just not actually what the folks on the ground want and celebrating really small victories.

(15:06):

So yeah, I don't know. That's where a lot of the tension is, I think. But I really just believe in the power of direct action and arts and shifting culture. I feel like the most effective things that I've seen is honestly spaghetti on the wall strategy where you just try everything. You don't actually know what's going to move these billionaires.

(15:32):

They have huge budgets and huge strategies, but it's also if you can create, bring enough people with enough diverse skill sets into the room and then empower them to use their skillsets and cause chaos for whoever the target is, where it's like they are stressed out by your existence, then they wind up seeding to your demands because they're just like, we need this problem to go away. So I'm like, how do we become a problem that's really hard to ignore? It's basically my main strategy, which sounds silly. A lot of people hate it when I answer this way too. So at work or in other places, people think that I should have a sharper strategy and I'm like, okay, but actually does anyone know the answer to this question? No, let's just keep rolling anyways. But I do really going after the financiers or SubT targets too.

(16:34):

That's one of the things that just because sometimes it's like, okay, if you're going to go after Geo Corp or Geo Group, I mean, or one of the other major freaking giant weapons manufacturers or whatever, it just fully goes against their business, and so they aren't going to blink even at a lot of the campaigns, they will get startled by it versus the people that are the next layer below them that are pillars of support in the community, they'll waffle like, oh, I don't want to actually be associated with all those war crimes or things like that. So I like sub targets, but those can also be weird distractions too, depending on what it is. So yeah, really long. I

Danielle (17:24):

Dunno how you felt, Jenny, but I feel all those tensions around organizing that you just said, I felt myself go like this as you went through it because you didn't. Exactly. I mean nothing. I agree it takes a broad strategy. I think I agree with you on that, but sitting in the room with people with broad perspectives and that disagree is so freaking uncomfortable. It's so much just to soothe myself in that environment and then how to know to balance that conversation when those people don't even really like each other maybe.

Mary (17:57):

Oh yeah. And you're just trying to avoid having people get in an actual fight. Some of the organizing against the banger base, for instance, I find really inspiring because of them having ex submarine captains and I'm like, okay, I'm afraid of talking to folks that have this intense military perspective, but then when they walk away from their jobs and actually want to help a movement, then you're like, okay, we have to organize across difference. But it's also to what end, it's like are you going to pull the folks that are coming from really diverse perspectives further left through your organizing or are you just trying to accomplish a goal with them to shift one major entity or I dunno. But yeah, it's very stressful. I feel like trying to avoid getting people in a fight is also a role myself or trying to avoid getting invites myself.

Jenny (19:09):

That was part of what I was wondering is if you've over time found that there are certain practices or I hate this word protocols or ways of engaging folks, that feels like intentional chaos and how do you kind of steward that chaos rather than it just erupting in a million different places or maybe that is part of the process even. But just curious how you've found that kind of

Mary (19:39):

Yeah, I love doing calendaring with people so that people can see one another's work and see the value of both inside and outside pressure and actually map it out together so that they aren't feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of one sort of train of thought leading. Do you know what I mean? Where it's like if people see all of this DC based blobbing happening, that's very much less so during the current administration, but for example, then they might be frustrated and feel like, where is our pressure campaign or where is our movement building work versus if you actually just map out those moments together and then see how they can be in concert. I feel like that's my real, and it's a bit harder to do with lawsuit stuff because it's just so much not up to social movements about when that happens because the courts are just long ass processes that are just five years later they announced something and you're like, what?

(20:53):

But for the things that you can pace internally, I feel like that is a big part of it. And I find that when people are working together in coalition, there's a lot of communities that I work with that don't get along, but they navigate even actively disliking each other in order to share space, in order to build a stronger coalition. And so that's to me is really inspiring. And sometimes that will blow up and become a frustrating source of drama where it's like you have two frontline leaders that are coming from a very different social movement analysis if one is coming from economic justice and is coming from the working class white former oil worker line of thinking. And then you have a community organizer that's been grown up in the civil rights movement and is coming from a black feminism and is a black organizer with a big family. Some of those tensions will brew up where it's like, well, I've organized 200 oil workers and then you've organized a whole big family, and at the end of the day, a lot of the former oil workers are Trumpers and then a lot of the black fam is we have generations of beef with y'all.

(22:25):

We have real lived history of you actually sorting our social progress. So then you wind up in this coalition dynamic where you're like, oh fuck. But it's also if they both give each other space to organize and see when you're organizing a march or something like that, even having contingent of people coming or things like that, that can be really powerful. And I feel like that's the challenge and the beauty of the moment that we're in where you're like you have extreme social chaos in so many different levels and even people on the right are feeling it.

