Interview with Matthew Gaydos

MM: So, if you could start by talking about what brought you to the Capitol in the first place, kind of what led you there.

MG: Sure. So, that's actually like specifics, actually. There's a very specific answer to it. My friends had been posting about, on Facebook, the rally of... it was like the Valentine's Day one. Like, "Tell Walker 'don't break our hearts'; Deliver Valentines to the Capitol." I was like, "Oh, this is dumb. We're going to go to the Capitol and give him Valentine's cards. This is useless and just a gratuitous sign of how we're just getting... we're sad about whatever's happening." I thought it was dumb. And then the next day after that, I think there was a rally, and again it was posted through Facebook. My friend Sarah Choo, who's an international student, posted it on the wall and--on my wall, 00:01:00maybe on her wall and I reposted it on mine--and so I felt like if I'm going to get involved, I might as well, you know, go to the Capitol at least once if I was going to post about it on Facebook and be in on it; I should hold myself accountable. And so, I... I mean, like originally I was... I'd heard about it through Facebook. I'd heard about the protests through Facebook, and then I think the thing that really motivated me about it was just like the way that students, like students can get screwed over so hard because of the bill. If they wanted to like do something with our tuition remission, if they wanted to do anything with our contract, they could in order to do balanced budget, excuse X, or whatever. So, that was like my original impetus. I was like, "Oh, 00:02:00that's... that's not good." International students can get exported, graduate students can get tuition remission removed, all that horrible stuff. And so, I went to the Capitol on the first day and protested on the first day, the day after Valentine's Day. So, like the 15th or so, I guess, and that... Yeah, it was just because I thought it was bad for grad students, and I heard about it through Facebook.

MM: So, what... was there anything that kept you there that was convincing, I guess, that caused you to stay and do more?

MG: Good question. So, originally no. My friend... I even told Sarah, I was like, "I think that protests are kind of useless, and that we should do more 00:03:00direct action," and she was like, "Yeah, I can see that. I can see why you would want to do more than just protest." I was like, "I'll go out and I'll protest. I'll stand out there and whatnot, but I think that that's like protests are a 20th century tool, and that in the 21st century, we can do other things." And so, I wasn't very enthusiastic about it, and I went out and somewhere in there I got caught up in the flurry of like... I don't even remember what... like how the transition... was it a Monday, February 14th? I can't remember what day of the week it was. But it... Somewhere in between the day after, the first day I went for protests, and then like a few days in, I... Oh! I remember this. I 00:04:00remember going there at eight o'clock in the morning one morning, and the T.A.A., a bunch of members of the T.A.A. had slept over, and I was like, "Is there anything I can do to help out?" And they were like, "Who are you, first of all? Why are you in this room?" It was 300 North. And they had no organization of like what new people should be doing, and I ended up sitting around for like the first hour of the day, two hours of the day. And then like just trying to help out, like, "What can I do? Is there anything going on here?" And about halfway through the day, they had started to collect names. They need someone to go stand outside and collect names for people who were pledging to recall their Senators. And I went out, and I did that for like five hours on that day. And after that I was like, "Wow, I actually did something helpful, I hope." And so, I think after that, I started to get more invested. I was like, alright, there 00:05:00is an organization here; they are doing things, and they're doing things that can potentially be helpful. So, that was like one of the first few days that I was out there was standing outside and collecting names for people to recall their Senators. There's no like... Yeah, I just got kind of caught up in it. I guess there's no real, like... There's not a reason why I kept going back.

MM: Are there any other reasons, like anything else that you got caught up in, I guess, so to speak?

