Synopsis: From Resistance to Revolution How Communities Are Creating a New Economy Description: People across the country are resisting authoritarianism in creative and powerful ways, and this is just the start. The folks at The People's Network for Land & Liberation (PNLL) say building a brighter future requires a vision of economic and social justice — and lots of practice. In this episode, we look at some of those practical experiments and paths for radical change. “We can make things that make things, we can design and build our own equipment that can then use locally sourced materials, hyper localizing the supply chain . . . We can stop feeding the monster that's consuming us and actually disconnect from that process and use what we have.” - Blair Evans Guests: • Edget Betru: Coordinator, People’s Network for Land & Liberation; Board Member, Community Movement Builders • David Cobb: Staff, People’s Network for Land & Liberation; Manager, Butterfly Impact Fund; Co-Coordinator, U.S. Solidarity Economy Network • Blair Evans: Coalition Member, People’s Network for Land & Liberation; Founder & Executive Director, Incite Focus; Designer & Trainer, Fab Lab Watch on YouTube this episode that includes video clips referenced in this episode from Third World Newsreel; PBS World Channel 11:30am ET Sundays and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast March 4th, 2026. Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation. Music Credit: 'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, 'Steppin' by Podington Bear, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends
Synopsis: Members of PNLL are experimenting with new ways of doing politics and economics in communities across the US, focusing on local solutions and shared resources.
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Description: People across the country are resisting authoritarianism in creative and powerful ways, and this is just the start. The folks at The People's Network for Land & Liberation (PNLL) say the forces that got us here are bigger than one bad leader; entire systems must be taken down. Building a brighter future requires a vision of economic and social justice — and lots of practice. Today on Laura Flanders & Friends, we look at some of those practical experiments and paths for radical change, and discuss why they’re just as important as resistance. The members of PNLL, a multiracial, multiethnic consortium of six community-based organizations, are doing politics and economics differently in real places across the U.S. right now. Joining us are Edget Betru, an attorney, activist and Coordinator of the People’s Network for Land & Liberation; David Cobb, PNLL staff person and Co-coordinator of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network; and Blair Evans, Founder and Executive Director of Incite Focus, a production and training lab based in Idlewild, Michigan. Find out how to build for the future — even in the toughest circumstances. All that, plus a commentary from Laura on William Morris’s News From Nowhere.
“We've been colonized in our minds . . . Involving people in day-to-day produce, meeting their needs through a different way, through thinking, Hey, who in my neighborhood knows how to fix this? . . . It's really that shift in consciousness that needs to happen that's going to allow for this new economy to emerge.” - Edget Betru
“My mama and my mamaw and my papa who raised me taught me a lesson as a little boy, and that is, there's enough to go around as long as we share. That made sense to me when I was five years old. It makes sense to me now when I'm 63 years old. There's enough to go around as long as we share. It's just as simple as that.” - David Cobb
“We can make things that make things, we can design and build our own equipment that can then use locally sourced materials, hyper localizing the supply chain . . . We can stop feeding the monster that's consuming us and actually disconnect from that process and use what we have.” - Blair Evans
Guests:
• Edget Betru: Coordinator, People’s Network for Land & Liberation; Board Member, Community Movement Builders
• David Cobb: Staff, People’s Network for Land & Liberation; Manager, Butterfly Impact Fund; Co-Coordinator, U.S. Solidarity Economy Network
• Blair Evans: Coalition Member, People’s Network for Land & Liberation; Founder & Executive Director, Incite Focus; Designer & Trainer, Fab Lab
Watch on YouTube this episode that includes video clips referenced in this episode from Third World Newsreel; PBS World Channel 11:30am ET Sundays and on over 300 public stations across the country (check your listings, or search here via zipcode). Listen: Episode airing on community radio (check here to see if your station airs the show) & available as a podcast March 4, 2026.
Full Conversation Release: While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offer to our members and podcast subscribers the full uncut conversation.
Music Credit: 'Thrum of Soil' by Bluedot Sessions, 'Steppin' by Podington Bear, and original sound design by Jeannie Hopper
Support Laura Flanders and Friends by becoming a member at https://www.patreon.com/c/lauraflandersandfriends
RESOURCES:
Full Episode Notes are located HERE.