Danielle (23:12):

Yeah, I agree. I kind of wonder what you would say to this current moment and the coalition, well, the people affected is broadening, and so I think the opportunity for the Coalition for Change is broadening and how do we do that? How do we work? Exactly. I think you pinned it. You have the oil person versus this other kind of family, but I feel that, and I see that especially around snap benefits or food, it's really hard when you're at the government level, it's easy to say, well, those people don't deserve that dah, dah, dah, right? But then you're in your own community and you ask anybody, Hey, let's get some food for a kid. They're like, yeah, almost no one wants to say no to that. So I don't know, what are you kind of hearing? What are you feeling as I say that?

Mary (24:11):

Yeah, I definitely feel like we're in a moment of great social upheaval where I feel like the class analysis that people have is really growing when have people actually outright called the government fascist and an oligarchy for years that was just a very niche group of lefties saying that. And then now we have a broad swath of people actually explicitly calling out the classism and the fascism that we're seeing rising. And you're seeing a lot of people that are really just wanting to support their communities because they're feeling the impacts of cost of living and feeling the impacts of all these social programs being cut. And also I think having a lot more visibility into the violence of the police state too. And I think, but yeah, it's hard to know exactly what to do with all that momentum. It feels like there's a huge amount of momentum that's possible right now.

(25:24):

And there's also not a lot of really solid places for people to pour their energy into of multiracial coalitions with a specific demand set that can shift something, whether it be at the state level or city level or federal level. It feels like there's a lot of dispersed energy and you have these mass mobilizations, but then that I feel excited about the prospect of actually bringing people together across difference. I feel like it really is. A lot of people are really demystified so many people going out to protests. My stepmom started going out to a lot of the no kings protests when she hasn't been to any protest over the whole course of her life. And so it's like people being newly activated and feeling a sense of community in the resistance to the state, and that's just really inspiring. You can't take that moment back away from people when they've actually gone out to a protest.

(26:36):

Then when they see protests, they know what it feels like to be there. But yeah, I feel like I'm not really sure honestly what to do with all of the energy. And I think I also have been, and I know a lot of other organizers are in this space of grieving and reflecting and trying to get by and they aren't necessarily stepping up into a, I have a strategy, please follow me role that could be really helpful for mentorship for people. And instead it feels like there's a bit of a vacuum, but that's also me calling from my living room in Kitsap County. I don't have a sense of what's going on in urban environments really or other places. There are some really cool things going on in Seattle for people that are organizing around the city's funding of Tesla or building coalitions that are both around defunding the police and also implementing climate demands or things like that. And then I also feel like I'm like, people are celebrating that Dick Cheney died. Fuck yes. I'm like, people are a lot more just out there with being honest about how they feel about war criminals and then you have that major win in New York and yeah, there's some little beacons of hope. Yeah. What do you all think?

Jenny (28:16):

I just find myself really appreciating the word coalition. I think a lot of times I use the word collective, and I think it was our dear friend Rebecca a couple of weeks ago was like, what do you mean by collective? What are you saying by that? And I was struggling to figure that out, and I think coalition feels a lot more honest. It feels like it has space for the diversity and the tensions and the conflicts within trying to perhaps pursue a similar goal. And so I just find myself really appreciating that language. And I was thinking about several years ago I did an embodied social justice certificate and one of the teachers was talking about white supremacy and is a professor in a university. I was like, I'm aware of representing white supremacy in a university and speaking against it, and I'm a really big believer in termites, and I just loved that idea of I myself, I think it's perhaps because I think I am neurodivergent and I don't do well in any type of system, and so I consider myself as one of those that will be on the outside doing things and I've grown my appreciation for those that have the brains or stamina or whatever is required to be one of those people that works on it from the inside.

(29:53):

So those are some of my thoughts. What about you, Danielle?

Danielle (30:03):

I think a lot about how we move where it feels like this, Mary, you're talking about people are just quiet and I know I spent weeks just basically being with my family at home and the food thing came up and I've been motivated for that again, and I also just find myself wanting to be at home like cocoon. I've been out to some of the marches and stuff, said hi to people or did different things when I have energy, but they're like short bursts and I don't feel like I have a very clear direction myself on what is the long-term action, except I was telling friends recently art and food, if I can help people make art and we can eat together, that feels good to me right now. And those are the only two things that have really resonated enough for me to have creative energy, and maybe that's something to the exhaustion you're speaking about and I don't know, I mean Mary A. Little bit, and I know Jenny knows, I spent a group of us spent years trying to advocate for English language learners here at North and in a nanosecond, Trump comes along and just Fs it all, Fs up the law, violates the law, violates funding all of this stuff in a nanosecond, and you're like, well, what do you do about that?

(31:41):

It doesn't mean you stop organizing at the local level, but there is something of a punch to the gut about it.

