Silver Threads
Episode 19: Poetry as Ammo — Mark k. Tilsen
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, lakota, capitalism, standing rock, poem, asked, moment, mutual aid, eleanor, fight, inspired, curious, fucking, building, folks, handful, world, home, question, pipeline
SPEAKERS
Eleanor, carla, Mark, Maroon Cast podcast
carla 00:24
Hello and welcome to episode number 20 of Silver Threads. I'm carla and I'm still walking and still waking.
Eleanor 00:34
And I'm Eleanor. And this is the show where we trace our present path through the people and stories of the past. As we ourselves long term radicals learn about each other from each other and continue to walk continue to wake. This week we're joined by Mark k. Tilsen is an Oglala Lakota Poet Educator from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. He comes from activist families long steeped in the struggle for liberation for all people and the long term survival of the Lakota Nation. At Standing Rock he stepped into the role of a direct action trainer and police liaison. Since then he has led trainings and teach-ins about the lessons learned from Standing Rock. He has spent months at the L’eau est La Vie Camp helping fight against the Bayou Bridge Pipeline which is the tail end of the Dakota Access Pipeline ending in Louisiana. His first book of poetry, It Ain’t Over Until We’re Smoking Cigars on the Drill Pad recalls the struggle against the pipeline through a blend of journal entries and poems. Thanks so much for being here, Mark
Mark 01:33
Honour to be here. Thank you.
carla 01:35
Hi, Mark. Thanks for being here. We'd like to ask our guests to first take us on a little historical walk and maybe talk about a time when you're thinking profoundly shifted or you were inspired to act or join a movement or an action?
Mark 01:54
Well, I think from my background on, you know, like I said in the bio like, activism is part of my family history. That's kind of why I exist as a person. My father's people were immigrants who were like a Ukrainian Jews from North Dakota, and then ended up in the Twin Cities. And they really believed in social justice. My grandfather, Ken Tilsen was a lawyer, who showed up to the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. Which at the time, was this embroiled, almost low grade civil war that was going on Ridge, and on one side, you had the American Indian Movement, these traditionalist people who still kept our Lakota ways of prayer, language and culture alive. And at the time, like very few people understand in America, our Lakota ways were outlawed for almost 100 years, and were driven underground. So as the American Indian Movement was asked to come to Pine Ridge over the killing of Raymond YellowThunder, who was a kind of a street dude, like a Lakota street dude. He was killed. And Gordon Nebraska. Like for like, you know, outside the American Legion Hall, he was, they stripped naked, forced him to dance, and then later beat him to death. And this was treatment that was rampant. This was not an isolated incident. This was how border towns treated native people. And I believe it was Roland Bissonnette, who asked the American Indian Movement to come out to Point Ridge at the time. So it's not really just about me as an individual. It's more like me as a Lakota person, me as a Jew, me as this particular Lakota Jewish combination in that this is what I was born to. And this is the context I come from. I was in my 20s. I was particularly jaded about activism. I saw a lot of what we're doing was, like, I guess now we'd call it virtue signaling. We were doing these things that were like almost entirely symbolic. And we somehow believe that if we kept creating enough symbolic actions over and over again, it would lead to changes for the future of our children. And I was pretty burnt out on the concepts. There's only so much that you can do before you realize it, what are we actually doing? And during that time, you know, I helped my dad establish a company called Native American natural foods and they made a chocolate bar. chocolatebar.com yo. And I went back to school, I learned, I was educated in poetry, philosophy, became an English major. I came back home to the rez and started teaching English as a school teacher over the Redpot Indian School. It was really Standing Rock, that kind of was my moment, that got me off the bench that took my cynicism and said, like, Well, what are you going to do? And it was a Hunkpapa woman, Tepeeweze Young, who called me out on social media, said like, we're being asked to defend the water, what are you going to do about it? Are you actually going to come to Standing Rock, and help fight? And I was like, I really don't want to. I reluctantly came to Standing Rock, and only did so after being publicly shamed for not doing so, yeah. And that was my moment where it was kind of transformative. Like, I think so many times, especially in our leftist movements, we are continuously yelling at each other, like, this is what you ought to do. You got to do this. And it's like, well, let's keep that question further. What am I going to do? What should we collectively do? How do we take this moment, and really, really dig deep? And say, this is what I'm willing to sacrifice. And these are the tactics that I think can be effective. Now, how do we, how do we get ‘er done? How do we get it done? And that was August of 2016. Which was yesterday, and also a lifetime.