*Recommended book:
“Beautiful Solutions: A Toolbox for Liberation”, Learn More Here*
(*Bookshop is an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores. The LF Show is an affiliate of bookshop.org and will receive a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.)
Related Laura Flanders Show Episodes:
• Jackson Rising: Creating the Mondragon of the South: Watch
• Resisting Trump & Authoritarianism: The “Beautiful Solutions” Toolbox: Watch / Listen
• Community Wealth Building: An Economic Reset: Watch / Listen: Full Uncut Conversation and Episode Cut
Related Articles and Resources:
• Community Movement Builders’ Community Sea Moss Cooperative
• Tale of the Tape: An Expert Weighs In on the ‘Cop City’ Bodycam Footage, by Madeline Thigpen, February 15, 2023, Capital B
• Cooperation Jackson, The Build and Fight Educational Series
• Cooperation Vermont, Seeding the Alternatives for the Future
• Cooperation Vermont Buys Former Rainbow Sweets Building, by Paul Fixx, February 4, 2025, The Hardwick Gazette
• Incite Focus, where ideas and imagination meet inspiration and innovation
• Wellspring Cooperative, building a just and sustainable economy, one co-op at a time
• U.S. Solidarity Economy Network (US SEN)
0:00
123.
While our weekly shows are edited to time for broadcast on Public TV and community radio, we offered to our members and podcast subscribers the full, uncut conversation.
These audio exclusives are made possible thanks to our member supporters.
0:24. Laura: Introduction
Under an onslaught of cuts, militarization, and the reversing of this country's even slow moves toward economic and ecological common sense, it is hard to visualize a big, bright future for everyone right now.
0:40
But talk to students of this moment and they'll say that what we're going through isn't exactly a surprise.
It is the product, rather, of a system, and that is not going to be solved by tweaks around the edges or even electing one new leader.
But total overhaul if humane life on a functional planet is going to survive.
1:00
If that is true, then resistance to fascism, say, is only part of what is called for in this moment.
The other part is vision, and not just pie in the sky imagining, but right here, right now, experiments and practical pathways out of today's status quo.
1:18
The People’s Network for Land & Liberation, or PNLL, was formed with exactly that agenda.
The network is a multiracial, multiethnic consortium of six community based organizations, each of which is doing politics and economics differently in real places across the US right now.
1:40
What are they finding and how are they doing it even in the midst of a crisis?
That is our question today.
We're joined by guests from across the PNLL Network Edget Betru is an attorney, activist and coordinator of the People’s Network for Land & Liberation.
1:57
Betru is also a board member of Community Movement Builders, a member based collective of Black people based in Atlanta, GA.
David Cobb is a PNLL staff person and Co coordinator of the U.S. Solidarity Economy Network.
2:13
In 2004, he was the Green Party presidential nominee and served as the campaign manager for Jill Stein's 2016 presidential run.
Blair Evans is also with us.
He is founder and executive director of Incite Focus, a production and training lab based in Idlewild, Michigan, a historically Black enclave and resort town known as the Black Eden.
2:38
He's designed and launched more than half a dozen Fab Lab centers, which are MIT backed initiatives that are right now bringing digital fabrication, think 3D printing and more to people and places whom our current economy has historically shut out.
The labs are helping just about anyone make just about anything better, which is just what we need in this moment.
3:00 Laura:
So I am so glad to welcome all of you to this program.
I don't know where to stop, but let me start with you, David.
What is on the top of your mind and your heart as we begin this conversation?
David Cobb:
First, Laura, thank you so much for how you framed this conversation.
3:16
Because we know we are in an ecological crisis.
It's not coming.
It's here.
And accelerating fascism is not coming.
It's here but tightening.
And capitalism as we know it cannot solve this problem because capitalism is this problem.
So what's at the top of my mind is the confidence I have in the People's Network for Land and Liberation as community based organizations rooted where we live, work, play and pray with a program to not just describe the problem, but a vision to not just survive, but to thrive.
3:49
We've got a path forward and we're eager to share it with you and your viewers.
LAURA:
Well, that's exactly what we're going to do.
What about you at Edget what's on the top of your mind, on your heart as we start to talk?
Edget Betru:
Well, I think, I think you also for that framing, because I think it's very easy for us right now to be caught in fear and paralysis because of what is happening all around us.
