Zombie Book Club

We can do No Kings, or we can do KillDozer (Casual Dead) | Zombie Book Club Ep. 144

• Zombie Book Club • Season 4 • Episode 144

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Eight million people showed up, and many on the internet called it pointless. We don't buy the nihilism; but we also don't pretend a permitted Saturday rally is the same thing as disrupting power. This episode, we dig into what No Kings actually does well (making dissent visible, connecting you to neighbors and organizations, being the tip of a much larger iceberg), and what it doesn't do on its own. We talk Montgomery bus boycott logic, general strike groundwork, mutual aid, and how movements win by targeting pocketbooks and prestige. Paperwork is the unsexy engine of real organizing.

Then Dan takes us to Granby, Colorado, and the story of Marvin Heemeyer; a welder who spent 18 months secretly armoring a bulldozer in a shed, then spent two hours demolishing 13 buildings before dying alone in a basement. It's a story about how local capital weaponizes the law, what happens when every legal avenue closes, and why the internet's folk hero version of KillDozer conveniently strips out the part where the people who cheered for it would have sided with the Docheffs in todays political landscape.



Links Info


No Kings / Protest Organizing

Nonviolent Resistance Research

KillDozer / Marvin Heemeyer



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Zombie Book Club Links

Welcome To Zombie Book Club

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to the Zombie Book Club. The only book club where the book is a revolutionary parade in reverse, where the cars come to look at all the people on the sidewalk. I'm Dan and one amot standing on the side of the road next to someone in an inflatable frog costume. I'm writing a book about a techno-fascist necro-capitalist nightmare in the zombie apocalypse and the people struggling to live within the quote unquote safe zone.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, I'm definitely in the safe zone. I'm Leah.

SPEAKER_00

We're all in the safe zone.

SPEAKER_01

And everything is great. Everything is fine. Everything is getting better all of the time. Everybody knows that the president's insane, but nobody wants to talk about what people do when their

Music Fixations And Ditching Spotify

SPEAKER_01

president's insane.

SPEAKER_00

I do.

SPEAKER_01

That's a Carcy Blanton song that just came out.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. You've been singing it a lot lately. Because it feels very feels, I mean, she wrote it for this time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh Carcy Blanton is great. If you don't know who that is, check Carcy Blanton out. Uh she has hits such as Ugly, Nasty Commie Bitch. Yep. Uh, which is my favorite. Um, but this one's definitely a banger too. And I I think it's I think it's gonna at least take the number two spot in our catalog, I feel.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um also interesting person.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we won't get a Spotify wrapped. We'll get some other alternative because fuck Spotify.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we'll get uh Ditch or Spotify if you haven't yet. I forget what it is that we use. I never I never remember the name. It's title. Yeah. I know the icon.

SPEAKER_01

I know the one pays people better. Yeah. And it has an interface that's sort of like Spotify but not as good. But that's not what matters because we gotta get used to being a little bit inconvenienced slash a lot inconvenienced if we want to fucking actually have everything be great and fine.

SPEAKER_00

The only thing that I don't like about it is I don't I can't listen to podcasts on it. So I have to have a separate app for podcasts. But you know, that's just a little bit of inconvenience, and I just gotta deal with that. Exactly. And there's things like podbeans. Yeah.

Casual Check-In On Fascism

SPEAKER_01

Today's a casual episode, Dan. A casual dead.

SPEAKER_00

I am so casual. As we call it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's just you, me, and a moment to just chill out and touch base on how resistance to fascism is going, both personally and across the United States. Just no big deal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know when uh when we're releasing this, but as of recording this, um, we just had the No Kings protests yesterday. No Kings 3. NK3 is what the kids are calling it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so that was March 28th. This is gonna come out on April 12th. So as usual in the world of uh the techno fascist, Christo fascist, whatever the fuck this is nightmare we're in, uh probably more terrible things have happened.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, yeah. This is all when you get this. Yeah. Everyone's like, why are you still talking about that? Yeah. We have a new country now. We worship a new deity. Um, but yeah, we release episodes every Sunday.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so make sure you're taking your sublingual B12 multivitam every day, because we need to be as strong and healthy as possible to fight fascism, but also subscribe to the podcast if you haven't yet.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And you're new here, welcome. Uh, this is a casual debt episode that means that it's just me and Dan chilling and talking about whatever the hell we want to. We also do interviews, review movies, talk to indie authors. It's a good time. I'm writing a book.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. You know about zombies. I and I and I talk about that writing sometimes, and sometimes I talk about why it's hard to write.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And uh the uh the current nightmare that we're all living in, and half of us uh recognize uh is one of those reasons. And um a little bit of catharsis is going to things like protests and seeing thousands and thousands and thousands of people around you that are feeling the same exact way as you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Knowing you're not alone. Eight million people went to the No Kings protest across three thousand states. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Or not three thousand states, sorry, three thousand locations. There are not three thousand states. Including a town I won't name that's very close to us that you went to. It's a tiny little town of about three thousand people, and I think there were two hundred folks.

SPEAKER_00

I think so. I didn't count them, but I felt like two hundred. Um, you know, and it's it's a small town. This is I I decided to go to a smaller, more local, uh more local protest because I'm looking to um throw my net out to more local communities. Okay, my goal, my goal in this was to was to was to make connections. Uh I don't know if I was successful in doing that. I did meet uh a a woman in her 70s or possibly

No Kings Protest Recap

SPEAKER_00

80s, um, named Sandy. Hi, Sandy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, maybe you found us. Did you give her a magnet for some of my book club? I did not. Damn.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't even bring, I didn't even think it would bring magnets. That would go right on her on Sandy's refrigerator, I guarantee. Yep. She's like, I need more magnets. It'd go right between the various cat magnets and like one made of mac macaroni from her grandkids.

SPEAKER_01

Well, Sandy sounds cool because her and her husband make protest music and put it on YouTube. But of course, when I asked Dan, like, what's the name of the YouTube channel? You're like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I didn't she told me about three times, but I could not retain the name of it.

SPEAKER_01

Good news, they're out there twice a week. So you'll see Sandy again.

SPEAKER_00

I'll go, I'll go ask Sandy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they protest on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

SPEAKER_00

It's like it's it's a word using um her name and I think her husband's name, so they mashed them together to make a different word. Um, and I can't remember what it is. I'm sorry, Sandy.

SPEAKER_01

Well, that local relationship building is really important, especially because our potluck was foiled by bad weather. Uh, we talked in a previous episode about a potluck that was going to be about gathering some people and talking about what is local resistance and resilience look like. How do we take care of each other?

SPEAKER_00

And um there was a straight up blizzard.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And then our snowblower got stuck at the bottom of the driveway. Our driveway's a hill. It was couldn't people couldn't get up the driveway, so we had to cancel it. And now we are in full mud season. And so until that chills out, I don't think I'm gonna be inviting people here. Yeah. So this is a great way to meet some folks.