MG: So, there are things that I got caught up in. Like there are reasons why I wanted to help out like as I thought about it more and more, as I learned more about it, but that's... they were more galvanizing than they were like anything else. So, it's like... My dad, I called my dad and I talked to him about it a little bit. My dad, like he didn't go to college; he's an electrician. He's a, 00:06:00like he's in the... he works for a power company; he would like climb telephone poles. He's in the electricians union. And I remember him going to union meetings like growing up, and him coming back and being like, "Oh, there's some vote, whatever." Unions are... like the union makes dumb decisions sometimes, but he would always go. I called him up and I talked to him about it. He gave me a good spiel, he was like, "You know, I've been, I've been in the union for twenty years. I always pay my dues, you know? Just don't throw any rocks, but do what you gotta do." [MM laughs] He's got a funny accent. [MM laughs] But he... That's like... He's like, "If I have to bail your ass out of jail, I'm going to kick your ass." [MM laughs] Alright, Dad. So, he was behind me in it. Yeah, so, like just thinking, like I saw the electricians union out there. And I was like, "Oh, these guys are like my dad. Like they're a union." I mean, like there 00:07:00obviously... there's going to be a private version, and maybe, like I don't know how the electricians union works. I know that there are electricians that work for the UW and stuff. But like the idea that this is an attack on unions just kind of bugs me because like I've grown up... I feel like I've grown up in a town that was like, you know, relatively middle class, blue collar, union-friendly, and the idea then, like that coupled with the whole... the way that the bill was being pushed through, the way the government was going about it in such a shady fashion just really galvanized me. It just... I was like, "This is not happening. This is not happening on my watch." And that was really what kept me going. It was like just the immortality of the government trying to do, like to force some agenda that they believe was righteous and that agenda 00:08:00includes breaking the backs of unions, which for the most part are you know blue collar working class families, and that I think was just bullshit. So, that was the reason why I got in... Well, that's not the reason why I got in, but that's the reason why like I got in so deep because I felt like this was a moral attack.

MM: Are there any experiences or conversations you maybe had at the Capitol or with other people who are involved that you remember as specifically contributing to that?

MG: Talked with my advisor a lot about it, and that was in and around the Capitol. So, like after going out and, you know, picking up trash or whatever the heck, going and like having a drink with two, with my advisor and with 00:09:00another guy in the program named Ryan, and we would talk about, you know, what was this an example of. Like what is this? What's happening here, and like what is the meaning behind this? And my advisor is really... he's much more politically involved than I am. He's usually like a step ahead as far as going out and trying to find out what's happening politically, and making sure that, you know, things aren't going crazy, and we talked about that. There's a night at Cooper's Tavern, which was like... it was a Saturday night, maybe? No, a Saturday night I was with Ryan. It was like a Friday night. There was a Friday night where we went to Cooper's Tavern and just sat around with beers and talked 00:10:00about what was happening and how we can do something, how we can, like, how we can change it. So, part of the thing is that what we study is video games with respect to civic activism; How it is that we can get students going from gaming to doing things in the real world and making a difference in their communities? So, this is like a topic of study that we've had come up. I mean, it's... this is where we like put our money where our mouth is and say either like, "we need to be out there doing things, or we need to shut up about like being civic activists," because how can we advocate without participation. So, we talked about, you know, what can we do? What's happening here? How do we class... and I guess there's a point there where I actually started to believe my own crap, the 00:11:00stuff that I was spinning. Right? It's like the idea that this is a moral attack is like, I didn't believe that, I don't think, at first. I don't really know what was happening. I knew that it was wrong, but I didn't think of it as like a larger... I didn't frame it as a larger attack on the middle class, but then we thought like, how do we frame this so that it can sustain itself beyond this bill? How do we frame it so that we can sustain and like get momentum for pushing back on all of the things that are happening no matter where they're happening around the state, around the country with regards to the increasing wealth disparity in the country? And... That's like a lot of the stuff comes from conversations like that I had with him, that I had with Ryan, that I had on 00:12:00Facebook. There's a good chart that... who is it? Like Chris Cwynar pointed me towards, I think, that he posted. I think it was him, somebody online, and it was pointing at like the huge and growing difference between people that have a lot of money and people that don't. It's been growing for the past forty years. So, specific events, that one night at Cooper's, hanging out, drinking beers, trying to figure out what we can do to change the world... while drunk.

MM: What is your advisor's name, by the way?

MG: Kurt Squire.

MM: OK, just for the record. Were there any more emotional experiences you had? I mean, so far you talked about... it just seems like you were kind of very 00:13:00cognitively active and thinking about all of these issues very hard, but was there anything that was more, I guess, kind of like just feeling it? Like something that impacted you emotionally rather than, I don't know, caused you to just like mentally engage immediately?

