WEBVTT 00:00:03.250 --> 00:00:05.760 Greetings troublemakers... welcome to Trouble. 00:00:05.760 --> 00:00:08.020 My name is not important. 00:00:08.020 --> 00:00:12.620 These days, it has become nearly impossible to ignore the destructive impacts on our oceans, 00:00:12.620 --> 00:00:16.980 rivers, land and atmosphere wrought by two centuries of industrial capitalism. 00:00:16.980 --> 00:00:22.420 The consequences have been devastating for all forms of life on earth. 00:00:22.420 --> 00:00:27.520 Around the globe, forests are disappearing at a frantic rate, giving rise to the fastest 00:00:27.529 --> 00:00:31.779 rate of species extinction in the past 65 million years. 00:00:31.780 --> 00:00:37.620 Meanwhile, more than 10 kilometres below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the rocky depths 00:00:37.620 --> 00:00:42.100 of the Mariana Trench have become a graveyard of discarded plastic and other forms of packaging 00:00:42.100 --> 00:00:44.360 for mass-produced commodities. 00:00:44.360 --> 00:00:47.160 Human societies have also been hit hard. 00:00:47.160 --> 00:00:51.900 Just this year alone, historic droughts have ravaged numerous East and Southern African 00:00:51.900 --> 00:00:57.360 states, putting tens of millions at risk of famine... even as torrential flooding has 00:00:57.360 --> 00:01:01.440 laid waste to parts of West Africa and the South Asian subcontinent, washing away 00:01:01.440 --> 00:01:02.800 entire villages. 00:01:02.800 --> 00:01:08.140 Record-setting wildfires have ravaged California and the Pacific Northwest, producing apocalyptic 00:01:08.150 --> 00:01:13.430 scenes of destruction that look like something out of a Hollywood disaster flick. 00:01:13.430 --> 00:01:18.050 And then, of course, there was this year's unprecedented hurricane season, which saw 00:01:18.050 --> 00:01:23.750 multiple category five storms smash into the Caribbean and Gulf Coast, and the first ever 00:01:23.750 --> 00:01:27.619 reported hurricane off the coast of the UK and Ireland. 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:32.420 But while these natural disasters have produced terrible scenes of human suffering and death, 00:01:32.420 --> 00:01:37.320 they have also provided opportunities for some truly inspiring acts of solidarity 00:01:37.320 --> 00:01:39.080 and mutual aid. 00:01:39.090 --> 00:01:43.659 In areas where people have been abandoned by state and NGO relief efforts, decentralized 00:01:43.659 --> 00:01:48.950 networks of volunteers have popped up to coordinate food and supply distribution, arrange for 00:01:48.950 --> 00:01:52.979 temporary housing and help communities rebuild local infrastructure. 00:01:52.979 --> 00:01:57.250 Over the next thirty minutes, we'll highlight the voices of several individuals as they 00:01:57.250 --> 00:01:57.740 share their experiences working with decentralized mutual aid disaster relief networks, circumventing 00:01:57.740 --> 00:02:06.700 bureaucratic non-profits like the Red Cross, and making a whole lot of trouble. 00:02:32.900 --> 00:02:36.040 I was working with Common Ground in New Orleans in the Lower 9th. 00:02:36.040 --> 00:02:40.540 I got there two years after Katrina, and when I got there I was really shocked to see 00:02:40.540 --> 00:02:43.900 cement blocks where the houses had been washed off the foundations. 00:02:43.900 --> 00:02:47.650 And the government was fining people for not cutting their grass when their houses were 00:02:47.650 --> 00:02:49.640 totally washed away. 00:02:49.640 --> 00:02:51.690 I was out in Queens when Sandy came in. 00:02:51.690 --> 00:02:56.880 And we thought “surely this can’t be that big of a deal, right? It’s not even a hurricane.” 00:02:56.880 --> 00:03:01.280 What amazed me was how powerful the storm was, and how it just flattened Staten Island. 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:03.040 I mean there was just nothing. 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:06.620 To see the subway close down for the first time in over a hundred years, 00:03:06.620 --> 00:03:08.300 because this catastrophic storm 00:03:08.300 --> 00:03:11.320 had hit New York City, was truly terrifying. 00:03:11.320 --> 00:03:14.200 And I thought, man, if this just starts happening everywhere... 00:03:14.200 --> 00:03:16.440 what is our world going to be like? 00:03:16.440 --> 00:03:17.700 Not good. 00:03:17.700 --> 00:03:18.740 Believe me, not good. 00:03:18.740 --> 00:03:20.360 The Carribbean has just been getting hammered. 00:03:20.360 --> 00:03:23.480 The strongest hurricane in history to make landfall. 00:03:23.480 --> 00:03:25.620 Prayers are needed for this area. 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:28.980 Anytime it rains, people are re-traumatized. They’re afraid. 00:03:28.980 --> 00:03:33.440 The flooding was severe and they’re having to adjust to the fact that their lives are 00:03:33.440 --> 00:03:34.680 very different now. 00:03:34.680 --> 00:03:38.160 Their lives are not ever going to be the same again, because of this storm in some very 00:03:38.160 --> 00:03:40.440 negative and long lasting ways. 00:03:40.440 --> 00:03:44.860 The west side and the central area in Puerto Rico have been really heavily affected. 00:03:44.870 --> 00:03:49.500 There’s like 400 miles out of 5000 miles of traversable roads. 00:03:49.500 --> 00:03:51.010 There’s bridges that have collapsed. 00:03:51.010 --> 00:03:54.940 The death toll that’s being reported is, like, grossly underestimated. 