Mary (31:48):

Oh yeah, no, people are just getting punched in the gut all over the place and then you're expected to just keep on rolling and moving and you're like, alright, well I need time to process. But then it feels like you can just be stuck in this pattern of just processing because they just keep throwing more and more shit at you and you're like, ah, let us hide and heal for a little bit, and then you're like, wait, that's not what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Yeah. Yeah. It's intense. And yeah, I feel that the sense of need for art and food is a great call. Those things are restorative too, where you're like, okay, how can I actually create a space that feels healthy and generative when so much of that's getting taken away? I also speaking to your somatic stuff, Jenny, I recently started doing yoga and stretching stuff again after just years of not because I was like, oh, I have all this shit all locked up in my body and I'm not even able to process when I'm all locked up. Wild. Yeah.

Danielle (33:04):

Yeah. I fell in a hole almost two weeks ago, a literal concrete hole, and I think the hole was meant for my husband Luis. He actually has the worst luck than me. I don't usually do that shit meant I was walking beside him, I was walking beside of him. He is like, you disappeared. I was like, it's because I stepped in and I was in the moment. My body was like, oh, just roll. And then I went to roll and I was like, well, I should put my hand out. I think it's concrete. So I sprained my right ankle, I sprained my right hand, I smashed my knees on the concrete. They're finally feeling better, but that's how I feel when you talk about all of this. I felt like the literal both sides of my body and I told a friend at the gym is like, I don't think I can be mortal combat because when my knees hurt, it's really hard for me to do anything. So if I go into any, I'm conscripted or anything happens to me, I need to wear knee pads.

Jenny (34:48):

Yeah. I literally Googled today what does it mean if you just keep craving cinnamon? And Google was like, you probably need sweets, which means you're probably very stressed. I was like, oh, yeah. It's just interesting to me all the ways that our bodies speak to us, whether it's through that tension or our cravings, it's like how do we hold that tension of the fact that we are animal bodies that have very real needs and the needs of our communities, of our coalitions are exceeding what it feels like we have individual capacity for, which I think is part of the point. It's like let's make everything so unbelievably shitty that people have a hard time just even keeping up. And so it feels at times difficult to tend to my body, and I'm trying to remember, I have to tend to my body in order to keep the longevity that is necessary for this fight, this reconstruction that's going to take probably longer than my life will be around, and so how do I keep just playing my part in it while I'm here?

Mary (36:10):

Yeah. That's very wise, Jenny. I feel like the thing that I've been thinking about a lot as winter settles in is that I've been like, right, okay, trees lose their leaves and just go dormant. It's okay for me to just go dormant and that doesn't mean that I'm dead. I think that's been something that I've been thinking about too, where it's like, yeah, it's frustrating to see the urgency of this time and know that you're supposed to be rising to the occasion and then also be in your dormancy or winter, but I do feel like there is something to that, the nurturing of the roots that happens when plants aren't focused on growing upwards. I think that that's also one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about in organizing, especially for some of the folks that are wanting to organize but aren't sure a lot of the blockade tactics that they were interested in pursuing now feel just off the table for the amount of criminalization or problems that they would face for it. So then it's like, okay, but how do we go back and nurture our roots to be stronger in the long run and not just disappear into the ether too?

Danielle (37:31):

I do feel that, especially being in Washington, I feel like this is the hibernation zone. It's when my body feels cozy at night and I don't want to be out, and it means I want to just be with my family more for me, and I've just given myself permission for that for weeks now because it's really what I wanted to do and I could tell my kids craved it too, and my husband and I just could tell they needed it, and so I was surprised I needed it too. I like to be out and I like to be with people, but I agree, Mary, I think we get caught up in trying to grow out that we forget that we do need to really take care of our bodies. And I know you were saying that too, Jenny. I mean, Jenny Jenny's the one that got me into somatic therapy pretty much, so if I roll out of this telephone booth, you can blame Jenny. That's great.

Mary (38:39):

That's perfect. Yeah, somatics are real. Oh, the cinnamon thing, because cinnamon is used to regulate your blood sugar. I don't know if you realize that a lot of people that have diabetes or insulin resistant stuff, it's like cinnamon helps see your body with sugar regulation, so that's probably why Google was telling you that too.

Jenny (39:04):

That is really interesting. I do have to say it was one of those things, I got to Vermont and got maple syrup and I was like, I don't think I've ever actually tasted maple syrup before, so now I feel like I've just been drinking it all day. So good. Wait,

Mary (39:29):

That's amazing. Also, it's no coincidence that those are the fall flavors, right? Like maple and cinnamon and all the Totally, yeah. Cool.