Eleanor 07:27
And just reading about, like what you've written about that time there is so, so profound and intense, and you'd wouldn't definitely wouldn't think that that was like, your moment. It feels like you've been doing it forever. And that I guess, that really speaks to the fact that this is part of your DNA, you know, like, you can't really extract it. It's been there. So I'm curious also, like with that, because it seems like going from the bench to like a really fucking intense frontline fight like Standing Rock, it's such a shift. So I'm curious, like, what scared you? Or, you know, made you fearful when you first started out? And is that something that you still hold with you? Or how do you unpack that? Or how do you address that today?
Mark 08:14
What first struck me as being fearful was kind of my level of commitment. Like, I was trying to do this weird balance of like, I'm going to build a house. I'm like, I'm going to keep my teaching certificate. I'm gonna, I’m meeting my long term girlfriend, we're gonna work it out. I don't know how but we're gonna work it out together. And once the moment and the movement, and the struggle continually asks, What are you willing to sacrifice? And it just keeps on asking sometimes in these really, really intense moments is just more, more. No, I'm asking you to give up absolutely everything. And once you've quit pushing back on that, you know, in our, you know, we're finite beings. So we're like, I want comfort. I want a future. I want a career. I want my girl to be there for me at the end of the day. Once you realize that's not going to happen, then you start realizing what are we actually giving up for these moments. So I still believe that I'm spreading evidence through the work of poems that I've created is that if we were willing, like if we were willing to die at Standing Rock, which many of us were, we would have won, and I believe we'd be living in a different world. I think the fear we have is mostly a maternal, paternalistic, almost condescending instinct to make sure other people are safe. Like, if you really get down to it, most people are ready, especially in these tense moments that have been building for months and months and months, that we're willing to sacrifice both our physical safety, our freedom and our lives. But what really is the kick in the pants, and it's kind of how sometimes these moments are defeated, is we want our friends to be safe. We want our loved ones to be safe. We want people to be able to engage in resistance, and also be able to preserve their freedom and their lives. And it's really tough. Now, I have analysis around it. At the time, I didn't. I mean, I recall Gandhi's march to the sea, the salt marches, where it was hundreds of 1000s of people that followed Gandhi in relatively active resistance. And it was very symbolic to harvest sea salt. And this was in defiance of the British colonial rule. And on this March, he was willing to die. Gandhi was willing to die. And what very few people realize, recognize, the hundreds of 1000s of people who were following him, he was also ready and willing for them to die as well. And that's truly intense. That's like another level of understanding about where's our struggle. And it just feels very difficult to really recognize that our compassion for one another is weaponized against us in our movements. That we're like, Hey, I might be willing to go to jail, but like, you need to not, you need to be okay, you need to be safe, we collectively need to watch out for each other, so we are safe. And safety is all relative. And violence is already inherent in this capitalistic system violence has already happened. Violence is already just the status quo of being alive in this system. And we're being chewed up and we're being destroyed. And sometimes even worse is we're living lives that have no meaning, that we're just struggling for continuous existence. So the status quo is actually unbearable. And when we get these moments, our instinct shouldn't be let's push you all back to the status quo. Let's get you to the relative safety of being comfortable again. And it's like we need to actually inspire one another. We need to let our comrades be as brave as they want to be, as brave as they can, and sometimes braver than us and hopefully they inspire us. I'm not trying to pretend that this thinking I'm saying now is what I had back in the early days of 2016. I wasn’t always this way, like we fought with almost, we fought with gloves on. And sometimes we met our opponents, or like, during shop hours, you know? And we'll see you again tomorrow after we do this utmost polite lockdown Okay, we'll have another go of it. Yes, but not too much. All right, then, we shall disengage currently. And we will move our caravan elsewhere, good sir. And, if we had to do it all over again, we’d do it differently. We imagine that Indigenous communities, Indigenous partners are our most radical, like bastions of resistance and that's not necessarily true. At Standing Rock, even ourselves, even Lakota people, we thought we were entering Radical Indigenous space, instead of an unprecedented moment where some of our most conservative relatives were pushing themselves all outside of any boundaries we ever had before.
carla 15:20
Yeah, that was beautiful. I feel like you weave this beautiful story, and answered a few questions of ours at once. I'm, oh my gosh, there's so much. On your Instagram, I noticed you talked about the Water Protector Manifesto. And you had the number one of just show up, all else flows from there. And I'm curious, like thinking about what you just said, and then thinking about, when that's not a Standing Rock situation, like that kind of everyday interaction around radicalism or militancy. I'm curious what that means to you in your day-to-day life and where you're geographically located.