00:03:54.940 --> 00:03:59.980 It came in through the southeast and it created a lot of damage in the area, and a lot of 00:03:59.980 --> 00:04:05.480 damage in the mountains, and then it exited towards the northwest, so basically 00:04:05.480 --> 00:04:07.100 the whole island was hit. 00:04:07.110 --> 00:04:10.470 Communities you know, vary in different degrees of damage. 00:04:10.470 --> 00:04:12.160 But it’s been immense. 00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:15.940 When you’re unable to go about your day to day life and people are unable to go to 00:04:15.950 --> 00:04:21.108 their jobs, when children are unable to go to school, when folks are unable to get medical 00:04:21.108 --> 00:04:24.680 care, when people literally die of infections... that’s catastrophe. 00:04:34.040 --> 00:04:36.260 There’s a great deal of damage. 00:04:36.260 --> 00:04:41.690 Homes are in disrepair, there’s trash in the streets, there are dogs roaming the streets 00:04:41.690 --> 00:04:45.830 that are hungry because the people that they were previously relying on to take care of 00:04:45.830 --> 00:04:47.900 them are no longer able to feed or care for them. 00:04:47.900 --> 00:04:50.150 There’s a lot of displaced folks. 00:04:50.150 --> 00:04:53.780 People who were homeless prior to the storm are still living in shelter environments, where 00:04:53.780 --> 00:04:59.310 they are revictimized and retraumatized on a regular basis by these large international 00:04:59.310 --> 00:05:02.380 disaster relief organizations who come into the city and often times do 00:05:02.380 --> 00:05:03.560 more harm than good. 00:05:03.560 --> 00:05:07.280 My name is Debra. I am one of the co-founders of Bayou Action Street Health, 00:05:07.280 --> 00:05:09.180 which is a street medic collective in Houston. 00:05:09.180 --> 00:05:13.400 BASH formed right before Hurricane Harvey and has been doing disaster relief 00:05:13.400 --> 00:05:15.200 and mutual aid work since the storm. 00:05:15.200 --> 00:05:20.640 It’s a loose collective of people from around the city and around the country who come and 00:05:20.640 --> 00:05:23.140 help out for whatever predetermined amount of time 00:05:23.140 --> 00:05:25.180 that they want to come and be here. 00:05:25.190 --> 00:05:29.940 We advocate for people who have been locked out of the Red Cross shelter, we help with 00:05:29.940 --> 00:05:32.580 mucking and guttering of the homes that were flooded. 00:05:32.580 --> 00:05:38.480 We are doing mold remediation, clothing distribution, food distribution, supply distribution, 00:05:38.480 --> 00:05:43.880 along with street medic training, mental health training, peer-to-peer counselling training, 00:05:43.880 --> 00:05:46.700 and regular old street medic-ing. 00:05:46.700 --> 00:05:51.920 In times of crisis I think it’s natural for people to look around and see 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:53.040 how they can help. 00:05:53.040 --> 00:05:56.020 We saw a lot of it in Houston, and we saw it happen very quickly. 00:05:56.020 --> 00:05:59.720 We saw Mutual Aid groups come together in the blink of an eye. 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:05.140 Communities that we’re working in, the lower socio-economic status, the homeless, the poor, 00:06:05.150 --> 00:06:09.930 the working poor- sometimes they need other people to come in and give them a hand. 00:06:09.930 --> 00:06:11.729 They know what needs to be done. 00:06:11.729 --> 00:06:17.300 They don’t need to be infantilized or objectified or tokenized, but they just need access to 00:06:17.300 --> 00:06:21.260 resources, and if you have access to resources, then it’s your duty to provide those resources 00:06:21.260 --> 00:06:22.790 to those who don’t have them. 00:06:22.790 --> 00:06:28.380 The water was not water, it was sewage, and it was overflow from the superfund sites, 00:06:28.380 --> 00:06:31.320 from the chemical clean-up sites, and it was toxic. 00:06:31.330 --> 00:06:34.380 Houston is one of the petrochemical centres of the Gulf Coast. 00:06:34.380 --> 00:06:41.090 So when the storm came, we had fuel spills, we had sites that were flooded that were already 00:06:41.090 --> 00:06:44.160 contaminated, so that water flowed through the city. 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:50.160 What we already know happens in those areas are large concentrations of upper respiratory 00:06:50.160 --> 00:06:55.760 and lung diseases, cancer clusters, fetal death, premature birth, deformities 00:06:55.760 --> 00:07:00.640 - not only in the short term, but the effects of the Petro-Chemical industry 00:07:00.640 --> 00:07:02.400 - that’s a a long term problem. 00:07:02.400 --> 00:07:05.860 We may not see those effects for five, ten, fifteen years from now. 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:07.800 But eventually we’re gonna see them. 00:07:08.260 --> 00:07:11.200 There’s looting in Houston in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. 00:07:11.200 --> 00:07:13.160 That’s according to local police officials. 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:15.600 There’s been numerous reports of looting by storm survivors. 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:18.000 Neighbours here... they’re not messing around. 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:22.400 I know of one grocery store in Houston after the storm that was broken into 00:07:22.400 --> 00:07:23.920 because people were hungry. 00:07:23.930 --> 00:07:26.440 They took eggs, they took milk and they took bread. 00:07:26.440 --> 00:07:30.860 The media was out, and a reporter called the cops. And his reasoning was we have to keep 00:07:30.860 --> 00:07:33.420 order in place, otherwise there will be total chaos. 