SPEAKER_00

And like it wasn't even as bad as getting stuck at the bottom of the hill because like I was able to tow it up with the truck. Um, but I also broke the steering on it. Like I I I my arms were cranking so hard on that lawnmower that I just snapped it. And I was like, Well, I guess I'm not snow blowing shit. Yep. Until that gets fixed.

SPEAKER_01

That means our driveway is impassable.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I did fix it though. And that was cool. It was actually easier than I thought it'd be. Um, but yeah, these protests, no kings protests. Uh, I see I see some notes here, Leah. What does Robert De Niro mean?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, apparently Robert De Niro spoke at one of the No Kings protests. Oh, okay. There were a lot of celebrities. Yeah. There were like celebrity concerts. Yeah. One person. Bruce Springsteen. Yeah, Bruce Springsteen, you know, there's it was it was a party, it was a rally, this pro this protest.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, it has been described as a protest prom um by a friend of ours. We shall remain unnamed because we did not ask. Yeah, we didn't ask. Sorry. Sorry if you wanted the credit for that. Um, yeah, I've, you know, leading up to No Kings 3, I've I've heard a lot of people talking badly about it. Um, and it's all relevant. Like, they're like, yeah, going to a protest like this isn't going to change the government. Uh you know, taking something that was grassroots and turning it into a a block party um concert situation uh doesn't get rid of fascism. And I'm like, I I get that and I agree. However, I I think that it's very myopic to overlook the fact that it's powerful to be in one of those places and see how many people are are there. Like you feel not alone. And I remember going to the first one. I actually think I missed the second one because I think it was during the summer and life was just tearing me up. Beating you to death with work. Yeah, I was getting beat to death with work. Um and uh and um yeah, I I I remember feeling so alone before these protests. Like I felt like everyone around me was conspirat to usher in an age of fascism, and it was just me out there. And I knew that wasn't true, but it really felt that way when you saw every every drive uh every other driveway with uh uh Donald Trump fucking sign on it.

SPEAKER_01

A lot of those come down.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. And uh yeah, so you go there and you see all these other people who are equally enraged. Um and it's it was it was healing in those in that in those first couple of months, because like I went to a few protests and we talked about them on this podcast. And I I I described my experience of going to these. Like I was I was going there fully expecting to just like get hauled off by the police because you know, back then it was really it was really hard to tell what levels they were gonna go to to suppress dissent. Um and luckily it wasn't maximum levels yet.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's also like why are they gonna dissent something that doesn't actually disrupt power at all? Like it's a gathering place, but a Saturday No Kings protest is not uh active resistance in the sense of like disrupting power or money.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Like it doesn't block traffic during a critical work day.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

They've asked for permission to be there. Yeah, they're it's you know, that's it's roped off. Like the police are there to make sure that nobody gets hit by cars when they're marching in the street. And like I I can see from like a revolutionary standpoint, like that doesn't look like revolution. You know, when when you're out here like topping off your Molotovs and you see people that are like, you know, carrying you know funny signs and dress like frogs, and and the police are like guiding them through roped areas, you're like, guys, I th I thought we were doing this other thing. Uh but I think it's really important to realize that like this is like name brand resistance. Like they're not going to openly call for any real type of resistance, because like this is in the public spotlight. This is this is when they are the when all the cameras are turned on them, when every legal opinion is out there trying to make them look like what they want us to look like, which is terrorists. Um But the the the real resistance doesn't come from those protests, it comes from what you learn at the at those protests and the people that you talk to at those protests. And like when you go out and you do your little parade by walking around uh a city block and then coming back and everybody's tired from you know chanting and and waving their signs, there's always these tents that have just clipboards and all kinds of stuff from all these various organizations who are actually doing things. And if it weren't for the early uh early No Kings protests, I wouldn't have been involved in any of the various organizations that I now follow get updates from, sometimes get text messages from when something's happening. Um I wouldn't know who any of those people were.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, was migrant justice at those protests? Is that how you found out about them?

SPEAKER_00

I think I think you found them. Yeah. Um, I I have a few others. Um but you know. I I I haven't I haven't been activated too much to things because of our location.

SPEAKER_02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

And when I do find out about something, it's usually in Burlington,

Small Town Protest Reality

SPEAKER_00

and I usually find out about 25 minutes before they're ready to do something.

SPEAKER_01

So can I talk? Can I give a geography lesson at Vermont for a moment? Yeah. It's bigger than people might think. Yeah. And once I had a lovely coworker give me a gift card to a vegan place in Burlington, and I just never had the heart to tell them that that's two and a half hours away from me. They should have asked where I live, but they're like, well, they must be in the Burlington's rural, right? Yeah. It's only they live in rural Vermont. It's gotta be close by.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. It's not very wide, but it is long.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's two people wide, meaning keep your mouth shut.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

Our our uh scandalous HOA episode is very dangerous to us. One day the wrong ears might hear it and we're fucked.

SPEAKER_00

Or the right ears.

SPEAKER_01

That's true.

SPEAKER_00

And they'll be like, I also agree with so-and-so.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, Debbie is also not my favorite.

SPEAKER_00

Debbie is a downer.

SPEAKER_01

Debbie is a fake name, by the way. So if there is somebody in our HOA whose name happens to be Debbie, I don't actually know you, and I'm not talking about you. This is a this is a pseudonym. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So I went to a smaller one this time. Um, it was mostly just people standing on the side of the road with signs. Uh, so it wasn't any of like we didn't get any speakers. It didn't appear to be anybody in charge, except for there was one person with an orange vest who was just there to remind everybody to be peaceful. Um, and it was there to de-escalate things if things got out of hand, which uh there was definitely the potential of. Um, I would say like a couple hundred cars honked as they drove by. Like, you know, you you honk to show that you like what's going on, and most people waved and they honked. Um and then there was like probably five to eight possibly uh pickup trucks that would come by and rev their engines really, really high, and then give us the middle finger. It was always a truck, too. There was one there was one truck that drove by about four times. Um the back of his truck was filled with garbage bags. Um, and uh, and I was just like I was like, my dude, the transfer station is open. You should just go there. I don't know why you're driving up and down this road, but it probably cost you five to ten dollars and guess just to give us the finger. You'd I think I feel like you have better things to do than this. Uh he didn't hear me, of course. Um yeah, so it wasn't exactly the revolutionary experience that I was hoping for. And you know, we've we've heard from people in uh in bigger um that went to bigger protests and they also found some weird things where a lot of times it just kind of felt like it was a dance party.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and I think people were hoping that like No Kings 3 was going to have a little bit more teeth to it, but I think that also probably depended on where you were.

