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Outline:

S: This is Sprout

C: and this is Charyan, and we are the hosts of Molotov Now!, thank you for joining us on this episode of the podcast.

S: if you like what we do here and want to support it, you can do that by going to linktr.ee/al1312 and clicking donate, or scrolling to the bottom for Patreon.

C: Today is our 12th 13th episode, and its all about police and prison abolition.

S: We have an interview with Robin from Campaign to Fight Toxic Prisons and their ongoing campaign against the construction of a federal prison in rural Eastern Kentucky. We think this is an important campaign to support. As our sights are all set on Atlanta right now, and for good reason, let us not forget these similar struggles happening in smaller, more rural areas.

C: We will get into some news and upcoming events in the Pacific Northwest. We have some updates from our newsletter The Communique as well as a few pressing mutual aid requests. That’s up next, but first, enjoy this message from our sponsor.

Ad: CZN Jail Support PSA

Monthly Radical News Roundup:

Welcome Back to Molotov Now!. First off we are going to start with a roundup of some local headlines from our newsletter The Communique. To get the full newsletter follow Aberdeen Local 1312 on socials or subscribe by sending an email to the_communique-subscribe@lists.riseup.net . If you have any upcoming events or stories you want featured, just get a hold of us and we will add it to the list.

In Bremerton at The Charleston. Nov 9th

Conjuring Up Monsterz

Septik

HOLZ

Doors open at 8pm.

Come out and support this awesome metal show and support a great cause. The Blackflower Collective is working to bring a low-income eco village with wrap around social services to Grays Harbor WA.

More details on the show series and The Blackflower Collective at linktr.ee/blackflowerllc​

In Seattle near the Othello light rail stop:

Online from the Solidarity Apothecary:

Online from The Institute For Social Ecology:

Food and Climate Justice Online Course

Reading materials and lecture recordings provided. Instructors Brian Tokar and Grace Gershuny.

As the world faces intersecting crises of climate, health, and multiple social inequities, movements for climate and food justice are playing a central role toward developing a community-centered grassroots response. These movements share common themes, viewing the sources of these crises in institutions of hierarchy and domination, including capitalist structures of racism and colonialism. The extraction of resources and exploitation of marginalized populations for food and energy production, especially in the Global South, are major contributors to worldwide environmental and social degradation.

This course will offer a Social Ecology perspective on the background and potential of the climate and food justice movements to resist further damage from fossil fuels and agribusiness dominance, while building ecologically harmonious and equitable food and energy systems that can restore soil health, biodiversity, and climate stability.

Each segment will highlight the leadership of frontline communities in shifting the paradigm towards the fundamental principles of non-hierarchy, direct democracy, and unity in diversity. Case studies of particular projects will include video interviews and presentations by frontline advocates as well as recommended readings and other video and audio resources.

Other Courses Available Including:

Food and Climate Justice: Resistance and Liberation, with Brian Tokar and Grace Gershuny. Begins October 23 on Mondays at 7 pm Eastern for eight weeks.

Legacies of Environmental Radicalism with Brian Tokar. Begins August 29, on Tuesdays at 7pm Eastern for ten weeks.

Ecology, Democracy, Utopia: Introduction to Social Ecology — co-taught by the ISE faculty, begins September 14. Classes on Thursdays at 7pm Eastern for ten weeks.

The Philosophy and Politics of Social Ecology with Chaia Heller. Begins November 1, on Wednesdays at 7pm Eastern for eight weeks.

Next up we have a submission from Sabotage Noise Productions with their list of upcoming rad shows and benefits

We had a few important mutual aid requests this month as well so if you are in a place where you can share or donate check these out:

Housing Cooperative for working class families-GoFundMe

Help Possum Kingdom Housing Co-op purchase a converted church to serve as housing and community space in Eugene, OR!

Music:

Segment one:

Welcome back to Molotov Now! In order to encapsulate the argument for the total abolition of police in a concise enough format for our podcast we have chosen to read from the excellent article and zine from Crimthinc entitled Seven Myths about the Police which puts forth the argument through a debunking of these seven common myths:

1. The police exercise legitimate authority.

2. The police are ordinary workers just like us; they should be our allies.

3. Maybe there are some bad apples, but some police officers are good people.

4. Police can win any confrontation, so we shouldn’t antagonize them.

5. Police are a mere distraction from the real enemy, not worth our wrath or attention.

6. We need police to protect us.

7. Resisting the police is violent—it makes you no better than them.

In an article overflowing with compassion, understanding, and love, Crimethinc lays down the basic bare bones of an argument against the existence of the police, and gives us a reason to resist them. The zine goes even further than we will read today and gives the reader concrete actions to take to resist the police where you live. To check out the full article and print your own zines for distribution go to Crimethinc.com and search for Seven Myths About Police.

Myth number one:

The police exercise legitimate authority. In fact, the average police officer is not a legal expert; he probably knows his department protocol, but very little about the actual laws. This means his enforcement involves a great deal of bluffing, improvisation, and dishonesty. Police lie on a regular basis: “I just got a report of someone of your description committing a crime around here. Want to show me some ID?”