4:16
But as a mother, I guess I, I link this to a birthing process, you know, yes, the old world is dying and decaying and destroying everything.
And it's, it's in its way.
But really we are also at the same time witnessing the birth of the new.
4:32
And that's going to be painful and, and, and bloody and violent as, as, as childbirth is as well.
But it's really also like the opportunities to build upon what we have practiced for generations and generations, which is relying on each other, working together, working with nature and the earth to really create a solidarity economy that's Co created, that is regenerative and sustainable.
5:03
I like what somebody, somebody once put it.
It's not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb.
I've always.
Hung on to that.
LAURA:
Coming to you, Blair, what would you say is sort of burning on your mind and in your heart as we begin this conversation?
Blair Evans:
Really, I also appreciate the framing and I think the key thing for me is, you know, really understanding that there's a way to build an alternative pathway forward, another pathway for prosperity for people.
5:31
And I think, you know, a concrete understanding that that's actually possible can shift people's mindset around how to deal with this.
Obviously, we need to live until tomorrow.
So you got to resist some of the things that are going on, but we also need to really build the alternatives.
And happy to and interested to explore that with you.
5:49 LAURA:
I mean, I love it.
I mean, with other people talk about the challenges of fixing the plane mid air, but you guys are actually talking about making a new plane mid air.
There are six members of this network, David, in vastly different places, in different circumstances, involving different and distinct sorts of people and practices.
6:07
What's the connecting tissue?
David Cobb:
Well, the connecting tissue is an analysis specifically around A 5 point program, which I'll invite Edget to describe, but I want to take just one moment to under score cooperation.
6:23
Jackson and Jackson Mississippi the heart of the Neo Confederacy.
Then Community Movement Builders, which is a national chapter based group, but Atlanta is their chapter headquarters, which is 500 million people and probably heart of the entire SE.
6:39
Then we go to Wellspring Cooperative in Western Massachusetts which is literally half folks from Central and South America and have poor working class white folks.
Then cooperation Vermont in the northeast Kingdom, 95% white and exclusively rural.
6:58
Then cut across to Michigan, Black Eden.
Then Native Roots network in western California in the far North Coast an indigenous led grouping of trans tribal multi ethnic people.
The point is this experiment is really 6 experiments that once united around a 5 point program and I'll invite Egget to talk about what that five point program is.
7:26. Edget Betru:
All right, So the PNLL 5 point program aims to address really undermining the foundations of the current extractive capitalist system that is grounded in the control and ownership of the means of production, right?
7:44
The private ownership of land, the exploitation of Labor.
And so our program and instead aims to de-commodify the land so that we have access for food production, for housing, for all of the things that the land provides, right?
8:01
We have community production, which means everything from growing food to using traditional and modern digital technology to produce the things that we need.
We are incubating and supporting the development of workers cooperatives so that we can learn how to work together to not only produce what we need, but engage in direct democracy so that we are making our own decisions about not only our work, what we're making and how we use it in that community.
8:33
And very importantly, we always incorporate education because without the critical understanding of why we're doing all of these things, it will be very easy to undermine all of our work.
And finally, we incorporate art and culture in everything that we do.
8:52
And that's just, you know, from our ancestral knowledge and practices to creating the new and making it all beautiful.
Laura Flanders:
Well, often people say they're going to outline 5 points and they get to about 3.
You did it 5.
Beautifully laid out.
Appreciate that Coming to you, Blair.
9:08
I had the great pleasure of visiting you there in Idlewild in rural Michigan, and I know that's just one place of focus for you, but to put some sort of flesh on the bones or paint some pictures for people, how would you describe what you're doing there at Idlewild and how it reflects those principles that at Edget just outlined?
9:31 Blair Evans:
Idlewild Well, first thing, all of the nodes are are earnestly involved in integrating all of these pieces, because without all of them, the whole process kind of falls apart.
Idlewild is focusing a lot on anchoring the community production piece because we have people here that that's an area specific expertise.
9:49
But we're taking a lot of the historic resources that are in Idlewild and converting those into community land trusts operated by worker co-ops.
Also building community production center where we can actually have additional worker co-ops and that's collectively owned in terms of the lands in the co-ops producing goods for use in the community by people, their families and community members and also for exchange for those things that, you know, we would like to be able to purchase.