SPEAKER_01

I think that'll also just not be that is not what No Kings is. Yeah. Uh No Kings is not a civil rights era type of protest. No Kings is a rally, it's a gathering point, it's an opportunity to feel less alone, it's an opportunity to meet people, it's an opportunity to be connected to organizations and to folks who are organizing, not just to formal organizations. I think that's really good. Yeah. Um it's a door. But it yeah, it's a doorway, and it's also visibility of dissent. And we got to 8 million this weekend. 12 million is 3.5% of the population, which is like considered this golden number in terms of actual change to happen. Uh, but it is not actually nonviolent resistance because it's state sanctioned.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And the those things are also necessary.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I think maybe more necessary.

SPEAKER_00

I think they're like that you need you need all the different versions. You need you need the uh the Pepsi brand revolution.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But you also need like like the you know, the less visible things that uh people aren't necessarily going to see. Like talking to Sandy, she didn't even know what a legal observer was. Like, even though she knew a lot about what was going on, there was a lot of things that she didn't know. Yeah. Like she knew that Renee Good and Alex Predi were killed by ice. She didn't know why.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I was reading an article, and I think that like attending these protests, like Sandy's doing, is like sort of the tip of the iceberg, and then the actual full movement is underneath that. It's like the it's the signal that, like, hello, we're here, like that penis iceberg that we made the news recently. Yeah. If you look at the penis iceberg,

Protest Prom Critiques And Why It Helps

SPEAKER_01

Google it if you haven't yet. It does indeed look like a dick. But then you look, and there's actually for the aerial views, it's huge underneath. That's what I say. So I say the No Kings uh protest is like the penis of the iceberg. And then there's so much that is happening and needs to be happening underneath that um no kings can help gather for. Because what also is good about it is that it unites a broad coalition of people who may not agree on a lot of things, yeah, but they do agree that we don't want a dictator and we don't want fascism. And that's like a good start. You're gonna have people there who are um pro-Palestinian, willing to name that it's a genocide that's been happening. There are people there that will not.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh, but at least you can have a tent of people who can move on the things that they agree on together, and that is helpful.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah. Uh I I do wish that I kind of went to a bigger one. Yeah. At least because there was a there's one a little bit further away that would have been slightly bigger. But I'm like, no, I gotta see the local, local one. Um, and I feel like I I if I missed that one, I probably wouldn't have missed out on too much, except for meeting Sandy.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, well, that's I mean, that's kind of key because I'm assuming that one of these Saturdays or Tuesdays, you're gonna be like, you know what, I'm gonna go see Sandy on the side of the road. Yeah, Sandy protests every weekend and Tuesday.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Every Saturday and Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01

And I think that's a great move for old people. I'll also say, you know what, in um a zombie movie or another fictional dystopian situation, if the really old folks wanna like, I don't know, risk their physical lives because they're at the end of it for the benefit of all of us to kill the bad guy. I think that's cool too. But I under I think for a 70-ish year old showing up Tuesday and Saturday, they're retired. That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But also they could they could they yeah, that there's bad guys that they could deal with. One thing that I that I noticed, speaking of bad guys, is you know, the the guy, the guy with the the garbage in his truck um that kept on driving by and revving his engine and like squealing his tires and giving us the finger. I think he was really comfortable at giving the finger to 80-year-olds because that's that's where we live. I was the youngest person there.

SPEAKER_01

We are younger than the average age, which is 48 and a half in the county. It's really bad. Y'all we're helping bring in bring that down ever so slightly. Yeah, I asked Dan, did you see anyone the same age or younger than you? And you said one, maybe. Yeah. Or they could have just really not wrinkly skin. I yeah, I said could be Botox.

SPEAKER_00

They were either young or they had a great skincare routine. Um but yeah, that that one guy was really comfortable uh giving the finger to a bunch of 80-year-olds, and I just remember this moment because like I wasn't I didn't have a sign, I wasn't like really there. I like everybody else was like smiling and waving and cheering, and like that's kind of the way that you deal with these assholes that show up is you just like you just like wave to them and smile, and that's supposed to make them go away. But I I I didn't feel like that, so I just I just stared at him. And I remember him locking eyes with me and like his whole expression dropped. And I can't really say why, because I wasn't I wasn't him, but like it's almost like he saw somebody that didn't look like somebody that he could beat up, and he had just that moment that momentary bit of panic, and then he sped away. Which uh makes me feel kind of good.

SPEAKER_01

I think that's important. I think that's again like that example of where your role is a veteran. And it's funny, you came home and you're like, I think I look like a toddler.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

A giant toddler. I'm like, no, I think people who don't know you might find you intimidating to look at, which is also untrue. I mean, well, it's not untrue. I think you could fuck somebody up if you needed to, uh, but that's not your intention or your heart. You're a gentle person. You are the true meaning of gentleness.

SPEAKER_00

Sometimes it's my intention.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, but only if the time calls for it.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm actually uh so like, you know, I like I said, I think that these things are a door, a doorway to doing bigger things. And I I think that they are really good at getting people activated who have never been to a protest before, which was me last year. Uh before last year, I had never been to a protest. Um, it's not that I didn't feel strongly enough about anything, but like protesting didn't feel like my role in the world. Um my role felt like making jokes and uh voicing my opinion with my mouth. Um not necessarily going to a thing and holding a sign and letting it be known that I am against something. Um so that was a really big turning point. And I feel like this these these protests are that for millions of people. Um No Kings 2 had seven million attendees. Uh this one had eight million. And that's I mean, there's no way to count how many people had gone to the previous two and didn't even go to the third one because they heard online that it's like it's ineffective. It's it's you know, it's you're wasting your time. You should be doing uh better forms of resistance because that's I've heard that everywhere.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think that that is I think that it's not necessarily healthy messaging if somebody's already feeling nihilistic.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And does then it's just like, well, you know, well then what am I supposed to do? That I don't have any power. I think saying like this is helpful to like if you want to feel rallied, you want to feel connected to others, you want to meet other people in the movement and find your people to do shit not on Saturdays. Or still Saturdays sometimes. That's a good place to start, but it's not the end. And I think that messaging is okay. But people just say this is a total waste of time. I understand where the disillusionment comes from. Um, but again, a Carcy Blanton quote is like, we've been um pushing against the door for a hundred years and we'll have to do it for a hundred more. So we have to have ways that keep us bolstered, even not knowing if the efforts that we're putting in to make change right now are gonna pay off in our lifetimes. They might not.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But not doing it will mean things are worse, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And you know, I know that this is a podcast about zombies, but I think that um who you are in times like this where all you have to do is go to a protest and just show up. You don't even need to bring a sign, you don't need to chant, you don't need to dance dance and sing. I think it says a lot about who you might be in an apocalyptic uh scenario as well.