This is not to say we should unthinkingly accept laws as legitimate, either. The entire judicial system protects the privileges of the wealthy and powerful. Obeying laws is not necessarily morally right—it may even be immoral. Slavery was legal, aiding escaped slaves illegal. The Nazis came to power in Germany via democratic elections and passed laws through the prescribed channels. We should aspire to the strength of conscience to do what we know is best, regardless of laws and police intimidation.

Myth number two:

The police are ordinary workers just like us; they should be our allies. Unfortunately, there’s a big gap between “should be” and “are.” The role of the police is to serve the interests of the ruling class; anyone who has not had a bad experience with them is likely privileged, submissive, or both. Today’s police officers know exactly what they’re getting into when they join the force—people in uniform don’t just get cats out of trees. Yes, most take the job because of economic pressure, but needing a paycheck is no excuse for evicting families, harassing young people of color, or pepper-spraying demonstrators. Those whose consciences can be bought are everyone’s potential enemies, not allies.

This fairy tale is more persuasive when it is couched in strategic terms: for example, “Every revolution succeeds at the moment the armed forces refuse to make war on their fellows; therefore we should focus on seducing the police to our side.” But the police are not just any workers; they’re the ones who chose to base their livelihoods upon defending the prevailing order, thus the least likely to be sympathetic to those who wish to change it. In this context, it makes more sense to oppose the police as such than to seek solidarity with them. As long as they serve their masters, they cannot be our allies; by denouncing the institution of police and demoralizing individual officers, we encourage them to seek other livelihoods so we can one day find common cause with them.

Myth number three:

Maybe there are some bad apples, but some police officers are good people. Perhaps some police officers have good intentions, but once again, insofar as they obey orders rather than their consciences, they cannot be trusted.

There’s something to be said for understanding the systematic nature of institutions, rather than attributing every injustice to the shortcomings of individuals. Remember the story of the man who, tormented by fleas, managed to catch one between his fingers? He scrutinized it for a long time before placing it back at the spot on his neck where had he caught it. His friends, confounded, inquired why on earth he would do such a thing. “That wasn’t the one that was biting me,” he explained.

Myth number four:

Police can win any confrontation, so we shouldn’t antagonize them. With all their weapons, equipment, and surveillance, the police can seem invincible, but this is an illusion. They are limited by all sorts of invisible constraints—bureaucracy, public opinion, communication breakdowns, an overloaded judicial system. If they don’t have vehicles or facilities available to transport and process a great number of arrestees, for example, they can’t make mass arrests.

This is why a motley crowd armed only with the tear gas canisters shot at them can hold off a larger, more organized, better-equipped police force; contests between social unrest and military might don’t play out according to the rules of military engagement. Those who have studied police, who can predict what they are prepared for and what they can and cannot do, can often outsmart and outmaneuver them.

Such small victories are especially inspiring for those who chafe under the heel of police violence on a daily basis. In the collective unconscious of our society, the police are the ultimate bastion of reality, the force that ensures that things stay the way they are; taking them on and winning, however temporarily, shows that reality is negotiable.

Myth number five:

Police are a mere distraction from the real enemy, not worth our wrath or attention. Alas, tyranny is not just a matter of politicians or executives; they would be powerless without those who do their bidding. When we contest their rule, we’re also contesting the submission that keeps them in power, and sooner or later we’re sure to come up against some of those who submit. That being said, it’s true that the police are no more integral to hierarchy than the oppressive dynamics in our own communities; they are simply the external manifestation, on a larger scale, of the same phenomena. If we are to contest domination everywhere, rather than specializing in combating certain forms of it while leaving others unchallenged, we have to be prepared to confront it both in the streets and in our own bedrooms; we can’t expect to win on one front without fighting on the other. We shouldn’t fetishize confrontations with uniformed foes, we shouldn’t forget the power imbalances in our own ranks—but neither should we be content merely to manage the details of our own oppression in a non-hierarchical manner.

Myth number six:

We need police to protect us. According to this line of thinking, even if we might aspire to live in a society without police in the distant future, we need them today, for people are not ready to live together peacefully without armed enforcers. As if the social imbalances and fear maintained by police violence are peace! Those who argue that the police sometimes do good things bear the burden of proving that those same good things could not be accomplished at least as well by other means.

In any case, it’s not as if a police-free society is suddenly going to appear overnight just because someone spray-paints “Fuck the Police” on a wall. The protracted struggle it will take to free our communities from police repression will probably go on as long as it takes us to learn to coexist peacefully; a community that can’t sort out its own conflicts can’t expect to triumph against a more powerful occupying force. In the meantime, opposition to police should be seen as a rejection of one of the most egregious sources of oppressive violence, not an assertion that without police there would be none. But if we can ever defeat and disband the police, we will surely be able to defend ourselves against less organized threats.

Myth number seven:

Resisting the police is violent—it makes you no better than them. According to this line of thinking, violence is inherently a form of domination, and thus inconsistent with opposing domination. Those who engage in violence play the same game as their oppressors, thereby losing from the outset.

This is dangerously simplistic. Is a woman who defends herself against a rapist no better than a rapist? Were slaves who revolted no better than slave-holders? There is such a thing as self-defense. In some cases, violence enforces power imbalances; in other cases, it challenges them. For people who still have faith in an authoritarian system or God, following the rules—whether legal or moral—is the top priority, at whatever cost: they believe they will be rewarded for doing so, regardless of what happens to others as a result. Whether such people call themselves conservatives or pacifists makes little difference in the end. On the other hand, for those of us who take responsibility for ourselves, the most important question is what will serve to make the world a better place. Sometimes this may include violence.