MG: Yeah, when we were handing out, when we were trying to get... we were handing out flyers and trying to get names, me and Ryan Martinez, on the top of State Street on like one of those first days is probably like the first or second day that I volunteered like a decent amount of time. The... looking down State Street towards the university, I remember seeing the undergraduates marching up State Street in like en-masse, and thinking like, "Oh, holy shit." Like, "This is awesome." These guys... like this is what it looks like to have 00:14:00people support. This is what it looks like for... for people to really like rally behind a cause because the undergraduates came down, I was like, "Wow, this is really cool." Then the high-schoolers came down, and I was like, "Wow!" This is not just, this is not just Madison. Or if it's just Madison, it's Madison and some surrounding areas. And then the firemen came out, and so, it was just like that build and, I mean, it's very like photographic to see like a whole mass of people walking towards the Capitol down State Street. It's a really great image, and that was where I really felt because I'm standing there, you know, yelling at people, handing out flyers, like you know, "Pledge to recall your Senator!" And then like, you looked down State Street, and there's people like screaming, marching with signs, coming straight at you for the same cause. It was like, "Wow! We're in this together," is what it felt, it felt very 00:15:00like. Yeah, and then the firemen coming, marching the square was another point, on that same day, with their bagpipes, and that was another point where I was like, "Wow, it's not just us." It's not just like... it's not just like high-faluting academics. This is actually it. And then there are so many points within like in the Capitol. There are so many points where like I was practically moved to tears, screaming, like everyone's like just outraged at the audacity of Scott Walker, of the Fitzes, right? There were so many points where like they're making some announcement, and everyone's just like, "Really? Like you're telling us that we're from out of state? You're telling like these teachers that drove in from Milwaukee that they don't belong here, that they're thugs?" Like the outrage is just so apparent. And those, I remember like outside 00:16:00the Congress room, just like literally being moved to tears being like, "This is... this is it. This is the fight of our generation," kind of thing, and maybe that's bullshit, but that's, I definitely... maybe whether or not it's the fight of our generation is bullshit, but I know that that's the first time that I was ever like moved to tears for politics.

MM: Do you remember what night that was, like what was going on, what was the context?

MG: Yeah, that was one of the nights that... That was more recent. That was the night that the assembly... So, it was the night that they called the meeting at six o'clock; they announced it at four o'clock, that one. That's the one is 00:17:00going on right now in terms of being in contention for violating the open meetings law. It was that night, that meeting. I think it was the night that the... was the assembly voting that night?

MM: I think it was the Senate.

MG: It was the Senate?

MM: Yeah.

MG: At the six o'clock meeting, and they came in, they voted, they passed it. And it was the night the video of like Barkha like demanding that they stop came out as well. And like, I remember watching that video at home and being like, "What the... what is going on here?" It was just... that was... I was standing outside the Congress room door. I remember like literally outside the door. I remember there were state policemen there, and they were like, "What's going...?" Like they were like, "What just happened?" And like one of the cops, one of the officers, the troopers was like, "This is just dirty politics." And like it was just so disheartening to see the politicians ramming, like doing all 00:18:00of that, playing the game rather than listening to the people.

MM: Do you think that changed how you were involved from then on? Was there any kind of shift in that point? Since it sounds like this was, I mean just in your kind of political life in general that this was a big turning point. So, do you think that it was different after that, how you were engaged with activities in the Capitol?

MG: I think it's been different. I'm not sure if that was... I wouldn't put money on that being like the turning... I mean, like maybe it was. Maybe it was the thing that really took the wind out of the sails on that one, but it was... because I haven't been involved really heavily since then, but, I mean, there are a bunch of reasons why I haven't been involved really heavily since then 00:19:00with regards to working with an organization like the T.A.A., with regards to working with an organization like Defend Wisconsin. And I'll put air quotes on organization for D.W.. But that like... I think that was a point where I just felt very defeated. And so, like the shift... the shift was, you know, like there's not much more we can do now here. The fight now moves out to the states, to the counties in the state. And that was that. It was, you know, now we just need to recall. We need to recall as fast and as hard as possible and get everyone out and just clean house. Like strategically, that's the next move. I knew that that was the next move, and it was just like despair of being, at being at the Capitol. It's like, "Fine. Alright. We're done. We're done here. They're going to do it. They're going to do what they want, obviously, and not listen us. So, let's do next the next step. Let's move forward." But at the same 00:20:00time, it was really sad.

MM: So, what has your activities, or what have your activities been like since then?