SPEAKER_01

I hear that. I also want to remind you, Dan, that like I didn't go yesterday. And so I don't want to moral, I don't want to moralize uh that if you don't go, that means you're doing nothing, or that if you go, that means your work is done. Yeah. I think either of those messages are wrong. I stayed home and planted seeds to start indoors so that we have food. Yeah. So we don't need to buy from the grocery store.

SPEAKER_00

My thing holds true. Say more. Because you uh you enacted a form of resistance, which is growing seeds, trying to grow food for your own survival and for the betterment of our community.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. And but that's not visible at the protest. So I'm saying there's a lot of stuff again, under the penis iceberg above the water, there's a lot of stuff happening we can't see. The penis is the flag for us to find.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I wish it

The Iceberg Theory Of Organizing

SPEAKER_01

was a Volva because I feel like the patriarchy is part of what we're trying to get rid of, but I don't know. You know, it is no kings. I do want to talk a little bit about if you're if you're feeling the like that looked a little too much like a prom and I'm frustrated with the party side of things and like people aren't doing enough. I want to talk a little bit about some ways that we can actually affect some change that are proven. Yeah. Like what? Uh so briefly, I already said that the civil rights protests, they're like looked at widely as very effective protests. They were not state-sanctioned Saturday parties with Bruce Springsteen singing on stage. They were deliberate non-cooperation that was not state-sanctioned, not agreed upon in advance with the police, uh, that physically invited repression. Your bodies were physically on the line. There was individual personal risk. And people took that risk because they understood that the greater risk was worse, both for them and the world around them. That yes, like my personal body's on the line right now, but it's already on the line, anyways, right? Or my neighbors is. So I think we need to look back to those times. And when we say, like, oh, nonviolence doesn't work, or we have to do more, we have to remember what that actually looked like in the civil rights era, which was standing in front of a place that you were not supposed to be in, going and sitting at the counter where you weren't supposed to be sitting. That's direct, nonviolent, non-cooperation that then does invite repression and has physical risk. Uh, and it also makes it inconvenient and displaces the power that is oppressing us in some way, right? It makes it very visible. So the other one that I think is really helpful in this time, especially as we talk about general strikes and like we're exercising the muscle of like taking a day here or there to do it. If we want a general strike, we've got to start preparing the groundwork now to provide alternative ways for folks to survive that time. So the Montgomery bus boycotts, they worked because people said, fuck you, we're not getting on the bus anymore. First started first with non-resistant or with resistance, right? Rosa Parks went and sat in the front of the bus.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Bad things happened. Then the entire city of black folks, for the most part, boycotted the bus. They still had to get places, though. Yeah. So they figured out how to they took care of each other. This was a planned thing. That's the other thing is that these things are often seen as being spontaneous, and sometimes they are, but usually there's actually some planning behind it. Like there is training in how to be nonviolent and resist in those moments up against power. And they had a plan for how they were going to actually execute this and take care of each other in the meantime. And that hurt pocketbooks.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And that is why they won. It took 300, I want to say, hold on, I'm gonna do the math really quickly. Hold on. It took 382 days of coordinated bus boycotting and making sure that people could get to where they needed to get to, anyways, through collective action to actually see that change. Yeah. They moved against power. You know, some people have been doing things like um destroying where uh weapons are manufactured. That hurts them literally directly. And so thinking about ways that we can actually hurt their pocketbooks, aka Spotify, how many millions of people went off chat GPT when they realized that they love war?

SPEAKER_00

A lot. You know, though those they saw a significant dip.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, we target lost a bunch of money. Like, we have to hurt their pocketbooks

What Effective Nonviolence Looks Like

SPEAKER_01

or their prestige. Yeah, Disney. Um, their prestige, like recently we were talking this morning about like why is it that Republicans ended up voting for a bill that would fund the TSA, but not ICE. Yeah. And it turns out it was two reasons. One, TMZ was uh made an open call for regular people to send pictures of their Congresspeople on planes. And two, to shame them. And two, Delta said, okay, fuck you. We're not gonna provide any of the special benefits. I don't know what the special benefits are, but apparently if you're a congressperson, you get special benefits if you fly Delta.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, you can bypass the line.

SPEAKER_01

We're revoking all of that. So they hit those Republicans where it hurts, and they also removed the possibility of scapegoating Trump and saying that they were powerless.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

All at once.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's key. Yeah. Because um, you know, uh old T Dog is immune to shame. In fact, he loves it. It's it's what gets him rock hard is being ashamed of himself.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and when he's dead, they're all gonna blame him. Yeah. And say, oh, it was just, I was so scared.

SPEAKER_00

But these but these little guys in Congress that that uh that are hiding in his shadow, um they not not all of them, but most of them are not immune to shame. And you can see it on their face when they're being confronted with the shitty things that they're doing. Um and usually I mean, those are hilarious. I love I love seeing those. It's when like somebody's following them around and be like, why do you take money from Israel? Do you agree that this is Israel's war? We're talking about Iran, you know. Uh, and then they just like like try to get away from one, like trying to get into an elevator at like anywhere they can go to like block the person away from not being able to ask them any more questions.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And who knew we would like TMZ again?

SPEAKER_00

I know.

SPEAKER_01

I mean TMZ hurt Britney.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Spears, if you're not clear on that.

SPEAKER_00

It's yeah, it's it's weird because they're a tabloid, but like I feel like sometimes in in this era, it's the closest thing we have to responsible independent journalism.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh you know, they're they're still out there to make a buck, but I I say make a buck if you're if you're doing it for the right reasons.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

Especially in an era where like mainstream media and all all of these huge news sources that used to be like really great sources of unbiased and w like well well-meaning journalistic um pieces, like the New York Times, for example, are bought up by billionaires who now have a plan for what the truth is. Uh, so to have TMZ out there who used to be like, get a picture of Britney getting out of a car with her vagina exposed. Now they're like, we're gonna bring down the Republican Party. Just send us pictures of them on planes.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Just be like, you're the people who are making these TSA folks miserable. It was 40 days they were unpaid.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I just wanted to go back real quick to like I mean that I I find it really annoying the people that that want to discourage people from protesting, even in like No Kings. Like, cause I honestly don't as as much as it is as they claim it is ineffective, it's also not a burden for most people to do it. Um, it's not for everyone, and I fully agree with that. And that's that's why like I like I feel like when it comes to protesting and doing bigger acts of resistance, I would rather it just be me putting myself on the line. That way, not both of us are in jail.

SPEAKER_01

That's fair.