10:19
Idaho's history has a lot to do with arts and culture and so it's a natural to be able to embed a lot of these principles and represent those in the music festivals and like that we that we have here.
So, you know, I'd love to unpack what some of the community production pieces are.
10:38
We have, as I said, been stewarding a lot of historic resources here just because we wanted to make sure they stayed in a community That gives us an excellent opportunity to transition those into collective ownership because we were just holding the Fort down.
10:54
But we also are building new systems like we have a 60 acre campus which will be a good anchor for community production here in this in this area.
So our approach is a combination of the traditional and historic aspects of Idlewild, but also building what the next 100 years of Idlewild will be about at the same time.
11:19. LAURA:
Let's talk about what brought each of you to this work.
You've talked sort of in the abstract about the problems with our systems, but why you this work right now?
Let's start with you, Blair.
What brought you to this work in this time?
11:37. Blair Evans:
When I was growing up, it seemed like this was a multi generational problem and you know, we got the baton handed to us and we planned on handing it off to some other folks afterwards.
The nature of the challenge has accelerated over a period of time.
So it's critical at this particular point in time with us, you know, not providing the social foundation that that broad swaths of people really need while blowing through all of the ecological and planetary limits simultaneously is a extremely bad combination.
12:07
And so, well, I grew up in Detroit in a very active family and community.
So, you know, between my church and the community organizing and the like, it was what you did.
It wasn't something I thought about because it was just part of the fabric of the universe when I was growing up later on.
12:30
So a lot of that, you know, teaching about institution building and and the necessity of working within community is just a natural part of things.
I went off to do a lot of technical training, but always in the back of my mind was how are these tools to be able to provide greater leverage to those those efforts.
12:48
And so this is in the.
Boom and bust history of that city of Detroit was probably a teacher too.
LAURA:
Absolutely.
Let me come in to you, David.
Why you?
I mean, you've got a history in Green Party activism, but this takes that to another level, it seems to me.
But why?
Why did a little David Cobb perhaps find his way into this work today as a adult?
David Cobb:
13:10
Well, Laura, anybody who knows me, I am a proud and unapologetic mama's boy, and my Mama and my Mama and my Papa who raised me, taught me a lesson as a little boy.
And that is there's enough to go around as long as we share.
And for me, that made sense to me when I was five years old.
13:29
It makes sense to me now when I'm 63 years old.
There's enough to go around as long as we share.
It's just as simple as that.
LAURA:
And what about you at EDget?
How did you get into this?
Edget Betru:
I guess I'm a grandma's girl.
So my family's from Ethiopia and I grew up in Ethiopia.
13:47
My grandmother was just one of those people that was very involved in her community.
And we would feed once a month.
We would feed anyone and everyone in the neighborhood who needed food.
And then my family migrated to Tennessee.
14:05
And in my mind, coming to America was, you know, the land of milk and honey.
Everybody was going to have everything.
And I was shocked and horrified because my, I my church went to deliver groceries and basic toiletries to people maybe an hour away from where we were living.
14:26
And there were children there without shoes.
There was, you know, still people who didn't have real indoor plumbing.
And this was white and black communities.
So from that point on, I realized that there were those who have and those who have not.
14:41
And there were a lot more people who did not have than who had.
And I just, you know, I was always committed to doing my part to change that.
LAURA:
The work that you're all engaged in is not just an homage to the legacy you come from, although clearly it is that.
14:58
And it's not just individual projects like some of the ones that we've reported on on this program in the past.
It is about a network.
And I'd love you, David, to talk about not just the network and how it operates, but one of the sort of ecosystem projects that you're very involved in, which has to do with agriculture in the Massachusetts area, the Wellspring Harvest Network, to help us see how the collaboration amongst all of your projects makes a difference.
15:32 David Cobb:
As Blair said, every one of our nodes are involved in all of the different things.
But you're correct to lift up Wellspring if we want to talk about the the height of what we're doing in terms of food production and that is in Wellspring, the third largest indoor greenhouse in the state of Massachusetts is operated as a worker owned cooperative by the Wellspring Cooperative. 1 of about 10 coops, an already existing network of coops that are showing that we can meet our needs for food, housing, everything at once.