Mark 16:05
It changes. I'm actually pushing back and challenging myself under that various a same principle, recently. Show up. My friends and comrades have figured me out. If you want me to do something that might require intense amount of sacrifice and rearrangement of life. You got to ask. And usually I'll show up. And I'm now challenging myself like, well, maybe there should be a little bit more criteria, other than just simply being asked to show up. But that is the basic principle. I think, like, I like myself, before the rebellion of last summer, I traveled the entire country trying to get people to understand what facing a militarized police would look like. And they're going to be using military grade vehicles. This is what an Alrad sounds like. A 40, Mike Mike, rubber bullet can take out your eye. Because we've seen that point blank range at Standing Rock. And all of these particular lessons about this is the amount of intense violence heading your way into every major city in America. And a minority of the country was able to receive those lessons and hopefully, integrate them for what came at us last summer. When we're not engaged in fighting pipelines, help homeless folks like that's kind of like that's why I came back to South Dakota, out here in western South Dakota. And that's what I was again, was being asked to do was to help start the Mniluzahan Creek Patrol, which patrols up and down Rapid Creek every night. Just checking on our homeless folks and de-escalating violence and creating a buffer between the police and our unhoused relatives. Because currently, there's no actual real plan to end homelessness and right in South Dakota. Most cities don't actually have a plan to end homelessness at all. They've criminalized it. And their idea is they'll go elsewhere. And not quite understanding like there's not affordable housing almost anywhere in America. South Dakota used to be affordable, as little as two years ago, our Governor Christie Noam has used the cares act money, which was COVID relief, and is invested in tourism and is fully invested in the Trumpism culture wars. of like no masks, no state mandates, 'we have a thriving economy because we never had a shutdown.' And South Dakota had some of the hottest hotspots on the fucking planet during the COVID pandemic. But because of that defiance, and that willingness to sacrifice citizens, not necessarily for the economy, but for these cultural war points. We've had 1000s and 1000s of people flock to this state. So housing is no longer affordable or even an option for your average South Dakotian. Like, like I'm paying 1100 in rent in South Dakota, and for 300 more I can be in Los Angeles. When the moment happens when you can connect in to a Standing Rock, a Line 3, a Tiny House Warriors, a L’eau Est La Vie, show up. And if you can’t show up, work locally with the people who are radically trying to help mutual aid. groups that are helping homeless folks, I believe that the violence that our unhoused relatives face is kind of the ultimate bludgeon of capitalism in our society. Tthe threat is the constant continuous threat that capitalism has over us, is to play the game or this will happen to you. And it's about continuous, like, there's a way to be unhoused that doesn't have as much violence attached to it. There's an actual life we can envision that we take care of people who are homeless, that has dignity and safety, and that they're simply considered part of our society. Like, these are our unhoused people. Yeah. And we're gonna look out for them and for those who want to make a shift, usually around their addictions, we're gonna help them do that, too. We're not definitely not South Dakota, we are not there yet.
Eleanor 22:18
Yeah, something that you were talking about reminded me of a question that was asked at an organizing meeting last summer, actually, and one of the organizers asked, like, How many of y'all think that we're in a war zone? And, you know, like, a few people raised hands, and she was like, Why the fuck isn't everybody raising their hand right now? You have like DC is home to like 40 different fucking law enforcement agencies, all who have military gear. And this was after people had already been hit with rubber bullets and tear gas and shit. And yet that I feel like the fear of naming it, that people were afraid that okay, well, if I, if I say that this is a fucking war zone that I have to act like it? And what the hell does that mean for my daily life? And like, what does that mean for, you know, like, what you were talking about, like the comfort levels? And I'm curious, kind of like with that thinking that you have. Do you have more or less hope for the future? And do you feel or see a shift? Either through like, the teachings that you're doing or the, you know, the in frontline work? Do you feel a shift in people, a stripping of the sheen of you know, of capitalism or what have you?