MG: Pre-lims. Yeah, grad school. There was a week, I mean, there was a week where we set up Defend Wisconsin, where I was sleeping like three hours a night and going to the Capitol for twenty hours a day, and it was a total burnout, and it was just crazy. And then I left. I went to California for a conference; I came back. That happened, and then I just kind of like put my hands in the air, and said, "Alright. Listen, I've got to get on with my life for a little while. I was in the middle of preliminary exams; they're due at the end of the month, and I just can't not do those because it would... not getting those done is going to push me back a whole year in my career. So, I've been trying to catch 00:21:00up on all the work that I missed, and like doing all that stuff around the Capitol, like it stopped me from doing my work for two weeks, and now I have to cram all that work back in two weeks. I mean, and then concentrating on work was just impossible. Right? Like checking Wisconsin union Twitter feeds, and you're checking Facebook status updates, and you're calling people, finding out what's going on. There's still like meetings. T.A.A. had stupidly long meetings, five hour meetings... So, two weeks being literally, physically around the Capitol, but then another like two weeks of just everything in the air. This has been the worst semester as far as productivity.

MM: Yeah. Could you just talk a little bit more about what those, those two weeks that you talked about where you were working on the website, where you 00:22:00were at the Capitol at the time? Just kind of what was a typical day like during that time?

MG: Alright, so... so, being around the Capitol... the first week being around the Capitol was just like protests, and I was trying to find a way to plug in, like how can I help out. I found this dude... What's his name? It's not Rickman; it's... So, there's a guy that had previously worked with some other campaigns, and he was running the phone banks at T.A.A., and he was organizing some voter system vans. And I used that a little bit in the past. I helped out with the Obama campaign in '08 using vans to, you know, organize names and numbers of 00:23:00volunteers. So, I recognized the system and I was like, "Oh, hey. Like I have a little bit of experience doing that, so you won't have to train me as hard. Is there any way that I can help out?" So, in that first week, like I just tried to do data stuff and go outside and help out when I could and come back and do data stuff, whatever. There was a point there, though, where like I was getting really frustrated with the way the T.A.A. was bad about publishing information on the web. I thought that... like I'm a total nerd, and I want my information online readily available. "Where do I go? What do I do? How do I... Like what do I bring? What do you need?" And you look at the T.A.A. website, and their calendar hadn't been updated in two months. And you look at the Defend Wisconsin website, and it's a blog not an information repository that tells me how to volunteer. And I couldn't... I didn't know where to go and what to do. So, we set up... basically, we like... I went to one of my friends, who is a computer 00:24:00scientist... I'm getting to the [inaudible]. Went to one of my friends, who's a computer scientist, and I was like, "Listen, this is the problem that I think is going, like one of the problems that I think is happening here." And was like, "Oh, yeah. That is a problem. We can fix that with a website." And we sat down and hashed out what like what the needs were of the website, and then how it would work to solve those needs. And then we decided that we would just need to get access to Defend Wisconsin's website or the T.A.A. website. And so, Sunday night, in the first day of the second week, Sunday night rolls around. We went to T.A.A. meeting that lasted like... I went to a T.A.A. meeting that lasted two hours, left halfway through, got Kevin, came back two hours later, and they were still having the meeting. Stupidly long meetings. And we got them to agree that 00:25:00we can take over, basically, the web stuff or help out significantly with the web stuff. And Sunday night at six o'clock... six o'clock? Eight o'clock? Sunday night around like... Sunday night, we got the information that we needed, logins, passwords, and we worked until six o'clock Monday morning, revamping the whole website. So, the typical day is going to be tough now because things get crazy. So, Monday at six o'clock, we finally get the website up and running as to the way we want it. I think I went home, and I slept for a few hours, came back at like eleven, and then between eleven and Tuesday... eleven on Monday and Tuesday, worked on updating the website with relevant information around protests, around, you know, where people could meet, what people can bring, what kind of supplies, etcetera. And then on Tuesday, we got... so, the problem was 00:26:00that we weren't able to access the website from the wireless network inside the Capitol, and that got picked up by some major news sources that was C.N.N., M.S.N.B.C. I think HuffPost ran an A.P. story. And we slashed out it on Tuesday. We went from like a thousand page views, like a thousand views, to ten thousand views. We went from like six thousand page views to like eighty thousand pages. So, like, a thousand visitors to ten thousand visitors per day, literally like overnight. And we didn't have the server capacity for that, and so that made Tuesday pretty hellish, figuring out... So, the problem was that like... one of 00:27:00the issues was that Kevin was off-site doing a lot of website work because a lot of the website work needed a good internet connection obviously, and you couldn't get that at the Capitol. The wireless there was complete hell. So, I was on site, trying to wrangle all the information about what was going on, find out who had information, find out, you know, like where I can get more information about the protests, and then feeding it back to Kevin who's working outside. So, for all of Tuesday, we basically worked on getting the website back up. Alex, the T.A.A. president, was also around helping out with that. So, like we had to upgrade from... upgrade the [inaudible] account. So, a regular day was putting out any fire that came up, and so, that meant just like finding out information about what was going on with the Senate, finding out information the 00:28:00senators, the Senate, the assembly, finding out information from other union leaders, from our--like the T.A.A. The T.A.A. is really weirdly organized structure--finding out who has what information, creating jobs. Like there's a person that was supposed to... like there's no one... right now... at the start of it, there was no one that was like sort of organizing the material supplies that we were getting. And I like, I think I found John, and I was like, "You have a new job. I just made it, and it's to organize all of the food supplies. And you have to like let me know who's giving it to you. I can put a Thank You on the website for it. Let me know what you need, and we can put a request up on the site for it." So, like finding out ways to get things organized. So, the typical day was something like work... like work from... Like get to the Capitol as soon as I can when I wake up, ten o'clock in the morning, eleven o'clock in 00:29:00the morning, go sit in the corner of 300 North, find out the information that I needed, update the website, and do that straight up until 2 A.M., 3 A.M. Find some... like go home, sleep somewhere. Wake up as soon as I can, go back, just do that. That was what I was up to. It was boring.