Police are people too, and deserve the same respect due all living things. The point is not that they deserve to suffer or that we should bring them to justice. The point is that, in purely pragmatic terms, they must not be allowed to brutalize people or impose an unjust social order. Though it can be empowering for those who have spent their lives under the heel of oppression to contemplate finally settling the score with their oppressors, liberation is not a matter of exacting revenge but of rendering it unnecessary. Therefore, while it may sometimes even be necessary to set police on fire, this should not be done out of a spirit of vengeful self-righteousness, but from a place of care and compassion—if not for the police themselves, at least for all who would otherwise suffer at their hands.

The Conclusion:

De-legitimizing the police is not only beneficial for those they target, but also for police officers’ families and police officers themselves. Not only do police officers have disproportionately high rates of domestic violence and child abuse, they’re also more likely to get killed, commit suicide, and struggle with addiction than most sectors of society. Anything that encourages police officers to quit their jobs is in their best interest, as well as the interest of their loved ones and society at large. Let’s create a world in which no one oppresses or is oppressed, in which no one has to live in fear.

“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both.”

— Frederick Douglass

And now its time for a short musical break, when we return we have an interview with Robin from Campaign To Fight Toxic Prisons about the abolitionist perspectives being advanced and the radical actions being taken in rural Eastern Kentucky, by a grassroots collection of residents determined to halt the construction of a federal prison.

Music:

Segment two:

Sprout  0:00
Welcome back to Molotov now. We’re joined on the podcast by Robin from Fight Toxic Prisons to talk with us a little bit about the campaign Building Community, Not Prisons in Eastern Kentucky, would you please introduce yourself with your name pronouns, a description of yourself for our listeners and any projects you’re involved in that are relevant to today’s discussion?

Robin  0:20
Sure. So my name is Robin, I use she/her pronouns. And I’ve been a community organizer with Fight Toxic Prisons since about 2016. I’m involved in abolitionist and environmental justice organizing in in Kentucky, and also on the national landscape. And right now, I’m here to talk about Building Community, Not Prisons Coalition, which FTP is a part of. There’s a lot of organizations involved. We’re just one of one of several. But it’s been, I think, some of our most successful work in all the years we’ve existed. So we’re very excited about it.

Sprout  0:55
Awesome. So before we get into the ongoing campaign in Kentucky, can you tell us a little bit about campaign to fight toxic prisons itself? How and why was it started? What sort of goals does it have? And what methods does it use to achieve those goals?

Robin  1:08
So fight toxic prisons started in 2015, a few abolitionist environmental justice organizers happened to meet up and realize that they had some frustrations that people weren’t talking about the overlaps of those two types of organizing. And so we we had people from the environmental side, saying, like, we have some really great direct action tactics, and a ton of like, a ton of tactics that involve like legal research and paper jamming, which is like using formal processes to hold up the opposition and basically make their work take a really long time to buy yourself time to oppose them. And then there were folks on the abolitionist side saying that, you know, prisoners, and some of them were prisoners, prisoners are getting left out of these conversations, a lot of the time, even though, prisons and jails and carceral structures are some of the most heavily hit environmental toxic spaces that that people create. So our goals are really to help folks network within these different spaces, one to explore the intersections of the work and to to share tools and resources, because all of these things, you know, structural racism, incarceration, any type of exploitation of people in the land is ultimately all tied to profit motive, and also to any sort of sense of one group being better than another more deserving of another. And we know that that is not true. So we think that it’s more effective to organize together and to explore these intersections so that we can win many campaigns, not just abolitionist campaigns, not just environmental justice campaigns, but all of all of the equity and justice that we need to not just survive, but to thrive. So we’re big on a, using a diversity of tactics as what we like to call it, we believe that all tactics are valid, they just need to be used strategically at the right moments, and, and in an escalation plan. So that would include, you know, some of the paperwork, lawsuits, things like that, that I think are more accessible and more comfortable for a lot of people. But that also includes direct action. We’ve had, we’ve had actions where people have physically gone and like done a sit in, essentially, and shut down the entrance to some carceral facilities. I’m trying to think the very first campaign against the first iteration of this prison. About 50 of us blocked the road in Washington, DC so that the Bureau of Prisons couldn’t work that day. So we like a wide variety.

Sprout  3:48
All right. So we’re here today to talk about your guys’s campaign and how it fits into a larger framework for police and prison abolition. I understand this campaign in Eastern Kentucky has been going on for years. Can you give us some of the history of the proposed prison and the resistance to it?