16:06
And then Wellspring Cooperative is a perfect example, and I hope Emily Kawana will be able to talk to you about what they're doing there.
LAURA:
Well, tell us more though about how that system works.
David Cobb:
Yeah.
So what we have is an ecosystem as I said of about 10 different co-ops.
16:26
They are all in different ways meeting individual needs.
The the the greenhouse though, is a very large, again, it's the third largest greenhouse in the entire state.
It is owned and operated as a worker owned cooperative that is within the ecosystem of the Wellspring cooperatives and Wellspring is just one of the six nodes.
16:51
The point I'm getting at is we could zoom in on any one of our six nodes and see an example of what it actually looks like to put all of this together, food, housing, education, etcetera.
LAURA:
You're pulling a lot together there in Atlanta, GA at Edget at Community Movement Builders.
17:10
For people that don't know about you, what can you tell us?
Some may have heard of have seen reporting on this program about the Stop Cop City movement, but they probably don't know about your work with cooperatives, including did I read a Sea Moss Cooperative and an aquaponics project.
17:29 Edget Betru:
Yes, please check out Community Sea Moss.
LAURA:
So what does that look like in practice?
wait a.
So it's it's a project where we have workers who actually process the CMOS package it we are
17:45 LAURA:
wait a Minute wait, just roll back a minute.
You are growing sea moss in Georgia?
wait a.
We're not, we are not growing it.
We have allied communities who are also cooperatives in Belize and St.
Lucia and we, so we source the Sea Moss from there.
18:03
But it is here in Atlanta where it's cleaned, processed, packaged, marketed and distributed, right?
And and that's really where we're trying to get all of our nodes and all of these cooperatives to get to a place where we have full supply value chains that are outside of this extractive system that are providing decent jobs for our community, but also producing things that we can actually consume and nourish us.
18:33 LAURA:
What do we do with sea moss?
Edget Betru:
You take it, it's a supplement.
So it's a nutritional supplement and it has all the minerals and vitamins you could ever, you know, want.
And yeah.
And I'm glad also that you brought in our work around Cop City because it's the model for our organization.
18:56
We, we fight the institutions that are in our communities that are not serving us and instead we build ones that we are controlling.
So that means for us it includes a school, a full time school called the Malcolm X Academy in Sacramento.
19:14
It means an after school program in Dallas.
It means a farm where we're actually growing food and we have a food program where we distribute groceries to the community.
So and, and, and, and we are not that unique.
There's literally thousands of folks doing these kinds of projects and mutual aid work.
19:34
And when we confederate those, if we can connect those and organize ourselves so that we're taking up more and more and more and more space, we can we can push out that that old system and replace it with one that better serves us.
19:51. LAURA:
And we should remind people, Cop City was the initiative to build a huge police training facility on what was protected land in an area of Atlanta that was going to displace people and land and trees.
Huge conflict.
And we did some reporting on it, but there's much more that people can find online.
20:12. MIDROLL BREAK - NARRATOR:
This show is made possible by our viewers and listeners, not corporations or advertisers, so join our member supporter on a roll by going to lauraflanders.org/donate to contribute.
That's lauraflanders.org/donate. Thank you.
LAURA:
Coming to you, Blair, you have talked about how your projects speak to many problems at once and also how they alleviate many of those problems at once.
20:47
Can you explain how it works and also how you see digital fabrication as changing some equations here?
Blair Evans:
Yes, I mean we're, we're in a period of of acceleration into these kind of Poly crises, but we're also in a period of exponential explosion and capabilities and a lot of technologies and we have access to and know way too much to be doing so poorly ecologically and practically.
21:19
So one of the key aspects with the digital fabrication, which is moving forward very rapidly is the ability to flexibly use what you have to produce what you need.
And so that means being able to refashion, add value to things that doesn't have to be commodity, global supply chain, uniform materials that go through a huge capital intensive factory process.
21:48
You can flexibly take something and program the digital fabrication capabilities to refashion that in a different way.
But one of the critical things also is we have a real ethical framework about sourcing things and not having unintended consequences or side effects in supply chains, which can be very environmentally damaging and damaging to people.
22:07
So not only can we make things, but we can make things that make things.
We can design and build our own equipment that can then use locally sourced materials, hyper localizing the supply chain to then to produce the things that we need.