MM: Could you describe a little more where... like what your sources of information were, and how you would find out whether it was like what was going on just politically in terms of the Senate and the assembly and that kind of thing, or like information about mobilizing people and organizing things? Where would you look for that?

MG: So, some of it came from the T.A.A.. Members of the T.A.A. were doing organization stuff like trash pickup was one of the things. And that like, go around the Capitol, pick up trash. Alright, so, meet at 300 North at time, at noon; get a garbage bag, get some gloves, and walk around. Posting that 00:30:00information meant like finding some dude whose name I can't remember and asking him when the next trash pickup was. Or, like I said with John, like organizing materials request for the T.A.A. stuff, being like, "Alright, so what's the deal here? What do you need? I can post that to the website." More broadly, I'd send emails out... like trying to connect with the other union leaders was difficult. I'd send emails out to a few different union representatives from like AFSCME, from... What's the other one? M.T.I.. And asking them like if they have any information that they want posted to the Web. Oftentimes they would say that like, "No, we don't. We don't have any information. Sorry." So, then the news 00:31:00stuff came from... So, yeah, just asking. There's a woman from the United Council that also would come in and say things. Like there's a... an A.C.L.U. lawyer that came in that was like, "Hello, T.A.A. This is who I am. This is what I can provide. This is what you should do." And so, like posting that information. Oftentimes because 300 North was actually a hub for a lot of that--but not, like not the central place, but it was certainly a hub--people would come in and like give us information. So, there was that. And then... So, yeah. I don't know. I don't know if that answers your question. It was... Yeah, I don't know.

MM: More in terms of news, I guess, like actual political developments, what would be your source for that?