Danielle (39:42):

So Mary, what wisdom would you give to folks at whatever stage they're in organizing right now? If you could say, Hey, this is something I didn't know even last week, but I know now. Is there something you'd want to impart or give away?

Mary (39:59):

I think the main thing is really just to use your own skills. Don't feel like you have to follow along with whatever structure someone is giving you for organizing. It's like if you're an artist, use that. If you're a writer, use that. If you make film, use that, don't pigeonhole yourself into that. You have to be a letter writer because that's the only organized thing around you. I think that's the main thing that I always feel like is really exciting to me is people, if you're a coder, there's definitely activists that need help with websites or if you're an accountant, there are so many organizations that are ready to just get audited and then get erased from this world and they desperately need you. I feel like there's a lot of the things that I feel like when you're getting involved in social movements. The other thing that I want to say right now is that people have power.

(40:55):

It's like, yes, we're talking about falling in holes and being fucking exhausted, but also even in the midst of this, a community down in Corpus Christi just won a major fight against a desalination plant where they were planning on taking a bunch of water out of their local bay and then removing the salt from it in order to then use the water for the oil and gas industry. And that community won a campaign through city level organizing, which is just major because basically they have been in a multi-year intense drought, and so their water supply is really, really critical for the whole community around them. And so the fact that they won against this desal plant is just going to be really important for decades to come, and that was one under the Trump administration. They were able to win it because it was a city level fight.

(42:05):

Also, the De Express pipeline got canceled down in Texas and Louisiana, which is a major pipeline expansion that was going to feed basically be a feeder pipeline to a whole pipeline system in Mexico and LNG export there. There's like, and that was just two weeks ago maybe, but it feels like there's hardly any news about it because people are so focused on fighting a lot of these larger fights, but I just feel like it's possible to win still, and people are very much feeling, obviously we aren't going to win a lot of major things under fascism, but it's also still possible to create change at a local level and not the state can't take everything from us. They're trying to, and also it's a fucking gigantic country, so thinking about them trying to manage all of us is just actually impossible for them to do it. They're having to offer, yes, the sheer number of people that are working for ICE is horrific, and also they're offering $50,000 signing bonuses because no one actually wants to work for ice.

(43:26):

They're desperately recruiting, and it's like they're causing all of this economic imbalance and uncertainty and chaos in order to create a military state. They're taking away the SNAP benefits so that people are hungry enough and desperate enough to need to steal food so that they can criminalize people, so that they can build more jails so that they can hire more police. They're doing all of these things strategically, but also they can't actually stop all of the different social movement organizers or all of the communities that are coming together because it's just too big of a region that they're trying to govern. So I feel like that's important to recognize all of the ways that we can win little bits and bobs, and it doesn't feel like, it's not like this moment feels good, but it also doesn't, people I think, are letting themselves believe what the government is telling them that they can't resist and that they can't win. And so it's just to me important to add a little bit more nuance of that. What the government's doing is strategic and also we can also still win things and that, I don't know, it's like we outnumber them, but yeah, that's my pep talk, pep Ted talk.

Mary (45:18):

And just the number of Canadians that texted me being like, mom, Donny, they're just like, everyone is seeing that it's, having the first Muslim be in a major political leadership role in New York is just fucking awesome, wild, and I'm also skeptical of all levels of government, but I do feel like that's just an amazing win for the people. Also, Trump trying to get in with an endorsement as if that would help. It's hilarious. Honestly,

Mary (46:41):

Yeah. I also feel like the snap benefits thing is really going to be, it reminds me of that quote, they tried to bury us, but we were seeds quote where I'm just like, oh, this is going to actually bite you so hard. You're now creating an entire generation of people that's discontent with the government, which I'm like, okay, maybe this is going to have a real negative impact on children that are going hungry. And also it's like to remember that they're spending billions on weapons instead of feeding people. That is so radicalizing for so many people that I just am like, man, I hope this bites them in the long term. I just am like, it's strategic for them for trying to get people into prisons and terrible things like that, but it's also just woefully unstrategic when you think about it long term where you're like, okay, have whole families just hating you.

Jenny (47:57):

It makes me think of James Baldwin saying not everything that's faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced. And I feel like so many of these things are forcing folks who have had privilege to deny the class wars and the oligarchy and all of these things that have been here forever, but now that it's primarily affecting white bodies, it's actually forcing some of those white bodies to confront how we've gotten here in the first place. And that gives me a sense of hope.

Mary (48:48):

Oh, great. Thank you so much for having me. It was so nice to talk to y'all. I hope that you have a really good rest of your day, and yeah, really appreciate you hosting these important convos.

Well, first I guess I would have to believe that there was or is an actual political dialogue taking place that I could potentially be a part of. And honestly, I'm not sure that I believe that.