And so by becoming familiar with what a couple generations ago was normal, which is using what's in your environment to create what you need, we've been so disconnected from that, that reconnecting with that just helps us become better people and more full.
22:38
But again, being able to kind of understand how we can stop feeding the monster that's consuming us and actually disconnect from that process and use what we have is a key capability.
I mean, you can do these kind of things and people have for 10s of thousands of years without digital fabrication.
22:55
But in our setting right now, given how many people are on the planet, the material resources and the like, we need some leverage to be able to do that effectively.
And it's also the case that everyone doesn't want to spend 80% of their lives doing that specific providing for yourself.
23:13
But if you can spend 30% of your life, that's reasonable and then I can do the other things that are important kind of along the way.
So it's just as.
LAURA:
What sort of things are you making right now there in the in the digital fabrication?
Land one of the things.
That they being used.
Blair Evans:
For in Idlewild area, one of the things that is a dominant focus for us is housing, actually producing housing that has low total cost to ownership, very energy efficient and allows flexibility as we used to generations ago to be able to kind of modify and expand things as family circumstances grow and change.
23:53
So person doesn't have to go from a starter house and then move to another community when you have kids and then move to another community when you're an empty nester.
But actually maintain your social connections and have the physical environment adaptable enough so that you can stay put and continue to move forward and not have to go through the economic or social trauma.
24:14 LAURA:
So housing is huge.
Blair Evans:
It, it, it is a major part of what people spend their time working for dollars to pay for.
And so environmentally it's impactful in terms of people's time, it's impactful and in terms of social continuity, it is.
24:30
So that's a significant focus for us and we're collaborating with local universities alike with that also with that also.
LAURA:
When we met there in Idlewild, Blair, you were on your way to visit another member of the network, Native Roots.
Can you paint a picture for people of that project which does root itself in such long history and tradition?
24:52 Blair Evans:
Yeah.
And that's, that's a good example of how we all kind of reinforce our efforts.
You know, for a lot of people, it's, it's convincing folks that food doesn't come from a grocery store, water doesn't come from the tap, etcetera, right.
You know, we can have control of our own things.
25:08
Native Roots Network has a history of using what's in the environment in ways that allow them to produce things that that are useful, important to them.
And so it's a matter of just adding a tool to the toolkit and not changing a whole philosophical perspective on how one ought to live life.
25:27
So they have a significant amount of land that they've been able to recapture, partly in collaboration with PNLL, and are looking at how to use the things that can be grown and sustainably extracted from the land to create the durable goods that they need along the way.
25:44
So that's a wonderful collaboration between the historical knowledge that you are part of a place and you can use the things in a place and then adding tools and some other people you know can leverage that in a different way and just learn what that philosophy is about to be able to pivot.
26:01. LAURA:
Thank you for that, David.
Coming back to you, I think people are probably getting very excited and enthused and feeling encouraged by everything everyone is saying.
But this work isn't easy and it's not happening in a vacuum and we are in very tough times.
26:18
So how do you find people's receptiveness to these ideas at a time when many might be thinking, as you said earlier or someone did, I just want to get through today?
David Cobb:
Well, Laura, look at here.
26:33
My my daddy was a junk man and he taught me something very valuable.
And that is it is very easy to sell a drowning person a life preserver.
And more and more people are coming to awareness that the ecological collapse is accelerating, that the promise of how America is supposed to operate was always a lie.
26:56
It was always racist, sexist and class oppressive.
So we are finding that more and more people are eager to learn from us just as we are learning from them.
I want to point out, Laura, that five point program that I get so brilliantly described, there are thousands of examples of those happening individually in lots of places, but we do reckon that we put it together in a particular way.
27:21
We like to say that the People's Network for Land and Liberation has a special sauce, but it ain't a secret sauce.
We share in our recipes with everybody.
So if anybody is inspired by what you're hearing from us, please hit us up.
We want to learn from you.
27:37
We want to share with you what we're doing and we want to collaborate.
We're not not just build up the People's Network for loan deliberation, but propagate out these ideas because we'll know that we're successful when we have supplanted the extractive power over dominated capitalist system and moved into an ecologically sustainable, racially and socially just society.
28:02
We're playing for all the marbles, Laura.
LAURA:
All right, I like it.