Robin  4:02
Definitely. So this prison has actually been in the works since about 2005. There’s a politician there Hal Rogers who has been pushing for it. Since then he has been the main proponent of it. And he is he has insisted that it’s going to bring some sort of economic boon to the area, and has also had prisons built in other counties he represents. Now we’re able to look at those counties and see that they didn’t have any tangible benefit. And in fact, some of them are in worse shape now than they were before the prisons were built there. So the campaign kind of came to a head in, I would say 2016 ish. A lot of organizing began locally when folks in Letcher county started taking some direct actions, interrupting events that how speaking out and demanding that they have actual economic opportunities, and not just be sold these terrible jobs in a prison. Jobs that would lead them to be making money off of the backs of the people, they would be locking up. Fight toxic prisons ended up collaborating with them so that they could focus on the local organizing, which is very complicated, especially when folks are demanding more jobs and higher paying jobs with benefits and things like that they’re and completely deserve them, by them focusing on that we were allowed to focus on the national landscape, since this would be a federal prison and a federal prison can, I believe they can have people there, from within 500 miles of where they were first incarcerated. So that’s really almost half the country that this impacts into the whole country, really, we ended up building a campaign together, kind of mixing tactics and mixing these, like on the ground work with the national level work, which included shutting down that road through Washington, DC, and that was in 2016. At our very first fight toxic prisons convergence, where we brought together a few 100 people to talk about these overlaps of incarceration and, and environmental justice and structural racism, things like that. I think it was 2018, we had a team of some environmental lawyers that were working with us several partners, and ended up collaborating with one to one, federal prisoners, to sue the bureau of prisons for not taking into account the environmental impacts of of how that space would affect them. Because these people were all at risk of being transferred there. And at that point, that’s when the Bureau of Prisons withdrew their record of decision, which is withdrawing the paperwork saying they’re moving forward with the project. So at the time, we considered that a win, it was super exciting. And it was, it was, I think, the biggest shutdown of a proposed prison that’s ever happened in this country. Now that it’s been brought back up again, just in a slightly different form, just by changing like the security level and, and a little bit of the layout of the land and things like that, but essentially the same prison plan. We know that that really wasn’t a complete win, because the money was still sitting there waiting to become a prison. The people in Letcher County, were still sitting there without jobs. And now that we’ve had some massive floods and environmental damage there, that nothing is even more needed to rebuild the infrastructure. So that’s kind of how we come to this current coalition. And we’re trying to focus not just on stopping the construction of the prison, but also on generating opportunities in the communities that are being used to, to build prisons, and also in the communities that are having a lot of folks taken out of them and becoming prisoners.

Sprout  7:51
Yeah, so often prisons are presented as economic opportunities for communities. I know in our own town here in Aberdeen, the Stafford Creek correction center is the second largest employer in the county yet turnover there is incredibly high, it’s not really that well paying job for what you have to do. Not to mention the fact that the prison probably incarcerates more people from the county that employs.

Robin  8:14
Definitely, we are working on some stuff locally here to very, very early stages in another, like somewhat kind of small town County in Kentucky. And our jail is constantly full all the time. And they’ll tell me it’s not full because so many people are on home incarceration, as if that’s, like drastically better, and they should be grateful for it. But it’s just an ongoing problem. And it always just when it’s brought up people point fingers and say, well, it’s not my responsibility. You know, the jailer says, Well, I can’t fix it. I just housed them, I don’t bring them in, you have to talk to the cops. And the cops say, well, we don’t make the laws, you got to talk to the judges and the legal system and all of this stuff. And so there’s this constant shifting of responsibility, instead of saying, hey, like, this might not be all mine, but I have a part in it, maybe I can influence what we’re doing here.

Sprout  9:11
So who were the leading players in the first push to block the prison? It sounds like it arose out of like a grassroots local sort of campaign?

Robin  9:19
It did. And I’m trying to think of their name. It was a group of folks who lived in Letcher County or in surrounding counties. And they got together and basically built their own organization that was a replica of a similar one that existed and had a very similar name. So they were kind of mimicking something that already existed except using it to get people comfortable talking to them. I can’t remember what the name was because it was so innocuous, which I think was smart. You know, they were they weren’t like citizens against the prison, or anything like that. They were it was basically a citizens board to discuss how things can be made better there. And those are some of the folks that we ended up building some long lasting relationships with and are working with again now in this even larger campaign. I live in Kentucky, we’ve had a few other organizers too, who have lived here, at least temporarily. So we had a lot of connections already there. So it was kind of just luck in a way.

Sprout  10:23
And what role did abolitionists play in the campaign to begin with? And what sort of arguments did they put forth?

Robin  10:30
Well I think there were abolitionists involved from the get go. I mean, a lot of folks in Eastern Kentucky, while they may not use the word abolition a lot when the concept is described, you know, they’re all for it. And so that was part of what I think informed the campaign and what built a lot of our ability to threaten our opponent, the Bureau of Prisons, because that’s a big opponent, you know, we’re we’re fighting the federal government in this biggest project that they had ever proposed. And we’re gonna try to move forward with and we, I think, having an abolitionist involved allowed us to go for so long, because abolition is long work, you know, like, I don’t, I know, the jails not going to suddenly close in my town tomorrow and everybody be free. cool as that would be. And so I think having abolition, as like the forefront of the campaign, or at least like this underlying current and all times really let us take some breaks. And remember that like, none of this was going to be accomplished easily or quickly. And I think that that’s allowed us to come back to it now with like, a renewed energy and, you know, smarter with more resources with more partners.

Sprout  11:43
Yeah, well, that’s good. You guys got a little bit of a break to breathe at least. So you’d say that abolitionists were successful in advancing those sorts of ideas into a more mainstream campaign?