00:07:33.420 --> 00:07:36.980 Well of course the government wants to criminalize disaster victims because it does the same 00:07:36.980 --> 00:07:37.980 with poverty. 00:07:37.980 --> 00:07:40.160 It has to be part of the discourse and the narrative. 00:07:40.160 --> 00:07:41.720 And it’s also very racialized. 00:07:41.720 --> 00:07:45.650 There were all those images that came out of Katrina, um, there’s one in particular 00:07:45.650 --> 00:07:49.720 where it’s a photo of a white person with a bag full of groceries, dragging it through 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:50.900 the floodwaters. 00:07:50.900 --> 00:07:54.780 They were portrayed as being beneficial to their family and their community. 00:07:54.780 --> 00:08:00.720 And then there’s another photo of a Black person, basically the same situation, - ‘looters’ 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:02.500 you know, ‘ ravaging the city’. 00:08:02.500 --> 00:08:04.180 It’s a game. 00:08:04.180 --> 00:08:07.980 They’re the same people, doing the same thing, for the same reason. 00:08:07.980 --> 00:08:12.200 Especially with Puerto Ricans being the ‘second class citizens’, if you may, these people 00:08:12.210 --> 00:08:15.960 who enjoy some rights, but are colonized by the US. 00:08:15.960 --> 00:08:19.120 Then you also have to promote this idea of criminalization, 00:08:19.120 --> 00:08:21.360 this idea of incapacity to run a government. 00:08:21.360 --> 00:08:24.140 But we have the conditions that we have because US imperialism 00:08:24.140 --> 00:08:26.320 and colonialism has created the situation. 00:08:26.320 --> 00:08:27.740 What should people do? 00:08:27.740 --> 00:08:29.070 Should they die? 00:08:29.070 --> 00:08:31.090 Should they allow their children to die? 00:08:31.090 --> 00:08:36.140 We should all be considering very deeply what it means when a society values things 00:08:36.140 --> 00:08:39.159 over human life. 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:43.659 Cuz with the way our society is unraveling and how rapidly it’s unravelling, one could 00:08:43.659 --> 00:08:48.780 easily find themselves swimming to the corner store in search of food. 00:08:51.520 --> 00:08:57.480 Despite what the oil industry lobbyists and die-hard climate change skeptics may say, it's a widely-accepted 00:08:57.490 --> 00:09:01.390 fact that greenhouse gas emissions are trapping more of the sun's energy within the earth's 00:09:01.390 --> 00:09:05.630 atmosphere, causing a spike in global temperatures. 00:09:05.630 --> 00:09:12.160 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded, for the third year in a row... and 2017 is currently 00:09:12.160 --> 00:09:14.180 expected to come in a close second. 00:09:14.180 --> 00:09:18.760 But while people on dry land have been sweltering through historic heatwaves, the effects on 00:09:18.779 --> 00:09:21.550 ocean temperatures have been even more dramatic. 00:09:21.550 --> 00:09:26.570 And just as climate scientists have longed warned us would happen, warmer surface temperatures 00:09:26.570 --> 00:09:30.300 in the oceans are producing more frequent and powerful storms. 00:09:30.300 --> 00:09:34.860 This year's hurricane season was unprecedented, with three separate mega-storms, Harvey, Irma 00:09:34.860 --> 00:09:40.520 and Maria making landfall in the Caribbean and areas along the US Gulf Coast. 00:09:40.520 --> 00:09:46.430 The islands of Dominica and Barbuda were completely flattened, and the UK and US Virgin Islands 00:09:46.430 --> 00:09:48.980 sustained heavy devastation. 00:09:48.980 --> 00:09:52.660 But nowhere was the scale of damage worse than in Borike, or as it’s known by its 00:09:52.660 --> 00:09:54.160 gringo overlords... 00:09:54.160 --> 00:09:56.200 Pweeerto Rico. 00:09:56.200 --> 00:10:01.160 Puerto Rico was hit by two separate storms, Irma and Maria, causing massive flooding, 00:10:01.160 --> 00:10:05.570 knocking out the country's electrical and telecommunication grids, and leaving millions 00:10:05.570 --> 00:10:08.279 of people without access to clean drinking water. 00:10:08.279 --> 00:10:10.380 This natural disaster was made all the worse 00:10:10.380 --> 00:10:13.520 by the man-made disaster that is the Trump administration 00:10:13.520 --> 00:10:16.020 All appropriate departments of our government 00:10:16.040 --> 00:10:21.620 from Homeland Security to Defense are engaged fully in the disaster. 00:10:21.620 --> 00:10:24.960 and the island's status as a hyper-exploited US colony. 00:10:24.960 --> 00:10:30.400 But while Trump has used the disaster as an excuse to work on his paper-towel 3-point game 00:10:30.400 --> 00:10:34.880 and yet another opportunity for delusional self-glorification, 00:10:34.880 --> 00:10:37.840 When you talk about relief, when you talk about search, when you talk about 00:10:37.840 --> 00:10:42.840 all of the different levels. And even when you talk about lives saved... 00:10:42.840 --> 00:10:44.980 I give ourselves a ten. 00:10:44.980 --> 00:10:49.940 people in Puerto Rico have responded to the situation with an incredible level of resiliency, 00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:53.320 and outpouring of collective solidarity. 00:10:58.200 --> 00:11:01.400 Puerto Rico has been undergoing a crisis for over 11 years, 00:11:01.400 --> 00:11:06.300 starting in 2006, dramatically, and obviously the hurricane just deepened that crisis. 00:11:06.310 --> 00:11:10.390 The state government and many municipalities have either collapsed because they don’t 00:11:10.390 --> 00:11:14.980 have the capacity to operate emergency because of the lack of resources 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:16.720 that we have on the ground. 