Mark 23:36
One, I don't think hopes necessarily think hope is one of the most damaging, damaging, dangerous things we have to cling on to, I think when people require hope to do action, they've already been defeated in a lot of ways. It's like, I'm going to do this if I have a positive mental attitude. I'm going to do this. If I have an ROI, a return on my investment, I'm going to do this work, If if we have a guarantee of victory, and I'm like, No, you sweet summer job. Hope is gonna screw you over, hope is obama.com hope is a slogan, hope is a transference unto a higher power, that somehow salvation will come from an outside source. So I actually don't, I think hope is actually daming to both our change to our movement. And we need a handful of cynical hardcores that are going to get keeps trudging along in the struggle regardless with or without hope. And yeah, we need a handful of visionaries who have that positive mental attitude to envision a brighter future, but for most of us, we just need to keep doing the work, regardless of our guaranteed outcomes. Now shift, I don't know I'm wearing a bulletproof vest for the first time in my life on a regular basis. I recognize that our people who want to kill Brown folks, Native folks, homeless folks, so somehow being Brown homeless Native is somehow a politicized identity that none of these folks chose into that last summer, we had people who were trying to run over homeless folks in pickup trucks. And yes, I remember on a, I think it was, I think it was Twitter. I saw john Cusack like from high fidelity or Say Anything. Gross pointe blank, and he was riding his bike during like a BLM resistance in downtown Los Angeles. And cops were hitting him with buttons.And I thought that was really cool, because like john Cusack is now being assaulted by police. on social media. This is cool. Firstly, also thought like, also thought did the cops, they just had to ask them, "hey man, is That fucking junkie sir. Yeah, he was great in high fidelity." But at the same time, everybody who decided to show up last summer got a taste of what other folks live through on the daily, I believe, that has transformative power. I believe that. We have folks who were like myself sitting on the bench for so long. And not even having the history of being politicized, who is drawn into these amazing collective moments. And yeah, sometimes it was fueled by anti Trumpism. And we see now, both in the Twin Cities in LA, you're not having these unprecedented historic marches going on anymore. It's transformed into something else. And I don't know. I like to think there's distinct possibilities that are available to us in this moment. Um, but again, the cynic said, which yelled at all the liberals are saying, y'all gonna stand down once we get one of your boys in there, aren't you? And it was proven correct. Once Biden was in so many of our radical voices, our newly radicalized voices, I should say, either fell silent, or got caught up in the spectacle of simply Trump not being in there anymore. I don't think that I have a distinct answer on that question.
carla 28:33
I think you gave a beautiful answer. my 17 year old the other day asked about hope. And he was like, ‘I don't think it's the right question. I think what I have is, we can, most of us might get killed. With the, if we really do go to battle against capitalism and colonialism. But I have a belief that many of us will know how to pick ourselves up and start the new worlds. And that's where I exist. And that's where I stand in’ And, as I, thank you, that just inspired me to want to go out and fight because it kind of connects back to, because one of the things for me, that's prevents me, is I have children, and I'm like, I gotta keep some kind of comfort for them. And he's like, no you don't like , we're dying. So yeah, I think we need to hear that more. So thank you. And sort of, I mean, I always find it kind of connected to the hope question, but it's vastly different. I'm wondering what your thoughts are on how imagination fits into us thinking about this conversation?
Mark 29:42
holy smokes, most of us don't get enough like, what I was doing patrol and working with Camp Mniluzahan. I would get somewhere between 60 and 45 minutes a day to imagine, like that was that was that like, that was that brief moment in time where I had enough of my stuff together, where I wasn't just recovering from yesterday, or preparing for today where you could actually think and in that moment, sometimes I was sleep deprived or over caffeinated, or even hyper stressed. So for that one 45 minutes to an hour a day. That's kind of all you get. And first, and that's true for so many of us, not even those who are like, like working on a front line, or in a homeless camp. So many of us is like, the way that capitalism has us cornered into has us boxed into a corner is we don't really get a time or space to imagine. And it is so vital. It is so vital to be able to imagine a different world. I think, you know, we saw the pandemic, one of the things that plan that the pandemic gave us was there was a record amount of people who were on unemployment, who were not having to do a nine to five. And it was, first and foremost, I am delighted to say the creation of some of the dankest memes that the world has ever seen. Which is one of the primary things to come out of the pandemic. And secondarily, people who have been challenging the fundamentals of America is a very normal thing now, even left or right. That people are literally saying that like, Well, why does it gotta be, why do we have to be like, if you if you really just look at some of the stuff that the right wing is saying about conventional politics, you can, you can see why it's alluring of saying, this is bunch of neoliberal bullshit, that's about virtue signaling to a handful of its base without creating any