Robin  11:53
I think so. Yeah. Because coming back to building community, not prisons. Now, you know, we have this broader group of folks from really all over the country, but also a really good sized group of folks in Letcher in the surrounding counties. And, you know, we got together to have an in person meeting and really formalized the structure a little bit. And part of that is because something we struggled with in that first campaign was just clarity of communication, knowing who’s doing what, knowing what to expect of one another, and, and having like, you know, conflict resources and ways to work through tension, things are going a lot smoother now, I think because we formalized some things. Now we tried to formalize them in a very like, kind of anarchist way that allows for flexibility and allows for folks to, as long as they’re following these, like core agreements, take on the tactics that they think are most effective. The goal was really not to like, limit people or only be able to do one thing at a time it was to foster this, this sense of freedom, but also safety with one another.

Sprout  13:06
Yeah, it sounds very similar to the campaign going on in Atlanta right now.

Robin  13:10
Yeah, we definitely have some FTP members, not me personally, but some other members that have been in touch with them regularly. And so we try to stay in touch with a lot of campaigns that are going on around the US. And, you know, like I said, one of our goals is to share strategies and tools. So if we try something that works, and we run into somebody else with questions, we’re like, Hey, you should try this tool. It worked here. adapt it to your context, of course, but having that widespread community, I think has, it’s let us make smarter choices and more strategic choices.

Charyan  13:46
So obviously, with abolition being the long work, y’all are still campaigning against prison being built in Letcher County, what happened with that campaign after the Bureau of Prisons withdrew its Notice of Intent.

Robin  13:57
After that, well, we were just about to have another convergence. We did them for several years in a row, generally late summer time. And so I know we celebrated a lot as FTP. But also I think we were all exhausted, we we had kind of run the course. And I think because we didn’t have as strong a setup as we needed, it was hard for us to, to like immediately get together and debrief. And that has that did make it more difficult to then set up this time because we had to kind of go back and look through our records and try to remember how exactly things went, you know, five and 10 years ago, so yeah, I think we were all tired and we kind of kept some of these relationships but also moved on to just doing other things. It can be refreshing to not have to focus on the same project anymore when you’ve been doing for years and years.

Charyan  14:57
So with the campaign being led by fight toxic prisons, What new members have you found joining this new coalition?

Robin  15:03
Well I would say that fight toxic prisons has helped with some of the structural stuff. But that it’s really been led by everybody, and especially folks on the ground, we’re not trying to make their life harder. And they’re the ones that ultimately, you know, have to go to the grocery store and hear about this and run into the people who are pushing that they have to run into their city council who might be trying to get this here because of the supposedly economic benefits. So there’s a lot more day to day impact on the folks who live there, and there will be a lot more impact on the folks who would have to live right next to this prison. One member, his land was actually plotted out in the original prison plan. And he been incredibly brave stood up on his own at the time that said, You’re not taking my land, I’m not doing that I take care of animals here. You know, I care for the earth, you’re not going to degrade this area by using it for something so terrible. There was also another section of the property had a coal slurry pond on it, which would have been incredibly bad for the water supply that the prisoners then would have been forced to use. So just another tidbit about the about the area.

Sprout  16:24
So what does on the ground outreach looked like for this campaign?

Robin  16:29
It’s a lot of one on one there locally, I would say it’s a lot of in person, individual conversations. And that’s how we’ve ended up with, you know, probably good 15-20 people that are, like consistently dedicated to working on this campaign there. And then at least that many here, you know, regionally and nationally, they’re their weekly meetings, their monthly meetings, there’s always pieces of it moving. Like I said, there’s a wide variety, we’ve ended up partnering with lawyers from prestigious schools, who reached out and said, Hey, we heard about this, and it’s not cool, what they’re trying to do there, how can we support? There’s been other folks that tended to do more like electoral politics, who are maybe not as familiar with abolition, but looking at the campaign and looking at the opposition to it are really starting to learn more about that. And they can then bring their expertise in some some other tactics that like fight toxic prison doesn’t necessarily engage in regularly. But yeah, a lot of the outreach has been as in person as we can make it. And as individual as we can make it. We realize that, that while the group’s knew each other in the first campaign, I don’t think as many individuals had those like deep relationships, that would have held it together easier after the campaign ended the first time. And really, the relationships are what keep people in the work when it is long, and it can be tedious and discouraging. And emotionally draining, you know, we’re dealing with, with some pretty heavy stuff that’s harmful to the earth, it’s harmful to people. And it’s so invasive, it’s so everywhere. So what gets us through that is, is being comrades first. And that’s FTPS motto is that we are comrades first, I think that’s how our smaller team has been working together since 2016. And not only, you know, still doing some good stuff, I think, but a lot of people point out, like, You all seem to actually like each other, we’re like, Well, yeah, we do. We’re friends, you know, when one of us is suddenly like, my rent went up, you know, I’m not sure where I’m gonna live. We might not work on our regular work at our meeting next time. We’re all like on Zoom together, we might look for some housing and try to brainstorm who do we know in the area? Well, is there a different city where I’ve got connections that you could go crush for a while. We’ve tried to apply that same mentality to this kind of work to where we’re, we’re human beings. First, we’re not just trying to be productive together. We’re trying to build better than, like, the systems of exploitation are telling us we, we have a right to. And in order to do that we can’t be treating each other as disposable, as as you know, as we’ve been taught is acceptable.