SPEAKER_00

Um, because that's that's a real possibility. Um, I I had somebody on Threads like a cu a couple weeks ago that like I all I wanted to do was point out to people that there is a general strike, and you can go sign the put the petition. And this person came at me and they were like, Oh, so you think paperwork's gonna save you? Oh my God. And I'm like, I'm like, look, I'm just you know, if we're we're all talking about organizing, this is something that needs to be organized, and they need 12 million signatures, and currently they only have a couple hundred thousand. Like, if people sign this,

Shame Campaigns And Hitting Pocketbooks

SPEAKER_00

we can do the thing that everybody keeps saying we need to do, which is a general strike. We they need to know before they can say we're going on a general strike, they need to know that people are gonna go on a general strike with them. You can't do it alone. Like, if you if you want to say, if you want to say that I need to be doing something more, fine, I'm on general strike right now, but nobody's fucking joining me. All right. Yeah. And and I was like, I was like, I was like, I don't, I don't know what you want from me. I'm one person, and I'm just trying to get people to organize. I'm doing everything I can. I don't know what you want me to do other than I guess lock and load and go take care of this problem myself. And then that person just laughed at me. Wow. Yeah. Um, there's a lot of frustration coming from outside of the US at the beginning of the Iran War. And that frustration was being taken out on people like me in the US who are trying to organize people to do real resistance. Um, I I've I've become a part of uh a couple, a couple groups that are doing various things. Nonviolent things. Of course, government. FBI agent Chad, who's listening to this right now. It's not violent. It's not violent at all. Um, and uh, you know, I think I think about these people, and I don't know what they want from an individual in the United States to do that'll stop the war in Iran from happening. I don't know what they think that one person can do more than trying to organize something bigger without actually doing that organization part that feels like paperwork. I don't know what they think that one person could do. Um, anyways, I just want to shift topic real quick, completely unrelated. Do you know what killdozer is? No, but can we name a chihuahua that? Yes. A little bit right chihuahua name sold. So uh killdozer is a f uh an a an amazing story about a bulldozer, and I want to tell you all about it. Um, there's this guy named Marvin. Marvin Haymeyer. People might already know this story, but bear with me. I just wanted to give you a timeline of Marvin Haymeyer and Killdozer. Uh, born in 1951 in a dairy farm in South Dakota, uh, he likes to work with his hands. Okay. Um, when he becomes of uh of age, he joins the Air Force and becomes a skilled welder and a mechanic. Um, I can relate, you know. Come from a small rural town, you join the military, you learn a skill, and then that leads you throughout the rest of your life. Um, 1974, stationed at Lowry Air uh Air Force Base in Colorado, he likes the place enough that he decides to stay. He's like Colorado, love it. Way better than South Dakota. Sorry, South Dakota. You have black flies, okay? I've been there during black fly season. I understand his desire to go to Colorado, though I'm not sure if it's any better.

SPEAKER_01

I was gonna say black flies are terrible where I'm from in Canada.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Uh in 1989, he settles in Grand Lake, which is about 16 miles from a town called Granby. Um and he uh operates the Mountain View Muffler. Um by most accounts, he's well liked, he's helpful. Uh he's the kind of guy who leads avalanche rescues on snow uh on snowmobile trips.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so at least in the realm of decent.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, like he wants to help people. He's got a snowmobile, there's an avalanche, he wants to go help

Paperwork Cynicism And Strike Organizing

SPEAKER_00

them. You know? Okay. 1992, Haymer buys two acres of land at an auction in Granby for $42,000. Also at that auction is the Dozcheff family who wanted that land for their concrete business, but they lost the bid, and Haymeyer gets the land. Throughout the 90s and into the late 90s, the Dozchefs uh approach Haymeyer to buy his land. They agree on $250,000. That's a win over $42,000. It is a win. I mean, at this point, he's put in like possibly six to eight years of work building a business, though. And that's hard, that's hard to calculate. Like successful business versus $250,000. Uh, but Hey Meyer raises the price and the deal falls apart. Um, they don't want to pay more than that, and rather than walk away, the Dog Chefs go to the town council and get the surrounding land around his property rezoned for an industrial concrete plant. So now they no longer need his land anymore, they just need to surround him. Um, all of this is perfectly legal, uh, but it's also calculated. They lost a fair transaction, both in the auction of it originally. They didn't get what they wanted. They wanted the land, they didn't get it. They wanted to buy it from him for a seemingly reasonable price as far as we can tell. We don't have the books, we don't know what that land is worth to him.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

That plan didn't fall apart. So instead, they responded by using political leverage uh to make his property worthless. Wow. And that's that's those are the levers of power that wealthy and powerful people have at their disposal when they don't get what they want.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Is they can make you they could you can either take their deal or you can get fucked.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. In other words, you don't actually have a choice.

SPEAKER_00

So like maybe Heemeyer just didn't want to sell his property. Maybe he just wanted his muffler shop where it was, and they they wanted it, and that he wouldn't give it to them, so they threw a temper tantrum. So two in 2001, the town council approves the concrete plant nearly unanimously. It goes right next to Haymaier's shops and it blocks his access route. It diverts stormwater onto his property and it cuts him off from the municipal sewer line. Wow. So now there is an eight-foot section that he needs to cross in order to connect to the sewer line. And also, he has no legal way for customers to get to his property. They have to cross the concrete plant's property before they can get to him. So he can't even have a driveway. Wow. Otherwise, it's trespassing. That that eight feet, technically, if he was standing in in on that eight feet or directing traffic through there, that's trespassing and that's a legal thing. So shortly after that, the town

Killdozer Origin Story In Granby

SPEAKER_00

fines him $2,500 for not being connected to the sewer system, the same sewer system that they just made it structurally impossible for him to access because it would be on somebody else's land.

SPEAKER_01

These Dutch Fs have power with whoever is on that council.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he starts calling them the douchefs. Uh, they are not friends.

SPEAKER_01

And let I remind let me remind everybody vaginas don't need douches. Yeah. So douchef is like an extra diss because it's also useless and actually bad for you.

SPEAKER_00

Um so he does what he can, and he uh buries uh a cement mixer barrel as a makeshift septic tank, which oh god, isn't the legal way to do it, but it works. You know, it's it's a big can it's a big container buried underground. Technically, that's what a septic tank is. Okay, but it's not literally a septic tank, so he gets fined for that as well. Now, this is a little bit of speculation on my part, but who would come to Heymaier's property to install a septic tank if the people who he's fighting with own the concrete plant? What excavation company would come in and upset the concrete plant? That's my little tinfoil hat moment is like, we don't know what lengths he went to to try to do it the correct way because all we have is the records from the town that was actively trying to fuck him over. Right. We only have their version of the story for reasons that I'll tell you about later.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um so Hey Meyer pays the fine, and in the memo line of the check, he writes cowards.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, he's pissed.