change whatsoever. And then on the left, we're like, yeah, we know. We, yeah, get it, get it. And he will go even further to the right. You can hear the same conversation was like this is actually a white supremacist nation, built on the idea of subjugating other peoples on the genocide of Indigenous folks, and the enslavement of black people. And then if you go further enough to the right, they go, yeah, we know. It's just that they think that's a good thing. Like, that's the only real disagreement, you know what I mean? But we actually have this battle for, quote, unquote, the soul of America. And they're, not even the left. But I would say the neoliberal agenda is saying, we need to fight for democracy. When we're like, well, this you're asking us to embrace in combat for an institution that has never fundamentally worked for us, included us, that has been about fundamental liberation, and everything, that every progress that was created in America was made through a grueling test of bloodshed, and horrific suffering by the poor and the working class. And sometimes to just get the acknowledgement from the middle class that this suffering and bloodshed exists. It's just fucking tiring. It's so tiring. And it's so difficult. When we, like, last summer, a friend of mine, Gomaz is a representative for the Minnesota Legislature, admitted saying we have a democratic legislature. We have a liberal progressive mayor in Minneapolis. And we have a left like primarily a progressive slash leftists City Council. And we have one of the most progressive Black police chiefs in the country. And we're still making the same mistakes. I don't want to get too lost in the weeds but it's like, we're faced with this challenge of where Democrats say once none of Biden's in, we can push them to the left... And how? like seriously how we have a, we have a Native American woman from one of the most oil states in the country, Deb Hall and running the Department of Interior and through a stroke of a pen could stop line three, which is going on currently going on in northern Minnesota, which is an export pipeline from the Alberta tar sands. And there are, there are 1000s of people who are being mobilized in northern Minnesota to fight this pipeline, hundreds and hundreds who have been arrested. And still none of that stroke of that pen. Same thing for the Dakota Access Pipeline, the one that we fought out Standing Rock. I asked someone who had intimate ties to the administration that was saying, why didn't they make that decision Trump proof when they pulled the permit? to drill under the Missouri River from the Army Corps of Engineers? Why didn't they do a Fonzie or find like a finding of no significant inquiry or whatever? what they told me is Mark you're asking entirely the wrong question. You need to be asking why they authorized in the first place? And I was like we we gathered for months at Standing Rock, people lost limbs lost their eyes. There's still people in jail over this shit. And it was like you were always wanted the pipeline to go through no matter what we did. We won quote unquote, and we still lost. Not sure if that answers the question. Sorry, if I am rambling.
Eleanor 37:02
Not at all. This is the podcast where there are no, what do you call those things in your bowling. The little like?
Mark 37:13
The bumpers,
Eleanor 37:15
No bumpers. You can go into other lanes.
carla 37:20
We're really, really into rogue pathways.
Eleanor 37:24
Absolutely. You're listening to Silver Threads, part of the Grounded Futures multimedia platform. For more information and to donate to our totally ad free show. Check out Grounded futures.com you can reach out to us with thoughts and suggestions at Silver Threads show at protonmail.com. You can find out more about our host Eleanor via art killing apathy.com and our host carla via joyful threads productions.com
Maroon Cast podcast 37:55
one two one two, .tune in for another episode of maroon cast is a Down to Earth black radical podcast with our host hip hop, Anarchist, Simili, RBG and sex educator and crochet artists KLC. shed their reflections on Maroon, rebellion womanism life, culture, community trapped liberation and everyday ratchet. They deliver fresh commentary with the queer, transgender non conforming fierce funny Southern girls anti imperialist anti oppression approach, poly ad and bullshit, check out episodes of Maroon cast on Channel zero net, buzzsprout, SoundCloud, Apple and Spotify all power to the people or pleasant to the people. Peace
Eleanor 38:41
And now back to the show. So this is something that you've that you've already touched on. But I'm curious, like with regards to this time in particular, you know, COVID did a really good job of, you know, stripping the facade off of capitalism and showing people Oh, no, it really is this fucking bad. And they really don't give a flying fuck about you. And I'm curious there, I mean, because there have been so many mutual aid networks that have popped up. And people have had that solidarity and that connectivity. But one of the questions that we've asked folks, that was actually, a question that one of our guests asked us was, why haven't we scaled over to, like, end this shit? And I think one of the things that came up was like being afraid of our own capacity for power. But also, like you touched on like that fear of not having access to safety. But I was curious if you could talk a little bit more about that.
Mark 39:38
Um, yeah, I can see what you mean a little bit more about scaled up.
Eleanor 39:44
So scale over as opposed to scale up because, you know, scale up suggests some kind of hierarchical repetition of the shit that we have. So scaling over really just in terms of building these solidarity networks to the point that we have enough power Collectively that we can challenge the structures that we are looking to topple.