Sprout  19:26
Yeah, that community building and culture building is a really important part of the work.

Robin  19:31
And I think it’s might be the hardest part to do. I think it’s the easy part to kind of skip over or keep putting off. And we’ve seen that and, you know, we’ve definitely done that and had to learn to do better the next time as we’ve worked together.

Sprout  19:46
So is there an equivalent coalition that is promoting the prison that you guys are directly in opposition to?

Robin  19:53
I wouldn’t say there’s a coalition. A lot of it is Hal Rogers who’s, what is he, he’s a federal representative. But there are some local politicians who, you know, for whatever reason they buy what he’s selling. And they seem to genuinely think that this is going to be great for their county and great for Appalachia in general. And then there’s local folks who may not be as heavily invested. But really just, they don’t know what else to ask for. This is the solution being being proposed to them, it’s the only solution, it’s sometimes being proposed to them. So saying no to it doesn’t make a lot of sense to them, if they don’t feel like they have other options. And I think that’s the biggest thing that we’re opposing, like outside of, you know, dealing with the government systems, I think we’re having to fight this culture of just accepting the absolute worst, because it’s all we’re being handed. So we’re trying to support folks in dreaming bigger and in feeling confident to say like, well, what, you know, this is half a billion dollars, what would you spend it on? What do you see that your community actually needs? And, and we’ve asked a lot of people that and that was part of the the early campaign, the local started doing a hashtag campaign called our 444 million, saying, like, we you know, I know, you all have a ton of ideas, how would you spend this money here? And they got hundreds of ideas, and none of them were prisons lol.

Sprout  21:28
Yeah, I was gonna ask when you guys are doing the these one on one sort of outreach? What’s the narrative that you guys are trying to get across?

Robin  21:38
Well, I think sometimes that depends on who we’re reaching out to. But the main one is that this will hurt all of us. You know, it might not be as obvious how it would hurt some groups over others, but that we all deserve better. And that tons of resources exists. And you know, like that money exists, it’s been sitting there for years, which was the problem. So there’s no reason that after Letcher county flooded and hundreds of people lost their homes, that those haven’t been built back up yet, there’s no reason there’s no good reason that these problems have not been solved, and that things have not been repaired. Except that the money is sitting there waiting to become harmful structures.

Sprout  22:26
Yeah, and when you are doing it one on one and individually, that gives you more space, to sort of tailor the argument whether it needs to be economic or social or moral, depending on the given person.

Robin  22:39
Definitely. And actually, as part of our onboarding process, the initial meet up with people is mostly to let them talk. And so for them to express their concerns, their questions, you know, maybe how they would want to get involved, what kind of skills they feel like they could contribute. And that goes back to that flexible, but somewhat formalized structure I was talking about where we want people to have a clearer idea of how they can plug in and to feel productive and feel like they’re contributing and connecting to, to the bigger picture without feeling like they have to carry it by themselves.

Charyan  23:17
When doing that kind of outreach. What kind of unique challenges have you guys face from living in a rural area on going an abolitionist project?

Robin  23:24
Well, sometimes the internet does not cooperate. And that’s always a challenge here in Kentucky, I think, you know, my my areas not nearly as rural as Letcher County, but, man, it just does not work. Sometimes it’s not been set up to work very well, for a lot of us. And then when you do get into the more rural like Far Eastern Kentucky areas, a lot of people have to drive about an hour to get where they’re going. And so there’s a really big time commitment for folks to be participating in these conversations. I think a lot of us have gotten so used to Zoom and decent phone service and things like that, that we might take for granted how much work it can take some people just to have a 10 minute conversation with somebody, but when those things aren’t functioning very well, and sometimes, you know, maybe they’re not the best tool of communication when you’re really trying to like change someone’s mind or address some deep and intense questions. You know, it’s I think, the time that it takes, and then the slowness of it, it might take multiple conversations to get somebody on the same page. And you might move them very slowly from being like, Oh, I don’t know, maybe the prison would be fine, too, huh? Well, no, I’m not sure. So then maybe actively opposing it. But you know, it’s that little bit at a time,

Charyan  24:44
What has been the biggest pushback you’ve received from citizens when organizing against the prison?

Robin  24:49
You know, that’s when I wish. I wish my comrade was here because I think she would have maybe a more precise answer than I do. I would say the most persistent pushback is is the argument that but we need prisons? You know, why not here if it can make money here or if the lands here, and it’s just going to happen anyway, why such opposition to it? It’s the feeling that it’s inevitable, when we know that it isn’t. But I think it takes a lot of creativity, and a lot of support to be able to imagine a world where it’s not inevitable, and not everybody has that support.

Sprout  25:29
Yeah, I think that’s an important linking of, you know, this one campaign, this one prison, to the idea of wider prison abolition as a whole. Because if it is just about stopping one prison, those questions are valid as to why not here. But if the campaign is more broadly focused, and advancing total abolition, then it is a real culture shift that we have to accomplish in order to get people to realize that, like you said, it’s not inevitable, prisons aren’t inevitable, and they’re not actually necessary for a functioning society.