SPEAKER_00

He is pissed. 2001 to 2002, every legal avenue closes, all of his appeals are denied, his lawsuit is dismissed. Uh, he blames his lawyer and demands a refund. Um, and he's not handling it gracefully. Uh, but he's also a man being systematically squeezed from every direction by people who have more power, more power and more money than him. They're ruining his life, literally. They are literally ruining his life. They have they have all the power and he has nothing. And they they want to take his his little bit of nothing, two acres. Two acres of his nothing, and take even more. So um, I'm not really sure why, but in July of 2002, he decides to fly to California and he buys a Komatsu D355A bulldozer, um, which is a pretty big bulldozer. It's a uh 48-ton bulldozer. Wow. So it's it's heavy. Uh, he buys it at an auction for $16,000. Great deal for Mr. Heymeyer. Um, and he puts a for sale sign on it, but mysteriously, it does not sell. No one buys the construction equipment from the guy who is at odds with the concrete plant. Another tinfoil hat moment, but we don't know why it didn't sell. Okay. Okay. Um, he wanted he just wanted to make a little cash, you know. He's like, great deal on a bulldozer. He probably fixed it up. He did some work on it, I imagine. He's like, great, I bought it. It was a wreck. I fixed it up. Now it's great. Come buy my bulldozer. I need money. So uh a little bit later in October of 2002, he is forced to close the muffler shop. He can no longer do business, his customers can't come to him, he doesn't have any sewage. Um, he's like he's fucked. Every avenue is closed for him. He just owns this worthless piece of land. So he sells the property to a waste disposal company, which is peak cool guy move when you hate your neighbors. Sell it to a dispo a waste disposal company. Like, what are you what are you getting rid of? I hope it's toxic or smells horrible. Oh my god. Um, but as part of the agreement, he took out a lease on half of the building um to finish some work, quote unquote. So 2002 to 2004, alone in half of a shed, uh, over 18 months, he puts up a false wall so that nobody can see what he's working on. He builds a false wall.

SPEAKER_01

Nobody knows that he's this man have a family before we go any further.

SPEAKER_00

I don't think so. It said nothing about his family. Okay. I think that the the muffler shop was his whole life.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Um, is my my takeaway from this. So uh he starts welding half-inch tool steel plates to the cabin of the and the in the engine compartment. And he fills the gaps in between the steel with concrete, creating a homemade composite armor that you would find on like an M1 Abrams battle tank. That doesn't mean anything to me. A big tank that is like what is that tank used for?

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so a rock can hit it and it's fine.

SPEAKER_00

What when I say tank, I mean with you know the gun that sticks out of it, goes goes to war and blows things up. Okay. Like that. Except he homemade. Like he's just like this is like before he could find shit like this on the internet. You know, he's just like, I know how armor works in the military. I'm gonna make that shit. Um, in fact, he probably he probably had some experience with gun trucks in the Vietnam era, so he probably knows a little bit about that. Um, look up gun trucks in the in the Vietnam War, it's really cool. Gun trucks? Yeah, they converted uh trucks into armored gun machines. Because they were getting ambushed. That's a whole different story. And probably something that would be really cool is a deep dive. Because gun trucks are super zombie apocalypse. Getting back to the killdozer. He also mounts cameras on the outside and uh connects it to three monitors on the inside, which inadvertently he kind of reinvented the idea of tank optics. Like main battle tanks didn't have setups like this until until he invented it. Oh my god. As far as I know. Maybe they did. But uh from from what I was reading in my research, uh it said that he came up with some pretty interesting ideas that hadn't been thought about before. Um he also had three inches of bulletproof uh plexiglass as a as a spy hole. Uh he had a compressed air system to blow dust off of the lenses. He also installed air conditioning, which is a great idea.

SPEAKER_03

That is a great idea.

SPEAKER_00

Um and uh and he also builds gun ports and mounts a Barrett M8250 caliber rifle in the rear, which is a uh bolt action 50 BMG rifle, um, which doesn't come cheap. I'm surprised he had one. But you know, maybe the muffler business was doing good at one point, and he was like, I love I I love having big guns. Uh he also had an FNF uh an FN FNC, which I don't know exactly what that is, but I know it's a 556 uh AR-style rifle of the era, and a Ruger Mini 14, which is kind of like an

Building A Homemade Armored Bulldozer

SPEAKER_00

M14 but N223. Okay. Uh which came out of the right side. So he had three different guns pointing different directions in gun ports. The finished machine weighs 61 tons, which is 122,000 pounds.

SPEAKER_02

Damn.

SPEAKER_00

Top speed, seven miles an hour. Whoa. June, June 4th, 2004, around 2 15 p.m., Hey Meyer greases up the exterior of the bulldozer to make it harder to climb. Yeah, he just slathers it with grease so that he can't climb it. Um, and then he seals himself inside.

SPEAKER_01

So he must have greased it up on his way up.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Otherwise, so on his way, he's like oiling it up.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he had to grease himself into a corner. Wow. Um, but then he climbs in and seals himself inside. I've I've heard a couple different versions of this where he bolted himself inside, and I've heard versions where he welded himself inside. Um, and then he fires, fires killdozer up and he drives through the wall of his own shop. Oh my fucking God.

SPEAKER_01

He just drove, he just was like, fuck it, I'm out of here.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he's hitting the road.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, it's not his shop anymore. He was leasing it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it's a it's a it's a lease. He doesn't have to worry about that. He's probably not getting the security.

SPEAKER_01

I think at this point we know where this is going because he's either welded or bolted himself in and made it impossible for anybody to follow. So I think he doesn't really care about the consequences of running through a wall.

SPEAKER_00

Well, let me tell you what he did on on June 4th. Uh so the first thing that he does, he heads over to the concrete plant and he destroys everything he can. He causes maximum damage. We're talking like towers knocked over, buildings leveled to the ground. Uh I think this guy's a little angry, Dan. He might be a little angry. Um then, but the concrete plant, it wasn't enough because he's been wronged by so many people.

SPEAKER_01

Uh the cowards at the town hall.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly, which is the next place he goes, which is the town hall. So they were the ones who approved the rezoning. They were the ones that uh levied the retaliatory retaliatory fines for not being able to connect it to the sewage and dismissed the appeals. Um they were the ones that helped the doe chefs, the do chefs, the do chefs uh to systematically ruin his life. Wow. Just because he owned a plot of land and didn't want to give it up. Um, he destroys the town hall. He drives straight through and keeps going. And the next thing on his list is the local newspaper.