00:11:16.730 --> 00:11:22.170 And also it’s been kind of like a hands-down, let FEMA come in and take care of us. 00:11:22.170 --> 00:11:26.769 But FEMA’s been withholding aid and deploying people into assignments but they’re 00:11:26.769 --> 00:11:28.180 not going really into the communities. 00:11:28.180 --> 00:11:30.730 They’ve lied about the access to communities. 00:11:30.730 --> 00:11:34.380 So in the absence of state and federal government, people are starting to come together. 00:11:34.380 --> 00:11:39.779 The bureaucracy and red tape and protocols on the ground set by FEMA and Red Cross have 00:11:39.779 --> 00:11:45.540 been creating a lot of difficulties and barriers between the people and the resources that 00:11:45.540 --> 00:11:46.730 they need. 00:11:46.730 --> 00:11:51.440 I think a lot of the times before NGO’s go in to do an action they have to consider 00:11:51.440 --> 00:11:56.160 how it’s going to fall upon the ears and the sensibilities of their keepers 00:11:56.160 --> 00:11:57.560 - of their funders. 00:11:57.560 --> 00:11:59.440 We don’t have that responsibility. 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:05.900 We think about the way the thing that we’re seeking to do is going to impact the community, 00:12:05.900 --> 00:12:09.760 who’s going to benefit from it, and if there is an actual need. 00:12:09.760 --> 00:12:16.139 If we can come to a consensus that that is true, then we go and we do the damn thing. 00:12:16.139 --> 00:12:20.490 Everywhere we go throughout the island the stories it’s the same; people on the ground, 00:12:20.490 --> 00:12:24.500 neighbours coming together to clean their neighbourhoods, to help feed other folks in 00:12:24.500 --> 00:12:26.500 their neighbourhoods when the aid is not coming in. 00:12:26.500 --> 00:12:31.830 Trying to pool together resources to have collective kitchens and collective meals and it’s been 00:12:31.830 --> 00:12:34.937 an incredible amount of solidarity both from outside Puerto Rico 00:12:34.940 --> 00:12:37.640 but also especially within folks in the communities 00:12:37.640 --> 00:12:39.020 because it’s based out of need. 00:12:39.020 --> 00:12:42.080 So now you have to talk to your neighbour because you have to share the rice and the 00:12:42.080 --> 00:12:46.160 beans so you can cook something together and you happen to be the one with the gas stove. 00:12:46.170 --> 00:12:52.140 So this has resulted in some spaces that are called Centros de Apoyo Mutuo, centres of 00:12:52.140 --> 00:12:57.420 mutual support that vary from social kitchens or collective kitchens where folks come to 00:12:57.420 --> 00:13:02.899 eat, to places where people can come to drop off stuff so it can get distributed to communities 00:13:02.899 --> 00:13:05.560 that have little to no communication. 00:13:05.560 --> 00:13:10.980 Even FEMA had mentioned the model of Common Ground relief collective that 00:13:10.980 --> 00:13:15.820 -as that being, like, that decentralized model being a way to get mass resources to people like 00:13:15.820 --> 00:13:20.810 quickly, immediately, rather than waiting for government bodies to respond. 00:13:20.810 --> 00:13:25.560 So there’s decentralized groups on the ground now that are distroing food and getting supplies 00:13:25.560 --> 00:13:29.940 out to people because FEMA’s reporting that they give out 200,000 meals a day 00:13:29.940 --> 00:13:32.820 in a place where there’s millions of people. 00:13:32.820 --> 00:13:35.410 And that’s like 1 meal a day for 200 000 people. 00:13:35.410 --> 00:13:37.370 So they’re sorely failing. 00:13:37.370 --> 00:13:43.050 So we’re like daring to believe that we could render the state and these NGO’s unnecessary 00:13:43.050 --> 00:13:46.470 by just being on the ground and responding to people directly. 00:13:46.470 --> 00:13:50.740 So in that way decentralized methods are - like we’re able to circulate more easily, 00:13:50.740 --> 00:13:55.610 we're able to get intel around the island better, we’re able to communicate more directly 00:13:55.610 --> 00:14:00.139 with people rather than treating them like they’re passive receivers of aid like they’re 00:14:00.139 --> 00:14:03.529 consumers, and treating them like they’re human beings and listening to them. 00:14:03.529 --> 00:14:08.269 It’s been a challenge, the lack of communications so we have to actually go to places. 00:14:08.269 --> 00:14:12.790 It’s been a challenge also for us the lack of transportation- the fact that because we 00:14:12.790 --> 00:14:15.660 are poor and working class, we really don’t have adequate vehicles. 00:14:15.660 --> 00:14:20.769 So we’ve eventually gonna rental, and try to get to places and take stuff directly to 00:14:20.769 --> 00:14:23.920 folks that we haven’t heard from yet who are the ones in most need. 00:14:23.920 --> 00:14:28.380 But the challenge is in transportation, communication, and also money- the fact that we can’t ask 00:14:28.380 --> 00:14:29.380 even with donations. 00:14:29.380 --> 00:14:33.730 We can’t ask because it’s so hard to get money even from the banks. 