Robin  26:06
Yeah. And I was really, really proud of us when we did have our in person retreat, that we all collectively agreed, even though not necessarily everybody in the room would define themselves as an abolitionist, we all agreed that we’re not okay with this money going to any prison anywhere. You know, we’re not just trying to scoot this problem down the road, we’re not just trying to say not in my backyard, we’re trying to say that this shouldn’t be in anybody’s backyard, this shouldn’t be our way of functioning.

Charyan  26:34
Can you think of any examples of how the rural nature of your area has actually given you some opportunities, or perhaps, advantages in this type of organizing as compared to more densely populated areas?

Robin  26:45
Well, I think that folks there have a really deep connection to the land, that’s a great place to start from, because some of the arguments against this prison are that it would be built on top of a former strip mine. Now, there’s no reason to think that that land is safe and fully settled from having been pretty recently mined. To really construct things on in the first place, you know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of time that it takes for the land to recover from something like that when it’s even possible. But then having that coal slurry pond, you know, that would have been right up hill from the prison. People were pretty sympathetic to that, even if, in general, they felt like we needed prisons, and that some people deserve to be locked up. Because folks in these rural areas have also suffered from, you know, poor water quality, pretty well accepted that there are certain counties in Kentucky like you don’t drink the tap water like that would be a wild thing to do. Why would it occur to you to even attempt that, which is always interesting when folks from from areas with decent water quality come there and just out of habit might go to get a glass of water from the sink, but they know they’re, you just don’t do that.

Sprout  27:54
So it sounds like this campaign has abolition of at least one prison as its central tenant. And I definitely appreciate the additional demands that the money be re-appropriated to where it’s most needed. What do you think can be learned from this experience for prison and police abolitionists in regards to forming a coalition and finding affinity with such a wide swath of people, some of whom don’t necessarily want to abolish prisons and police,

Robin  28:19
I think what we’ve seen work and what that what others can learn is to set yourself up for success intentionally and slowly, if needed, we always say to build at the Speed of Trust, and sometimes that’s slower than you want it to be. And sometimes it can be frustrating for people on on all sides of it. But it lets you work faster and more intensely later when you need to, and be able to care for each other, which, you know, over the course of this campaign, we’ve already done one big push against against some legislation. And we know we’ll have to do it again, when the environmental impact statement comes out, which is some of the paperwork that they needed in order to move this process forward. You know, there’s a 45 day comment period on that paper. And that’s a big opportunity for us. But it’s also a short turnaround time. So we know that when things like that happen, it’s going to be a little rough. But I think we have built our coalition in a way that we can handle it, as we’ve already seen, that we can handle intense things like that. And then we you know, get some rest and come back stronger. I would also say to have an intentional process around dealing with conflict, because it’s one of those things that it’s easy to not talk about, and to feel like everyone’s gonna get along forever while everyone’s getting along. But that’s just not how reality is, you know, even people that love each other and better 99% of the time on the same page. When you’re under stress, and you’re doing hard stuff. And you’re trying to make decisions together on a regular basis. There’s going to be disagreement, and so just accepting that that’s part of it and not seeing it as a negative. But just seeing it as a way that we grow together, I think has let us get through some tense moments. It’s kind of like having an emergency plan, you know, you don’t make the emergency plan while the emergency is actively happening. You want to have it from the get go so that you can then implement it when you need.

Sprout
Yeah, we’ve definitely experienced the need for building into the group up front, the commitment to engage in conflict resolution in our mutual aid work here. Do you guys incorporate any mutual aid into the work that you do trying to provide for the community’s needs so that their economic situation is a little bit better?

Robin
Well, I think that’s a major component of one of our demands is that this money, go back into the community. As far as like how we support our local organizers, I would say there’s mutual aid there. We want this work to be accessible to folks. And so sometimes that means some folks need to be paid in order to be able to spend the time and their capacity on it. Sometimes that is meant in, you know, in the past for us, making sure that someone had a phone when they didn’t. And various things like that. So I wouldn’t say that that’s like a heavy focus of it at the moment. But it’s part of that way of taking care of one another and being comrades first that, you know, if if the issue is that they’re having to work full time. And so they’re busy, we say, well, you know, can we help fix that? If we want you here? Or how can we work around that? How can we make sure that you have transportation funds? How can we make sure your car is up and running so you can get where you need to go?

Charyan
So what are the things that you hope people can learn from the prominent failures and successes made along the way from this campaign in regards to future campaigns and the broader abolition movement?

Robin
I think a big thing would be to like, keep going, you know, we’ve collaborated with a lot of folks who have done anti prison and anti anti jail, anti police work around the country. And those campaigns don’t always win what they set out to win. And that can be a hard thing to bounce back from. And, you know, it was hard for us, I think looking at that initial campaign, from our outside of Letcher county perspective and feeling like we won, you know, it’s done. And then hearing from folks on the ground that like, Yeah, but you know, there’s still an old strip mine, they’re just sitting there, there’s still all of these issues that we need support with. And we need resources to deal with them. Because, you know, the folks there have solutions. It’s just about getting the resources there. So they can be implemented by the people who have to live with those solutions. So yeah, I would say, being able to bounce back from a loss from criticism, from feedback that things didn’t look as positive from someone else’s perspective, as maybe they did from yours. And then you incorporate that and say, Okay, well, we’re trying again, how can we do it better this time? Just always getting better? Because none of these campaigns are ever going to be perfect. But I do think each one we’ve done has been stronger than the last.