Mark 40:04
Oh, yeah, no, it's, it's Yeah, that's just a matter of getting scale. Like it's kind of in the name. Like, we're taught to believe in a scarcity mentality. We're not like, you know, outside of, I think if you unless you're a hippie who reads the Secret, we're not really allowed to dream outside of our scarcity mentality, or unless you're engaged in a world, where would they call that a charismatic church? We're not really a belief, there's no preaching over the abundance mindset. I'm like, you know, most Americans don't acknowledge that 40% of the food that is generated is thrown away, like hunger in America is actually a manufactured existence. Most people don't have the bare minimum of let's say, an anarchist critique of saying that there is actually entirely enough for everyone in America to have what they need. Just don't destroy and throw away surplus. I remember one of my friends who works at a bakery, pointed out that they over bake bread every day. So the shelves look full, and almost like overflowing so they're inviting for customers. So they're creating real bread, not prop bread, mind you, real bread to sit on a shelf for a handful of days. And after those handful of days, it goes into a dumpster. And they don't want to redistribute it to the public, because they don't want to devalue the price of bread. So, yeah, we first and foremost begin with a scarcity mentality coming from Pine Ridge, or you know, Oglala Lakota, or, you know, a char near like our Indigenous existence used to be about, can our economic model was about redistribution of wealth. that our, you know, there's a Lakato okay, look like a NEO Lakota proverb saying, a good chief is poor. And it's not true at all, historically, or even currently. Our leaders were very wealthy, and they existed, and that wealth they had there., existed to be redistributed to the most needy among us, for the collective survival of all. And as we redistribute our economic wealth, we gain you know, in Hawaii, they would call it Mano, and Lakota terms, it would be spiritual and cultural capital, that we'd be known as generous people that took care of the people. Right now, most of us don't operate that way, because we see the perceived infinite need. Like, for instance, I know I'm getting a little lost in the weeds, and it's kind of becoming philosophical. Like my tribe is getting $200 million out of cares act money and the redistributing the wealth and it comes out to like less than $2,000 per most enrolled members if they meet the economic guidelines. And if we devoted all of that 200 million into housing, into lodging for our people, it wouldn't even take care of a quarter of how much housing and lodging we actually need. So the need again, why haven't we scaled up? Right now I have an apartment with one roommate. If I was taking care of the amount of people who have need, I would have a dozen people living with me. Easy. Is that's what the need is. We see or I believe the reason why we have not scaled over is because we actually know the amount of need that is there. And we are terribly informed by our, as individuals, ability to meet it. This is why we need systemic change. This is why you know Mutual Aid networks had the budget of the military. we would be living in a very, very different world, but they don't. They got pocket change. And some real money handed out from some Silicon Valley persons hanging out on zoom. Maybe there's a handful of billionaires who are funding our movement, but I'm not quite really aware of that. Mostly, it's a handful of millionaires with a bunch of ego who say more than they give. And that's not even the common reality is just most, most folks who's pitching in resources they don't even have just connecting folks, to those that do have resources. Why haven't we scaled over because the scale is so much. It's actually like, it's actually that much that we have not created a functional alternative to capitalism, yet. And I look at my anarchists and my socialist friends is like, this is what people are buying it. Because there's not a thing to buy into yet. You're selling a dream. And first of the month rent’s due.
carla 46:34
Yeah, you nailed it. I mean, capitalism, why it survives is it's based on a very simple notion of scarcity that our wants are infinite. And resources are finite, like capitalists actually know that. And it's like, scarcity is built into the very essence of it. And it's a mindset, you are right, because there
Mark 46:55
Even artificially,
carla 46:56
yeah. Did you want to grab a poem because I was gonna ask about ideas, but I think your poem
Mark 47:06
Did you have a particular poem in mind?
carla 47:10
I love the title of your book. it ain't over until we're smoking cigars on the drill pad. Maybe you could speak a little bit to why that title and then pick a poem for us. any of them, I would love to hear any of them.
Mark 47:27
Alright, I was asked me December 5, which was when the ruling from the Army Corps of Engineers that denied the permit for building the pipeline under neath the Missouri River, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Dave Archambault, the second was the tribal president declared victory and asked everyone to go home. And I was asked by a frenemy, this useful yet hostile reporter out of Bismarck, from the Bismarck Tribune asked me says "are you going to go home ?" and I very glibly says, it ain't over until I was smoking a cigar on the drill pad. And at the time, the drill pad was an area of, of they were going to use a actual drill underneath the Missouri River. And it was covered and surrounded on all sides by 15 foot, I think they called Tesco Woltz, that type of steel mesh and gravel barricade that they use in forward operating bases for Afghanistan. They had a dry moat, a chain link fence, and razor wire that was guarded by mercenary snipers, National Guards and Humvees. And hundreds and hundreds of sheriffs and deputies throughout the entire country. So between us and them, was a goddamn fortress that was fully staffed and armed. And at the time at Standing Rock, we had enough people, we could have just said go and we would have won. And I think that's kind of like the unpacking of Standing Rock is how those moments of saying go, were defeated. And there's a critique of saying, Yeah, we got to lay it on. we have to lay this defeat at the feet of the nonprofit's and the nonviolent direct action crowd was actually it's more fundamental than that. It's Lakota people who were afraid, who were honestly afraid of how much bloodshed is necessary for sacrifice. And I remember so much fear coming out of a handful of people's like, Guys, I lost more relative to suicide back home during the camps than I ever did at Standing Rock. How many people like there's four or five people who died at Standing Rock. Most people don't even know their names are talking about them, because it wasn't the splashy, heroic, gunned down by the dapple goons narrative that could have got us a victory. And so again, the terrible violence of our lives is the default. It's the status quo. People are imagine somehow I don't know that our movement is different. That somehow needs to be almost like this spiritual clinical purity that we have to keep it. Yeah. Anyways, I digress of to some poems when we try to find one here that would fit to what we're talking about. Here's a decent one.