00:14:33.730 --> 00:14:39.010 The mail is practically paralyzed or working at a very very low level because of the damage 00:14:39.010 --> 00:14:41.579 of the hurricane and the systems are down. 00:14:41.579 --> 00:14:46.589 So even the mail is an issue and we’re an island, so people with money fly in planes with 00:14:46.589 --> 00:14:48.540 aid, but working class folks can’t do that. 00:14:48.540 --> 00:14:51.639 So it’s really been about pooling resources- what do we already have? 00:14:51.639 --> 00:14:56.810 And finding solidarity with some, even some sympathizers at all levels, from business 00:14:56.810 --> 00:15:02.570 owners to truck drivers, to folks that are ready to help us and us being able to have 00:15:02.570 --> 00:15:05.550 the connection because we’ve been with the folks that do the front line work. 00:15:05.550 --> 00:15:08.760 And it’s been a challenge but it’s been a necessary challenge cuz if not, nothing 00:15:08.760 --> 00:15:12.209 would get to a lot of our communities because of the way they’re not connected 00:15:12.209 --> 00:15:14.339 to the political structures of the island. 00:15:14.339 --> 00:15:17.630 People at first were waiting for the government to- you know, thinking that the government 00:15:17.630 --> 00:15:21.139 would come and respond to their needs but once they saw that it wasn’t coming, 00:15:21.139 --> 00:15:25.949 they started joining together, organizing kitchen, you know, getting community aid out and then 00:15:25.949 --> 00:15:30.110 connecting with other networks that were, you know, trying to get the word out of what 00:15:30.110 --> 00:15:34.310 people in their areas and rural municipalities were in need of. 00:15:34.310 --> 00:15:38.930 There’s this like fear mongering that society’s gonna break out and we’re gonna have to 00:15:38.930 --> 00:15:40.370 have the government come in and police us. 00:15:40.370 --> 00:15:44.580 I mean, well that’s absurd, because the government when they come in, they’re usually 00:15:44.580 --> 00:15:46.690 taking and not giving. 00:15:46.690 --> 00:15:50.279 And what I've seen here is people giving to each other. 00:15:50.279 --> 00:15:54.310 From the airport- every single place that I’ve been in, I’ve seen people pouring 00:15:54.310 --> 00:15:58.610 out the milk of human kindness to each other. 00:15:58.610 --> 00:16:01.079 So yes, the solidarity has been immense. 00:16:01.079 --> 00:16:05.990 And it’s the first steps of a popular power that’s gonna build because of folks coming 00:16:05.990 --> 00:16:11.420 together in absence of a state and a military occupation by the US. 00:16:14.020 --> 00:16:19.880 Early in the morning of September 19th, 1985, Mexico City was struck by a devastating earthquake. 00:16:19.880 --> 00:16:24.670 In the span of minutes, thousands of buildings collapsed into piles of rubble, including 00:16:24.670 --> 00:16:28.820 hospitals, factories, schools and entire apartment blocks. 00:16:28.820 --> 00:16:33.220 An official death toll was never produced, but it's generally agreed that somewhere between 00:16:33.220 --> 00:16:36.300 ten and thirty thousand people lost their lives. 00:16:36.300 --> 00:16:41.580 The government of President Miguel de la Madrid responded to this national tragedy by ordering 00:16:41.580 --> 00:16:45.720 a news blackout, and sending the military into the streets to impose a curfew. 00:16:45.720 --> 00:16:49.180 Outraged by the state's incompetence and authoritarianism, 00:16:49.180 --> 00:16:52.620 the Mexican people spearheaded the rescue efforts themselves, 00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:56.790 pulling survivors from downed buildings and helping to organize emergency 00:16:56.790 --> 00:17:02.290 shelter for the hundreds of thousands of people rendered homeless by the quake. 00:17:02.290 --> 00:17:06.559 In September of this year, Mexico was hit by two more earthquakes. 00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:11.199 The first, and more powerful of the two struck near the southern states of Chiapas and Oaxaca 00:17:11.199 --> 00:17:17.971 on Sept 7th, and the second hit near Mexico City on September 19th... exactly 32 years 00:17:17.971 --> 00:17:21.579 to the day after the ‘85 quake. 00:17:21.579 --> 00:17:25.480 This time around, the Mexican government has attempted to avoid the negative press that 00:17:25.480 --> 00:17:29.540 plagued its predecessor, by cynically using the tragedy as a way of 00:17:29.540 --> 00:17:31.780 increasing its domestic image. 00:17:31.780 --> 00:17:36.180 But the majority of people in Mexico have long since stopped believing in the legitimacy 00:17:36.180 --> 00:17:40.360 of their government, and in recent years, their values of solidarity and mutual aid 00:17:40.360 --> 00:17:42.460 have grown stronger. 00:17:46.760 --> 00:17:50.580 More or less the official number is 40 collapsed buildings, 00:17:50.580 --> 00:17:57.900 but there's easily a thousand buildings that cannot be used as housing. 00:17:57.900 --> 00:18:01.980 There's a lot of people that are in the streets, and many of them don't know 00:18:01.980 --> 00:18:05.740 if they can return to their to their homes, because no one can tell them. 00:18:05.740 --> 00:18:10.940 And of course they always want to go back to retrieve their belongings, 00:18:10.940 --> 00:18:13.180 but that puts their lives in danger. 00:18:13.180 --> 00:18:16.220 And the authorities are not competent. 00:18:17.200 --> 00:18:25.300 After the earthquake happened, the general response was to go to the most affected areas. 00:18:25.300 --> 00:18:28.700 There was no immediate response from the government. 00:18:28.700 --> 00:18:37.020 It was civil society, and since the earthquake in '85 it has been always civil society 00:18:37.060 --> 00:18:42.100 the ones who are going to the sites and starting aid, 00:18:42.100 --> 00:18:46.440 especially removing all the debris from the area. 00:18:47.920 --> 00:18:54.260 The autonomous brigades, here in our school emerged from the restlessness 00:18:54.260 --> 00:18:58.800 of asking ourselves: "What can we do?" 