SPEAKER_01

Before we get there, are there people at the concrete plant? Like town people are injured at this point. I'll talk about that in a minute. Okay.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Uh so he he goes straight through the town hall and he keeps on going straight to the local newspaper office who editorial uh editorially expo uh opposed him for years, um, including on gambling legalization, which I guess he was for. Um, and he nearly came to blows with a reporter at one point. So, you know, um maybe not totally deserved, but I get it. Uh then he heads to the to the mayor's house and he goes through the mayor's house. He destroys the mayor's house. Um, this is a former mayor, but he's the one who was presiding over the council that approved everything.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Then he's not done yet. Then he's like, you know who else I'm really pissed off at? The fucking bank. The ones who held dead over my head the whole time and worked against him in favor of the douchefs. The bank that was under the thumb of the douchefs because they were the they were the rich, the rich family that owned all of the well all of the wealth in town. They were the ones that were working with the the city hall. Like you you follow you he f he literally followed the money straight to the bank. Now, here's where it gets a little bit uh hard to defend, um, because he he then went to the library and he uh he leveled the library and uh uh reports say that at some point during that day there were children inside of the library, therefore he almost killed children. Um but I feel like that might be a little bit of an editorial thing to make him look like more of a villain personally. Sure, there probably were children there at some point, but they weren't they weren't there when he leveled it.

SPEAKER_01

He's only driving like eight miles an hour, so he's gone from the shop. I want to say he's gone from the shop to the concrete plant, to the town hall, to the local newspaper office, to the former mayor's house, to the bank, to the library. I mean, if that's his last stop, or it's not. It's not, oh my god. But like if that was 215, how long do you think it would take, knowing how fast he was going? Just a guesstimate, because we've never I need to look at this town. Yeah. What is this town called again? Uh uh Granby. Granby, Colorado. Colorado, yeah. Okay. Um how long do you think it's taken him? So is like I'm just trying to give him some I d I know how maybe it's oh you do?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. How long? So I don't know how long it took him to get to the library. Okay. But I do know that the total amount of time of his rampage was two hours. Wow. Uh so after the library, he also heads over and shoots up an 82-year-old widow's home. Oh my god. I don't know why. Okay. Um, but he has documented a list of grievances um that included 107 people on a list. Wow. Uh connected to various buildings that he's the population of Granby, let's find out. That that uh the these these people are all connected to the ways that his life had been systematically torn apart, um, and who worked for places like the mayor or the bank

The Two-Hour Rampage And Aftermath

SPEAKER_00

or the concrete place. Um so I don't know exactly who this 82-year-old widow was uh or if she deserved to have her house shot up. Um so it's a little bit hard to defend this part, but uh but it keeps going.

SPEAKER_01

Okay. Well, for context of his list of 107 people, in the 2020 census, which is almost 20 years after this happened, there's just over 2,000 people in this town. So let's assume that it's like a relatively stable population. Maybe it's like 1800 people when he does this.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so he hated 5% of the whole town. Yeah. Uh so also he's uh he's using his guns to uh shoot at propane tanks. Um, he shoots power transformers to create explosions. Damn, he wants to wreck the whole fucking town.

SPEAKER_01

He's like, You wreck my life. Yeah, I'm wrecking the whole town.

SPEAKER_00

He also ran over a lot of police vehicles. Wow. Um, officers f fired over 2,000 rounds at the machine. Uh they also threw grenades. And at one point, somebody tried to throw a flashbang grenade down the exhaust pipe, which I don't know what their their plan was there. Flashbang probably wouldn't do anything. I mean, if they had grenades and threw that down the exhaust pipe, maybe, now we're talking, might do something. Um, if nothing else, it might make it run really weird. Uh, but nothing worked. Um, there's even pictures that you can find of Killdozer online and somebody standing on top of it while he's driving through Grandby Granby. So somebody did get up there.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_00

Um, but they weren't able to do anything. He was he was welded in rocket type. Yeah, literally. Uh there was even talk at some point at the governor's office of calling in the National Guard to uh bring in an Apache to fight to shoot it with Hellfire rockets, um, which probably would have worked.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

But that it didn't come to that because after about two hours, uh his rampage ended at the Gamble's hardware store. Um who knows what what grudge he had with a hardware store. It's all connected.

SPEAKER_01

It's a small town. I mean, here's the truth of the matter. It's a small town, which means everybody knows everybody. And in his mind, they're probably all guilty. I bet you he was being ostracized from every space, basically.

SPEAKER_00

Including the hardware store, the worst place to be ostracized from.

SPEAKER_01

It is. I love hardware stores, especially small town ones.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So he goes, he he drives through the hardware store, and unfortunately for our hero, a uh a tread uh cr uh crashes through the floor into the basement and he gets hung up on the foundation and he's stuck. That he's not going anywhere after that. Uh so he uh was unwilling to be taken alive, and he shot himself with a 357 uh inside the cab. And he is the only fatality in the entire rampage. He's the only fatality? Yeah. No one died, no one died, except for all those buildings.

SPEAKER_01

So just miraculously no one was in these buildings?

SPEAKER_00

I mean, they had time to get out. I guess so. Uh, so it took them about 12 hours with cutting torches to get in to retrieve the body. Wow. Um, I can't imagine how much time building it if it took them 12 hours to cut a hole through it.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, think about it. So he started at two, it's about two hours, so it's like 4 15 now. So four in the morning they get in.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, two two a.m. actually in the morning is when they finally get in. Not that it matters. Uh 2 a.m., 4 a.m., what's the difference? Um 4 a.m.

SPEAKER_01

sounds worse than 2 a.m. to me, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00

When they finally cut the uh cut the cop cockpit open, they found a box of band-aids. Interesting. A back brace, uh, two rolls of paper towels, and several unopened cans of uh Slimfast.

SPEAKER_01

If they're unopened cans of Slimfast, that means he definitely had more on his roster to run over.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, he was he was planning on, you know. I wonder how far he was thinking he could get this. Maybe he's gonna make a run for it. Run for the southern border in his makeshift uh I wonder how long it would take from Granby, Colorado, to get to the southern border. If he got to the border, there's nothing to stopping him.

SPEAKER_01

All right, let's go Granby, and I'm just gonna put Mexico because I have no idea. Or would be closer to I just see what we got. Oh no, other way. He's kind of in the middle of the country, so let's just say to Saskatchewan would be straight up Canada. Regular driving time, that's um probably 15 hours. I don't think it's gonna make it. He's not escaping. Yeah, he I think he planned to kill himself.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I mean, he had he had two guns in the cockpit.

SPEAKER_01

In his view, I think from this man's perspective, his life was already over and he just wanted people to feel the pain that he had suffered.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think so too, which is really sad.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um, because I could only imagine being in that level of of of grief about life that like you're like, this is I'm welding myself in and I'm never coming out.