Water protector. It is best said in a Boston accent, water protector. It's not aesthetically pleasing. A trite label, a shortcut to thinking some government workers adopted it thought they meant they weren't protesting to keep their jobs. Some wrap themselves in the spiritual glamour. But all it really means is I showed up. I tried in my way. Our cars are old enough to be in college. There's always a duct tape look to them. We run our vehicle down just like our bodies. It's rare but some of us are healthy, but healing. I don't think I've seen it. yet. Our gear is the entire range of mountain climber gifted artics pants with matching jackets to factory outlet mall orange coats free box fresh that donation tent couture. We smoked like chimneys cigars, cigarettes, weed, mountain smoking something strange with camomile home roles are the norm fresh factory packs with a crisp lines are fancy. You know you're hanging with water protectors because none of us drink any of it. Redbull coffee tea soda pop Gatorade whiskey and cradem. The food we cook is everything in between organic vegan gluten free chickpeas etc. to dumpster dive packaged meat or smoked salmon in that roadkill salvage. The most carb loaded feed an army for $1 you can tell I was raised poor dinner's always a baseball bat in the trunk but no gloves or a ball. Yes, we have weekend warriors those that vacation in the movement, day trippers. And we have family that are so everywhere that you can't keep track of which camp or continent or cause they are at. Always fighting. Been in camp so long, the idea of home is gone. Some of us don't sleep soundly anymore. The sounds of helicopters wake us or we sleep too much missing the adrenaline rush of another Riot line. And that addictive feeling of purpose. That may be the fate of the world depends on what we do here. We pray every day for the water for the children. Our resistance is ceremony. Dear God, let my friends live through the night. Let them get out of jail. And finally. Dear God, if tomorrow is it you and I will be meeting shortly. Let me not embarrass myself. Let me do right by the ones that brought me here. Let me be fearless. Just one more time.
carla 54:12
Thank you. That was beautiful. Thank you so much.
Mark 54:19
No problem. Glad to share
Eleanor 54:22
I think I wrote this to you on Instagram A while back. But like, whenever you post excerpts of your poems, like Okay, I'm gonna cry now. Alright, that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing at 230 on a Tuesday. Cool. Um, yeah. So I'm kind of curious as a poet, and you know, you mentioned philosophies, as well. Like, I'm curious if there's a book or, you know, a poem or even like a song or, or like a creative piece that has been a spark or an inspiration or has kind of been a salve in those shitty moments, or even that you just recommend to folks listening.
Mark 55:06
I think it's called February 21 1989. For all those killed by cops by Mike Ladd as part of the unbound, unbound project, Volume One. It was the first poem I ever memorized. And it was about the killing of Black men by police in New York, back in 99. But the lyricism of it, the spiritual invocation, I think that I think that's so important, that as poets we are allowed to be prophets. We are like, some, like, someone asked me was like, you know, how? Where do you get your inspiration from as a poet, and I'm like, I talked to God, and I speak with his voice. And that's kind of true, we're like poets are allowed to do an invocation of the Divine we are allowed to do an invocation of unreality to dream. And this particular poem by Mike Ludd, was talking about the horrendous violence we face and the beauty of our existence. And that there were like, there will be a reckoning, there will be a reckoning, I don't know how I don't know where or when, or what shape it will come in. But there will be a fucking reckoning for all that they have done. As poets were allowed to say such things. And that's sometimes why I titled poems like this is a poem. And I have to say it, it's such an couch, it is saying, this is a fictional imagination, rather than a call to action. So I'm not in prison. So I can create more poems.
carla 57:22
I think poets are the prophets too. And I really appreciate your words, I also follow you on Instagram and cry often. But a lot of times, it's tears, felt like the power increased in me like, wanting to get out there and fight. So thank you. You're spreading seeds. Yeah, so as a way to kind of fold time we like to ask our guests to both talk about an organization or a collector or an individual who inspired you over the years or even currently, to act and be involved. And then maybe somebody who's new, who's just, it could be a collective and our organization or whatever, who is just inspiring you today. But there may be young, they don't necessarily have to be young in age but young in maybe action?