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:03.000 The first thing we did was to open a center of supplies and aid. 00:19:03.040 --> 00:19:13.440 Later we started an information verification project, because of the massive amounts of messages - real and false. 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:18.080 Some things that had already happened, other things that had not. 00:19:18.400 --> 00:19:26.720 So then we concentrated reousources, and from here bicycle brigades would leave 00:19:26.840 --> 00:19:30.920 to take aid to the places that needed it 00:19:30.920 --> 00:19:38.160 - be they shelters, disaster zones or damaged buildings. 00:19:39.080 --> 00:19:41.200 When they came back, they would give us a report 00:19:41.200 --> 00:19:43.200 on the status of the situation. 00:19:43.200 --> 00:19:44.620 If other things were needed, 00:19:44.620 --> 00:19:48.760 or if heavier things required a car to be transported, 00:19:48.760 --> 00:19:53.520 bikers would come that would support us 00:19:53.520 --> 00:19:55.300 in moving insulin. 00:19:55.300 --> 00:19:57.300 Some taco delivery motorcycles 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:02.560 helped fit a cooler of insulin in the box of their motorcycle. 00:20:02.560 --> 00:20:07.420 After the civil society started working on the sites, 00:20:07.420 --> 00:20:13.660 the government also sent special forces, but that included the military, police groups, 00:20:13.760 --> 00:20:19.620 and some engineering teams, but the feeling was 00:20:19.620 --> 00:20:24.300 that they were not really trying to help and save lives, 00:20:24.300 --> 00:20:28.600 but just in general control the situation at all the sites. 00:20:29.760 --> 00:20:33.600 On Thursday night it seemed like 00:20:33.600 --> 00:20:37.520 material necessities were taken care of, 00:20:37.520 --> 00:20:42.720 so we asked ourselves: what more could we do to help? 00:20:42.880 --> 00:20:43.900 What came next? 00:20:43.920 --> 00:20:49.360 We put our energies into the school here, with the documentation brigades 00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:54.800 - who interviewed people that were affected by the quake 00:20:54.800 --> 00:20:57.840 with a list of questions. 00:20:57.840 --> 00:21:04.160 Asking them how they were doing, how was their home? 00:21:04.160 --> 00:21:06.160 What they needed... 00:21:06.160 --> 00:21:09.200 and asking them to describe their interaction with the authorities. 00:21:09.840 --> 00:21:15.040 When we decided to stop working as an aid warehouse, 00:21:15.040 --> 00:21:19.060 we began to envision this work as a long term project. 00:21:19.120 --> 00:21:22.700 So we developed new working groups, 00:21:22.700 --> 00:21:26.720 like art brigades that deal with things that we are more used to, like graphic work, 00:21:26.720 --> 00:21:31.020 to find ways to support with what we really know how to do.... 00:21:31.080 --> 00:21:36.340 to go beyond the moment of emergency and immediacy. 00:21:36.340 --> 00:21:39.600 So we have various assemblies, in which we figure out 00:21:39.600 --> 00:21:43.620 where we should put our energies - where to support. 00:21:43.620 --> 00:21:47.120 Like creating a census of people who've been affected. 00:21:47.120 --> 00:21:52.400 If we find camps that need things, if we have the capacity we bring them. 00:21:53.800 --> 00:21:58.940 It was impossible for one single group to organize aid. 00:21:58.940 --> 00:22:08.040 For example there was collaboration between the groups collecting or being able to buy 00:22:08.040 --> 00:22:11.500 equipment, food, to send to Oaxaca. 00:22:11.500 --> 00:22:16.900 People organized to make lists of what was needed where, and then there were other groups in 00:22:16.900 --> 00:22:26.080 charge of finding what was the best way to transport all those things. 00:22:26.080 --> 00:22:35.620 So in general, a very specific group got specialized in one part of the process and then it helped 00:22:35.620 --> 00:22:42.500 a lot with previous organization knowing which autonomous groups were working in Oaxaca, 00:22:42.500 --> 00:22:46.980 so those were very important connections to make. 00:22:46.980 --> 00:22:52.180 We never got in one another's way. We never said: "You do this, and you go there!" 00:22:52.180 --> 00:22:55.600 ...like no one has to tell you what to do, 00:22:55.600 --> 00:22:57.920 which was fuckin awesome! 00:23:05.520 --> 00:23:09.760 In the wake of a natural disaster, local systems of authority break down. 00:23:09.780 --> 00:23:14.680 The widespread damage to infrastructure, disruption of service provision and general sense of 00:23:14.740 --> 00:23:19.720 panic and desperation associated with these events creates a sudden power vacuum. 00:23:19.800 --> 00:23:24.360 Governments are well aware of this, and many have developed contingency plans that allow 00:23:24.480 --> 00:23:29.400 them to rapidly move to reassert the rule of law, over often still-traumatized populations. 00:23:30.320 --> 00:23:35.080 According to the cold logic of state power, containing threats to public order brought 00:23:35.080 --> 00:23:39.040 on by a catastrophe is more important than actually saving lives. 00:23:39.040 --> 00:23:43.080 This includes quashing threats to the sanctity of private property brought on by the necessity 00:23:43.080 --> 00:23:44.680 of human survival. 00:23:44.680 --> 00:23:50.080 For anarchists, and other enemies of social control, there is a flipside to this equation. 