Coming to you, the story that you're all telling so beautifully and cooperatively, if I might say so, reminds me a lot of what I found on a visit to the Mondragon cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain many years ago.
28:22
And people can find that episode in our archives.
What I was reminded of there was that that model also, which grew to create some of the biggest co-ops, biggest companies in Spain grew out of fascism, A fascist moment, the fascism of, of, of President Franco under the dictatorship after the civil war in Spain.
28:43
How do you square this forward-looking work with the resistance to this fascist moment in your work and as you look around?
Edget Betru:
I think the folks that are doing this, what we would call mutual aid type work coming together to collectively meet our needs also understand that sometimes that means we have to protect the work that we're doing.
29:08
We have to protect each other.
And we are right now, we're witnessing brilliant examples of that in Minneapolis and Chicago and Los Angeles, you know, and in communities throughout the country.
We understand that it's not going to be a matter of, oh, we have this lovely, beautiful system over here.
29:28
Leave that one alone.
We understand that as as the system implodes on itself, there's there's going to be a lot of violence.
But we have all of our peoples have lived through those times in the past.
29:44
And what's important is that we do what we can to protect each other, to build what we want to build.
And, you know, we will.
We will go on.
We will go on.
It will look different.
But I think the benefit of a network like the People's Network for Land and Liberation is that we can support each other.
30:06
We learn from each other, we share resources.
And you know, when that is multiplied and expanded all across the country, all across the globe, there's nothing that can stop that.
There's more of us than there is them.
LAURA:
What are some of the biggest challenges at get as you as you do this work?
30:24 Edget Betru:
I think the challenges for me from my perspective is that we've been colonized in our minds, not just, you know, externally, but in in our minds when, when something breaks or I need something, I think, do I have money to be able to go buy something that new, right.
30:44
And so this involving people and day-to-day produce meeting their needs through a different way through thinking, hey, who in my neighborhood knows how to fix this?
What about the the library, the lending center that the community production center has for tools?
31:01
Maybe I could go get that.
So it's really that shift in consciousness that I think needs to happen that's going to allow for this new economy to emerge.
LAURA:
What would you add to that, Blair, in terms of the challenges?
Blair Evans:
I agree.
31:17
I would just expand on that last point a little bit.
I mean, a major part of what we're doing is, is helping people actualize and creating better people, which is what we need.
That's kind of the bottom line, But you're not able to kind of grow into what you can be unless you're able to fully participate in what's going on.
31:36
And if all you're doing is a knee jerk reaction, getting somebody else to fill the void because you don't know how to do a lot of things and you don't have access to what it takes, then you kind of stay stuck.
So I think, you know, a major part of what we're trying to do is kind of self provisioning, but in the process of actually living a fully lived community, we all grow to the point where then we can be more capable in the process.
31:57
So I think that's the accelerator.
LAURA:
Do you find that young people, even just having the experience of living in a place like Idlewild, Black community with deep history, incredible resources, you're adding to them as you speak, changes them.
32:13. Blair Evans:
Just the experience, even if they're only there as most of them off.
Just for the summer, for a festival or for a show, Maybe a workshop with you.
Absolutely do.
And old people, there's a lot of people.
It's like, you know, people phrase a different way.
I can feel the energy, I can feel the echoes of the ancestors.
I can You can feel a vibe and a function in the community, which has a lot to do with being culturally safe and having an organization which allows you to participate in a way that you feel that you're a first class part of what it is that's going on, which is very novel for people.
32:42
It's amazing for young people.
And I grew up in this place.
My grandparents started coming up here in the 1920s.
So it's just been a part of what I knew.
But when I see people who've been introduced at an early age or at a later age, it is amazing.
32:58
It's like, wow, I hadn't and let me pause and reflect because I had not considered that something like this was possible.
LAURA:
There's a Terrence Howard movie called Idlewild which does not depict Idlewild, but does conjure a little bit of the spirit.
David coming to you.
33:14
This is all fine and good, but usually there's a point at which money is involved.
How are these projects actually funded?
David Cobb:
Well, look, first and foremost, we have to say that we all of our nodes are champions at grassroots fundraising and traditional philanthropy.
33:31
Like each of the six nodes are already basically quality star community based organizations.