Mark 58:15
Yeah, I would have to say, for myself, being on Lakato, you know, Crazy Horse, Dustin one of our great visionary warchiefs, though. They call him the Strange M an of the Oglala who lived a life of being a warrior Prophet, Lakota, Jesus, and who was ultimately killed by Lakota people. Crazy Horse is a continuous source of inspiration and caution for me in my life. I even wrote a poem called my relatives and it's really short, like my relatives. We are the people of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. We are also the people who killed them. And, you know, the warning very clearly is that it's even as you step into this role, let's say you will, let's say you are the guy, the man, the person. It might be your own people that kill you. Be your undoing. I think what is The Judas and the black Messiah? The very fact that Fred Hamptons his best friend that has headed his own security was the person that orchestrated his assassination. That's really real. And so they should also be telling teaching and inspiring. And for the other part, I have to say the ones that inspire me our Street Medics, like, straight up like street medics will be like, so we're going down a dead end to the surround on all sides by police because somebody thought this was a good action, like, yeah. Doesn't it look like a trap was like, yeah, that doesn't mean we're not going. Just because it's a trap doesn't mean we're not going. And most street medics, I know, don't take leadership, don't try to either derail, or caution. It's more like, hey, this, the gear you have might not be the best try this. And shits gonna go sideways, because shit always go sideways. And I'll be here to wash the pepper spray out of your eyes and get you a splint for that busted wrist. And I'll drag you out of the tear gas if you get lost. And the new collective that I really like, very much inspired by and I wish everyone followed them on Instagram and social media and followed what they're saying is the frontline medics on Instagram. It's a relatively new, semi anonymous collective. And I I just think they distill so much knowledge on the regular for all of us. And, yeah, that I'm continuously inspired by them. And I think even the very phenomenon of street medics is great. The very fact that we have a dedicated crew of people out there again, outside of capitalism outside of that system. That are saying, you still deserve to be cared for, regardless of the fact that you're squaring off with police, regardless of the fact that you're let's say, you're a criminal. That who regularly does criminal shit on the daily and we like to call that resistance and rebellion. And that is kind of inspiring that somebody is looking out for you. Yeah.,
Eleanor 1:02:26
I think street medics are like an example of building that world that is outside of capitalism, and what we can do and what we could build instead, for sure. So finally, like in the spirit of mutual aid, we'd like to ask folks, if there's a collective or cause or project that you want to raise solidarity funds for because we ask listeners to donate each time to a new, a new group. So if there's anybody you'd like to shout out for,
Mark 1:02:57
oh, I would be dismissed if I didn't say my logo, crew. Camp Mniluzahanhog Creek patrol. And you can find us on social media, or PayPal, Venmo, etc.
carla 1:03:12
Perfect. I think that's it for our questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Or maybe let us know where we can find you?
Mark 1:03:22
All you can find me on social media. If you just search for M. tilson or Mark tilson. I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, don't add me on Facebook because like my aunts on there, I'm not going to accept your ad. I'd also like to give a shout out to the right wing over at Palmetto State armory. It's currently running a deal for 349 for a complete upper and lower sans receiver rifle kit. That they're actually if you want an AR 15 go with Palmetto State that the cheapest ones around and as somebody who has genocide on both sides of my family, I believe that our community and our families should be armed to be able to defend themselves. I like to leave every conversation saying ‘one day I'll see you on the beach.’
carla 1:04:19
Oh may that be so. Love it.
Eleanor 1:04:27
Silver Threads is recorded in different places across borders. carla is located in Canada on Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh lands. Eleanor is located here and there, usually either in Sweden or on Piscataway land now known as Washington DC, and our guests join us from around the world. You can find out more about the show and our guests at Groundedfutures.com. To learn more about Eleanor's work, visit artkillingapathy.com and follow her on Twitter and Instagram @radicaleleanor. For Carla follow her on Twitter and Instagram @joyfulcarla. You can also reach out to us at SilverThreadsshow@protonmail.com and lastly, if you want to support the making of the show you can donate over at Groundedfutures.com Thank you to the Grounded Futures team for supporting us with promotion. All of the snazzy graphics that you see are created by Jamie-Leigh Gonzales. Grounded Futures is a multimedia platform and is produced by carla bergman, Jamie-Leigh Gonzales and Melissa Roach. Post production audio for our show is done by Eleanor Goldfield; the intro and outro music for our show is a song called floodlight by Eleanor's former band Rooftop Revolutionaries. Thanks for listening. And now let's go Rattle Thrones and Topple Empires.
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June 22, 2021
Transcript auto-generated by Otter.ai and edited by the Grounded Futures team.