SPEAKER_01

It is, and to think of like if this is 18 months of planning, which is a level of rage. I've felt more rage in the last since 2016, but especially in the last year, than I've ever physically felt in my body in my life. I've had thoughts I never thought I would have that are violent, that I'm not going to act on, just to say that out loud. FBI. Um and I'm trying to imagine the feeling that he must have had inside of him to compel this level of commitment and then just utter destruction.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Um so here's the thing that I think is really unfortunate because uh all we have to go on is the the news of the area, the public reports of the officials that conducted an investigation about it. We don't have anything from him. This is like I mean, the internet existed, but I doubt that this guy was like out here like doing a blog, you know? Uh this is before YouTube. Like he's he's not he's not uploading videos to the internet. He does like so. What he did do is he create uh he recorded um several audio tapes documenting his grievances and his motivations. Some snippets of those were later released to news stations and fragments, probably just the ones that made him sound the craziest, I would imagine. Uh but those records were never fully released to the public. Um so the town that he attacked controls the archive of his testimony. Uh and so by dying in his in his bulldozer, he handed them the power to make up whatever story they wanted, uh, which is unfortunate.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Uh so the town itself, um he did seven million dollars in damage, and this is 2004 dollars. Uh he destroyed 13 buildings, there were zero casualties besides Haymire. That is I don't know, like that has to feel that feels miraculous to me. Yeah. Um, and the killdozer was cut into pieces and scrapped because they were afraid that would it would become a shrine to people who agreed with his motivations. Um, and that's they didn't want that. But imagine that being in a museum. Like I would go look at the killdozer in a museum. I'd pay good money for that. Um so uh after after that, the not surprisingly, Doshef concrete plant reopened. It's still open today. Um, and the people that use the law as the weapon to uh get to frame the story of a man who fought back. Um

Folk Hero Myths And Hard Questions

SPEAKER_00

so instantly he became an internet folk hero. Early days of the internet, too. Yeah, despite probably not even knowing what uh Ebom's world was.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, he was 55 or something, right?

SPEAKER_00

I think so. Something like that. Um his story gets almost uh adopted almost entirely by libertarian and anti-government uh movements who like it's kind of funny because if you think about where those people stand today, uh they would have sided with the Dosefs in the town now.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The people with their their don't tread on me flags would be like, Dose chefs were wrong, their property was destroyed, and this guy was clearly a maniac. I use that voice for libertarians. Sorry, libertarians, but I'm sorry. You know, you know what you sound like. Uh I feel like his story could have been a lot cleaner and a much clearer story of of resistance if he was if he limited his rampage to like just a few buildings like the town hall, the concrete plant, the mayor's house, the bank.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know if shooting up an old woman's house helps you. But I guess he doesn't care. He cares anymore.

SPEAKER_01

I think at this point he doesn't give a fuck. What any like he doesn't I I'm really trying to put myself in this man's like shoes emotionally, and at this point he's he's gone past any kind of understanding. He doesn't care.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But anyways, it's uh, you know, that's that's uh um a story of of one person who was able to fight back against the system.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. It reminds me of another verse in the song I was singing at the beginning.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Everything's great, everything's fine, everything's getting better all the time. And everybody knows that Luigi was right, but nobody wants to talk about what you should do if everybody knows Luigi was right.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, I want to talk about it. Okay, what do you want to say? Uh Luigi was right. Luigi was right. You know, free Luigi because Luigi's innocent, allegedly.

SPEAKER_01

Allegedly, allegedly guilty. Luigi is now a symbol, whether or not he did it. Yeah. Which he didn't. Allegedly. He's innocent. He was framed, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, he was he was I saw him that same day down by the uh corner store, far away from New York City.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. He he wasn't there.

SPEAKER_01

He was hanging out outside the diner.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. He was he was Obama and Dr.

SPEAKER_01

Fauci.

SPEAKER_00

And we were like, who are you? And he's like, nobody. And we're like, cool. Yeah. He didn't even have a backpack. Yeah, there was no backpack. Uh and he says he says that he's never even played Monopoly.

SPEAKER_01

Uh well, I think that's all we have for now, folks. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's it. That's it for today. Thanks everybody for joining us, um, talking about resistance.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, should we get a chihuahua and name it killdozer?

SPEAKER_00

I think so.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I think it's a great name for really tiny dogs. What if it's Luigi Killdozer? I mean, maybe Luigi's the middle name. Killdozer Luigi.

SPEAKER_01

And then my last name, because the vet always puts it there, which makes me feel weird inside. But yeah, anyways.

SPEAKER_00

I'm having a brief uh autism moment because uh you said Luigi, and immediately my brain went to the Super Mario Brothers movie from the early 90s. Well, obviously it went there. Luigi and Mario get arrested, and they're giving their names at the police station, and they're he's like, What's your name? He's like, Mario, and he's like, Well, what's your last name? He's like, Mario. He's like, Your name's Mario Mario, and he's like, Yes. You know what? So then he asks Luigi, played by John Locosamo without a mustache. Uh, and he says, What's your name? He's like, Luigi. And he's like, Let me guess. Your name's Luigi Luigi. He's like, No, it's Luigi Mario. They're married. They're brothers.

SPEAKER_01

But are they though? Are they brothers? It's like Bert and Ernie. I think there's more going on there.

SPEAKER_00

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01

If they were brothers, they'd both be in red.

SPEAKER_00

Is that how it works? I don't know. Brothers wear the same colored clothes.

SPEAKER_01

I just got a text from your brother speaking of brothers, and he said it's really beautiful and we should go sit outside. So if

Patreon Book Club And Voicemail

SPEAKER_01

you want to go deeper, our book club lives on Patreon. You get free bonus episodes if we get them out on time, which we didn't a couple weeks ago. Sorry about that. Sorry. We have community chats. We actually talk about the books that we are reading collectively as a book club, and there's no paywall for full participation. If you want to throw some cash, you might get something fun like uh a monthly sticker club or a cool shirt, something like that. And we are currently reading Feed. Yeah, by Mira Grant. Yes. And the full book club episode for that will drop May 24th. So read along, come chat with us. We are going to have a live book club discussion probably early May. We'll see. Yeah. And in the meantime, come show us some love. Give us a rating or review. Send us a voicemail.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Convert a bulldozer into a tank.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, and maybe Luigi's targets could be valuable ones. Imagine if Luigi had a tank. Yeah, but you know what I really appreciate about Luigi, the symbol, because he didn't actually do it. Right. Because he was with us. He thought a lot about, yeah. He thought a lot about making sure he wasn't going to hurt anybody else. And I think that that's really cool. That is cool. I'm not sure if Heymeyer was had did that. I don't know enough about like if he just knew those places were closed on Tuesdays, which in small towns they could have been. Other than the library. You know, I don't know about that. Uh but yeah, sign up for our newsletter, which is Patreon. I don't know why I said that. That's old. And you can call us at 614 699 0006 and leave a voicemail. But for now, the end is nigh, baby.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Uh don't die. Love y'all. Bye bye. Bye. Also, don't murder anybody. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

Who doesn't deserve it?

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Dan

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Leah

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