00:23:50.080 --> 00:23:55.400 While natural disasters are horrific tragedies that cause immense devastation and suffering, 00:23:55.400 --> 00:24:00.080 the collective trauma of these events can also serve to bring people together, and inspire 00:24:00.080 --> 00:24:05.280 neighbours to build local networks of interdependence and mutual aid, in order to collectively navigate 00:24:05.280 --> 00:24:08.880 situations where they’ve been abandoned by the state. 00:24:08.880 --> 00:24:13.360 This brings to mind the well-known quote, by Spanish anarchist revolutionary, Buenaventura 00:24:13.360 --> 00:24:16.240 Durruti: “We are not afraid of ruins. 00:24:16.240 --> 00:24:19.520 We carry a new world, here, in our hearts.” 00:24:19.520 --> 00:24:24.800 In the ruins created by climate catastrophe and natural disasters, new worlds are being built. 00:24:24.800 --> 00:24:28.880 Small-scale experiments in local sustainability and the fostering of new 00:24:28.880 --> 00:24:33.360 social relationships rooted in the values of autonomy and mutual aid. 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:40.880 In Lakewood, what happened during the storm was almost criminal. 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:46.240 They were told they were not in a flood zone, they were not priority evacuation, and as 00:24:46.240 --> 00:24:49.680 the water started to rise from the bayou that encircles the neighbourhood, 00:24:49.680 --> 00:24:52.320 they started calling up rescue and they couldn’t get any. 00:24:52.320 --> 00:24:55.360 So, they helped themselves, they found the boats. 00:24:55.360 --> 00:24:58.480 Some neighbours went around rescuing folks off their roofs, 00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:00.960 and the community took care of itself. 00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:06.000 They have always been a tight knit community, and now that they’ve gone through this together, 00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:07.360 they’re even closer knit. 00:25:07.360 --> 00:25:12.080 I think organizing around short term and long term relief for people has really helped to 00:25:12.080 --> 00:25:17.520 demonstrate how communities can do the work themselves and render the state unnecessary. 00:25:17.520 --> 00:25:22.560 That vision of community, mutual aid, horizontal organization and solidarity is coming to life 00:25:22.560 --> 00:25:24.080 with people. 00:25:24.080 --> 00:25:28.240 This charity vibe of the big corporations raising funds, 00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:33.120 they do it so they can say, "I am this corporation, and I am going to help you 00:25:33.120 --> 00:25:36.720 rebuild your home, because I am so good." 00:25:36.720 --> 00:25:42.000 And I think that mutual aid doesn't seek recognition. 00:25:42.720 --> 00:25:46.000 I think we have to be very careful about the politics about the groups that are saying 00:25:46.000 --> 00:25:47.440 they are doing aid in Puerto Rico. 00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:50.720 A lot of folks in the US, not necessarily the disaster relief folks, but other people 00:25:50.720 --> 00:25:54.800 from the Puerto Rican diaspora or non profits have come in to try to colonize the efforts 00:25:54.800 --> 00:25:58.480 and they can have influence on organizations usually based on identity politics. 00:25:58.480 --> 00:26:01.520 So folks are like “oh these are the Puerto Ricans, so we gotta listen to them”, but not 00:26:01.520 --> 00:26:03.600 all Puerto Ricans are on the same page. 00:26:04.240 --> 00:26:08.320 Charity can be used as political capital 00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:12.160 for other interests that don't interest us. 00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:16.000 When you receive charity, other than probably clearing 00:26:16.000 --> 00:26:20.400 someone's conscience, they can also profit politically from it. 00:26:20.400 --> 00:26:23.040 Mutual aid doesn't pursue that. 00:26:23.600 --> 00:26:27.760 The difference between charity and mutual aid in a disaster situation is charities like 00:26:27.760 --> 00:26:30.960 the Red Cross- they’re set up along very specific lines. 00:26:30.960 --> 00:26:35.900 They have CEO’S, they have vice-presidents of communication, they have all of these different 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:40.400 levels in their hierarchy and as you go up, each level is more authoritarian 00:26:40.400 --> 00:26:42.000 than the one before. 00:26:42.000 --> 00:26:46.160 So in order to make any decisions, in order to do anything, things have to follow a very 00:26:46.160 --> 00:26:50.240 specific set of rules, they have to be done in a certain way, and if you try to contravene 00:26:50.240 --> 00:26:53.440 those rules, then you get booted out of the organization. 00:26:53.600 --> 00:26:58.800 From Katrina, to Haiti, to Houston, they cause the same problems over and over again, 00:26:58.800 --> 00:27:00.560 because their structures are inflexible. 00:27:00.560 --> 00:27:05.280 We get to pick and choose what we wanna do, and in picking and choosing what we wanna do, 00:27:05.280 --> 00:27:08.080 we let the community who needs the work done, direct us. 00:27:08.080 --> 00:27:11.920 Mutual Aid just recognizes that we’re all in different places and we have to meet each 00:27:11.920 --> 00:27:14.560 other where we are in order to keep moving forward. 00:27:14.560 --> 00:27:18.720 All of this hand wrangling, all of this ‘will our funders renew that grant at the end of 00:27:18.720 --> 00:27:21.280 the year’, is not an issue. 