But the People's Network for Land and Liberation is also come together to create something unique and we're calling it the Butterfly Impact Fund.
33:46
It is a explicitly post capitalist impact investing fund that we go to people of wealth and say, hey, if you're looking for market rate returns on Wall Street, we not your folk.
But if you are interested in a transformational approach, let us show you with objective metrics that show how many people we're feeding, how many people were clothing, how many people we're employing, actually show you a path forward.
34:14
And you will take much lower rates of return, what we call a regenerative return.
And instead of the market rate returns, then we invite that kind of investment because our investment is not just in our survival, but the ability for them and their children and grandchildren to not just survive, but to thrive.
34:38
So the Butterfly Impact Fund, much like the butterfly that flaps its wings, can across the continent or across the globe create a storm.
That's what we're aiming to do.
LAURA:
And how's it going so far, dare I ask?
David Cobb:
Well, I got to say, we're raising millions of dollars already and where our plan is to raise and deploy between 10:50 a 100 million in the next decade, all with the explicit purpose of dismantling this racist, sexist and class oppressive society and creating a regenerative power with society where goodSs and services are being produced and distributed in fair ecologically sustainable ways.
35:21 LAURA:
I can see people writing checks right now.
David Cobb:
Sounds good.
LAURA:
Thank you all.
This has just been a fantastic conversation.
And we could keep going for a long time.
But David, you've brought me to a place of sort of imagining a future.
And you know, we always ask at the end of these episodes, what's the future?
35:40
That with the story that people think the future will tell of this moment.
I want to ask you, you know, what's the future you see as you do this work, the future that you are working for?
Do you have a picture of it in your mind, Blair?
35:58 Blair Evans:
I do.
And it's one where you have a more horizontal distribution of, I mean, it's going back to villages with some high tech kind of support, right?
So we're not dealing with these very, very, very fragile, highly vertical systems.
36:16
We're dealing with people who know how to use what's in the areas that they're dealing with to provide for their needs.
And there may be specializations that you exchange back and forth, but you're not being held hostage for your basic needs of life through, you know, supply chains that you don't control.
So I guess what I see it as a group of people who are living together in a more coherent and cohesive way that are collaborating with other groups that are doing the same thing on a more network distributed horizontal basis rather than this highly vertical basis.
36:46 LAURA:
David, what about you?
What?
What's the future your your heart's longing for?
David Cobb:
It is a return to the ecologically balanced world that existed before empire, before settler colonialism, before white supremacy, before capitalism.
Laura, this is our birthright.
37:02
We're supposed to be living in a way where we are stewarding Mother Earth and she is suckering us.
That's how we're supposed to live.
And the People's Network for Land and Liberation is proving that we can do it right here, right now.
LAURA:
What about you at Edget?
37:18
Is it about returning in your mind?
Edget Betru:
I think it's a combination of returning and embracing the best of our past with the creation of of the new so that we can have flowers and clean streams and time to enjoy them and time to enjoy each other.
37:43 LAURA:
So I'll now ask you the question that I do ask all of our guests, which is what do you think the story is?
The future will tell of this moment.
David, let's start with you.
What will the future say about us?
David Cobb:
That this generation went through one of the most brutal transformations that humans have ever experienced, and we came through better for it.
38:04 LAURA:
Blair.
Blair Evans:
Yeah, that we found a way to survive one of the most traumatic periods in history.
And you know, the the cliche cliche are building back better.
We actually figured out what that meant and actually got about the process of doing it as more than a catch phrase.
38:21 LAURA:
And what about you at Edget?
Edget Betru:
I think we'll say.
We wish.
I wish I hadn't spent so much time afraid and stressed.
I wish I had known that we were birthing the new and creating this much better place that we're in now.
38:39 LAURA:
Love it.
What a great place to end.
David, thank you so much for being with us.
DAVID COBB:
Thank you so much, Laura.
LAURA:
It was my pleasure.
Blair, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you for engaging us in the process and the whole Idlewild community.
Blair Evans:
Thank you for for the visibility and exposure.
LAURA:
Can't wait and Edget, thank you.
38:56 EDGET BETRU:
Thank you for having us and giving us an opportunity to talk about our
Work.
LAURA
I thank you all for your work and for spending this time with Laura Flanders and friends.
NARRATOR - OUTRO:
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39:13
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