Sprout
Yeah, it’s a marathon, not a sprint

Robin
Exactly.

Sprout
Yeah. So is there anything that we haven’t covered, or any topics that you want to talk about, before we wrap up,

Robin
I mean, I guess just generally, like a statement on the area, and the local work there, if I can make one. So I just want to say that a lot of times in these conversations, and in this one in particular, about rural counties, and about areas that are undergoing a lot of like, economic struggles, like there can be this tendency to, like frame them as like, needing help or meeting something brought in to them. And I do want to be careful about how I talk about that, because, like I said, like, the solutions are there, the people closest to a problem, are the ones also closest to the solution. And so I think one of the biggest strengths of this campaign is our local organizers and the nuance that they see, and the really hard conversations that they have with folks that, you know, may not be completely in agreement, or may not be an agreement at all. And they still do the work of seeing their humanity and living with them and having to interact with them on a regular basis. And of holding this tension between like, certain areas being polluted, or mined or, you know, being exploited to some degree, and also still respecting those areas, and not treating them as disposable, or as you know, wasted and not in not worth caring about anymore. And so I appreciate just the like push and pull that they that they have to endure, to hold all of that.

Sprout
Well, we want to thank you for your time today and for your insights on the approach that you all are taken out in Kentucky. We are facing the building of two new jails here in our county and are grateful for the notes comrade. None of us are free until we’re all free. How can our audience find follow and support this important campaign and fight toxic prisons?

Robin
They can go to buildingcommunitynotprisons.com. There, you’ll see a little bit of info about the campaign, although we are working on some website updates, but there’s there should be a way to email and get in touch with us there. We also have social media, you can find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or sorry, X forgot whatever it’s called now. We’re just trying to use whatever the people are on. And yeah, if folks have specific questions or would want to plug in as an individual or an organization, we’re always open to new partners. The only thing that we ask is a green buyer or fundamental strategic agreements, which are covered very broadly that we’re not going to build new prisons. We’re going to invest these resources and the people that need them.

Sprout
Awesome. Well, thank you for coming on today. I hope guys are ultimately successful.

Charyan
Appreciate it. Solidarity comrade.

Outro:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Molotov Now! We hope you found it informative and inspiring. Our goal with the podcast is to reach out beyond our boundaries and connect the happenings in our small town with the struggles going on in major urban centers. We want to talk to you if your a big city organizer, we think we have a lot you can learn from, and we know you have much to teach us. If you would like to come on the show please email us at sabot_media@riseup.net with the header “Molotov Now!” and we will be in touch about setting up an interview and crafting an episode to feature you.

We want to give a shout out to our friends at:

• C: Sabotage Noise Productions for putting on awesome benefit shows, including one for The Blackflower Collective, and for being all around awesome people.
• S: The South Florida Anti-Repression Committee who have launched a solidarity campaign for two individuals facing 12 years for an alleged graffiti attack on a fake Christian anti-choice clinic that does not provide any reproductive care. This Federal overreach and use of the FACE Act, an act meant to protect people visiting reproductive clinics from harassment, is unprecedented. To support this solidarity campaign please visit bit.ly/freeourfighters
• C: We want to thank The Blackflower Collective for their continued support and wish them luck in their fundraising efforts. To support them or learn more their website is blackflowercollective.noblogs.org.
• S: Kolektiva, the anarchist mastodon server, is growing faster than ever thanks to Elon Musk’s stupidity as many activists close their accounts for bluer skies as can be seen in the fluctuation of followers over on IGD’s socials, join at kolektiva.social and follow us and other online activists on decentralized federated internet.
• C: Chehalis River Mutual Aid Network is holding a fundraiser for their weekly meals with Food Not Bombs. To donate visit linktr.ee/crmutualaidnet
• S: The Communique is looking for artist and upcoming event submissions, please write to sabot_media@riseup.net to submit your entry.
• C: Sabotage Noise Productions who will be throwing a benefit concert at Left Bank Books in Seattle to support Queer Satanic this August 19th at 7pm. Check them out on Instagram for more info.
• S: As reported previously, Katey Hussey is still struggling in the wake of harassment by Dayton Police that has cost her their employment and housing. Luckily it appears as though the charges against her have been dropped. But she has lost everything because of this and still faces an uphill battle getting back on her feet. Please send any donations to Venmo @katyHussey or Cashapp $KatyHussey to help them during this time.
• C: Thank you to Pixel Passionate for producing our soundtrack, please check out their website at www.radicalpraxisclothing.com and check out their portfolio in our show notes
• S: and Thank you to the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network. We are proud to be members of a network that creates and shares leading critical analysis, news, and actions from an anarchist perspective.

Remember to check out sabot media’s new website for new episodes, articles, comics, and columns. We have new content all the time. Make sure you follow, like, and subscribe on your favorite corporate data mining platform of choice and go ahead and make the switch to federated social media on the kolektiva mastodon server today @AberdeenLocal1312 for updates on Sabot Media projects such as The Harbor Rat Report, The Saboteurs, The Communique, our podcast Molotov Now! and many other upcoming projects.

That’s all for tonight. Please remember to spay and neuter your cats and don’t forget to cast your votes at those who deserve them.
Solidarity Comrades,
This is Molotov Now! Signing off

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