00:27:21.280 --> 00:27:25.920 We’ve been creating affinity groups like medical crews, organizing short term infrastructure 00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:29.040 like solar and water purification and we have a long term systems group 00:27:29.040 --> 00:27:30.480 that’s coming in after. 00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:36.160 We’ve been in contact with folks from Houston and Louisiana and Mexico who’ve been organizing 00:27:36.160 --> 00:27:38.320 that same structure. 00:27:38.320 --> 00:27:43.520 It’s open source open communication, it’s really accessible so community can get involved 00:27:43.520 --> 00:27:47.360 where they have the most intel on what’s going on. 00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:52.720 When you have an opportunity to rebuild systems so that they’re more people centered than 00:27:52.720 --> 00:27:57.440 organizationally centered, then you’re doing real work, then you’re making a difference 00:27:57.440 --> 00:28:01.200 that’s a long term difference because you’re letting people direct what it is that they 00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:06.160 need rather than coming in and dictating to them and telling them what you will give them. 00:28:06.560 --> 00:28:10.160 When disaster happens, it’s a crack in societal norms that the state has set up for us and 00:28:10.240 --> 00:28:13.200 we can see through the cracks and exploit those cracks. 00:28:13.200 --> 00:28:18.080 This is the time where we can seize power and we can act and really empower other people 00:28:18.080 --> 00:28:20.240 to you know, to make our communities ours. 00:28:20.480 --> 00:28:22.560 Liberalism is dying for a reason. 00:28:22.560 --> 00:28:27.040 Watching Anderson Cooper and saying “oh my” is not activism. 00:28:27.040 --> 00:28:31.680 If you believe that change comes from other means, you need to be 00:28:31.680 --> 00:28:34.320 actually doing those things. 00:28:34.320 --> 00:28:35.680 Just go out and fucking do it. 00:28:35.680 --> 00:28:41.040 Get self organized, get affinity groups together, and start responding but respond through listening. 00:28:42.400 --> 00:28:45.360 We already have to have plans in place when this happens because 00:28:45.360 --> 00:28:48.080 the response has been too slow. 00:28:48.160 --> 00:28:52.720 For comrades that are organizing in other spaces, I would say get out in the community, 00:28:52.720 --> 00:28:54.720 get them involved in what’s going on, 00:28:54.720 --> 00:28:57.760 start organizing projects around people’s experiences, 00:28:57.760 --> 00:28:59.520 and then building from there. 00:28:59.520 --> 00:29:00.880 Go find the people. 00:29:00.880 --> 00:29:01.680 They’re there. 00:29:01.680 --> 00:29:03.680 You see them everyday. 00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:08.640 They’re the single mom who needs a child care co-op, or help setting one up. 00:29:10.400 --> 00:29:14.880 I think that what you’re seeing is anarchists leading and saying “here are our options” 00:29:14.880 --> 00:29:18.720 rather than waiting on the government to enact those options, we’re going to create 00:29:18.720 --> 00:29:24.160 open source resources and allow the communities to have access to them 00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:25.760 so that people are empowered. 00:29:25.760 --> 00:29:27.200 It’s the future. 00:29:27.200 --> 00:29:29.760 It’s where we’re going, and I am proud to be a part of the anarchists 00:29:29.760 --> 00:29:31.040 who are leading the way on that. 00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:39.560 In the days after we finished interviewing members of Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, 00:29:39.560 --> 00:29:44.900 the church they were operating out of in Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, was raided by a SWAT team. 00:29:44.900 --> 00:29:49.900 These comrades were detained at gunpoint, asked if they were associated with antifa, 00:29:49.900 --> 00:29:54.360 and interrogated as to whether or not they intended to overthrow the government. 00:29:54.360 --> 00:29:57.200 Thankfully, they were all released without charges and were able to 00:29:57.200 --> 00:29:59.120 quickly get back to work. 00:29:59.120 --> 00:30:04.480 This act of ill-thought out repression clearly demonstrates that governments see relief efforts 00:30:04.480 --> 00:30:09.440 that fall outside of the hierarchical control of state and corporate non-profits as a challenge 00:30:09.440 --> 00:30:14.320 to their legitimacy, and a threat to their assumed role as the sole deciders of who gets 00:30:14.320 --> 00:30:16.480 aid, how they get it, and when. 00:30:16.480 --> 00:30:20.960 So at this point, we’d like to remind you that Trouble is intended to be watched in groups, 00:30:20.960 --> 00:30:25.200 and to be used as a resource to promote discussion and collective organizing. 00:30:25.200 --> 00:30:30.560 Are you interested in starting a local group to help support front-line disaster relief efforts? 00:30:30.560 --> 00:30:34.720 Or just figuring out how people in your town could better apply mutual aid principles 00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:36.720 to your local organizing? 00:30:36.720 --> 00:30:40.720 Consider getting together with some comrades, screening this film and discussing what this 00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:42.880 could look like in practice. 00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:46.720 Interested in running regular screenings of Trouble at your campus, infoshop, 00:30:46.720 --> 00:30:49.760 community center, or even at home with friends? 00:30:49.760 --> 00:30:51.360 Become a 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