MG: OK, so actually... personally, I read there's a budget blog, WiscPolitics, like budget.wiscpolitics.com or something like that. And that was actually really good at updates. There were people that were feeding us information through Twitter and through e-mails, and that was another place that we got stuff from, and then we would have to verify it. One of the things that the Defend Wisconsin website did was it actually re-published a lot of articles that we thought were relevant. So, there's a whole team of people that was already trying to sort through news and send it like sift through and find out what was relevant and what wasn't. So, we... Martina, Joel, Jay, there's Ashley, there are a bunch of people, Magda, that had already started working on that had been 00:33:00what Defend Wisconsin was doing previously. That was basically just taking major news sources and just funneling them all, with respect to the happenings in Wisconsin, funneling them all to the site, so that people can stay updated on that. There's.... like the in-time events were basically like [inaudible], and like I wish I could... I wish there was one source. It was really fluid. People would come in and say like, "This is what's happening," and you'd say like, "Like can we verify that?" Or like, "What's going... like are you sure?" Like yeah, don't like... we should... are we... "If we're not really sure about it, don't post it. If we are sure about it, then post it." So, like things like, "Jesse Jackson is speaking at time X." Those are things that are like really easy to verify. "Alright, is that really happening? Yes, that's really happening. So, let's post about it, let's tweet about it. Whatever." Then other 00:34:00events, other things we're like on-site things, like when the Capitol Police would... there was a cleaning, for example. There were people who were talking to the Capitol Police and were notified that there would be like a first floor cleaning. And so like, someone was out there verifying that that was actually happening and that people shouldn't be afraid that they're getting kicked off the first floor because it's not because the Capitol is closing; It's because they're going to try and clean the first floor. And that was something that we would just tweet about, re-post on Facebook. Yeah, I mean, like I wish I did more. I didn't do like... I wasn't a journalist in any way; I was just like, people would come in and be like, "Listen, this is what's happening." And it was like, "Are you sure that that's happening?" "Yes." "Alright, then it's going 00:35:00up." And oftentimes, that would come from like the presidents, Alex and Kevin, and other times, it would come from people. Like you just got to know who was in the loop and who was like really trying to keep their ear to the ground as far as events happening, and they would come in and be like, "Yo, this is what's going on... Go out and post this." And we would do that.

MM: So, to kind of change gears a little bit, do you think or is there maybe one particular memory or experience or maybe overall message that you'll personally remember from this?

MG: One?

MM: Or a few. I mean, you can list as many as you want.

MG: I mean, like they've all been the emotional ones, like the ones that we talked about earlier. Those are really vivid. I think those are things I will remember for a really long time. I'm not sure that there are any ones that stand 00:36:00out above those. I mean, like those, the emotional ones are some of the strongest. So, I'd go with those, actually, and there's nothing... Those are why I was there. Those are why I kept going.

MM: Is there anything in particular that you would want people, other people, to remember, that you would want to be kind of generally remembered about this?

MG: There... like there was such... one of the things that really bugged me was the huge disparity, like to use an overused quote that we laugh at [inaudible], "The revolution will not be televised." There was such a huge disparity between major news coverage and the events that were happening, and then as a result, 00:37:00and like as a result there's... I felt like they, the major news sources, were kind of downplaying it. And only towards like, at least especially in the beginning, but like later on, Maddow picked it up pretty well. She's been doing a relatively good job about it, but I mean like, it's not been covered the way that... It wasn't, it wasn't really well covered. It wasn't covered the way that I would have been happy with. And so, the people that were there, I think it's really important for them to remember, for everyone to remember, like everyone that participated, for them to remember what it was like and to not let that be tarnished by the news and the major media that will rewrite the history of it because that's... Like remember what you did, like I want people to have their own memories and not rely on the narrative of the media as heavily. Remember... 00:38:00yeah, remember what that felt like, remember what you did, what you saw. It wasn't thugs from out of state. Like they show these terrible clips of people like getting punched. Like that's not what was happening. This was like... Like don't forget your senses. Don't forget that you saw a bunch of peaceful protesting, that you saw tens and tens of thousands of people that were just voicing their opinion like in solidarity against like a literally ignorant government machine. Like that was what you saw and that was what was happening. Like the news sources, I feel like they... It's such a distilled, weird version, and that the narrative that's getting painted that the news sources painted, the major news sources painted, it was just so inaccurate. A bunch of crazy union 00:39:00protesters, [inaudible] We were like, no, this is not what's going on here. So, it felt like the peoples... It felt like this was about the people. This wasn't about the money. This wasn't about the budget. This was about fine, like... finally, twenty six, this is about, you know, like people standing up for something that they believe in. And regardless of whether or not it's right or wrong, the government sure as heck didn't listen; they just went on with their business and shoved it. They shoved whatever they wanted through the system.

MM: So, do you think that there's a lesson to be learned or some kind of message to take away overall, not necessarily from the people who were directly involved, but as a kind of larger community, what do you think that would be?

MG: Which community?

MM: Maybe a more national community? Kind of what can we as Americans, to use that term really broadly, learn from this, and what kind of lesson should be remembered? Maybe more than, I mean, not in like terms of memory, but I guess more moving back again to the... more like mentally thinking about it and that sort of thing. That's not a really well phrased question or anything, but... [MM laughs]

MG: So, I think that there is... the way that this... I mean, from my perspective, what I believe this is a step towards is a move away, like it's a 00:41:00step away from the apathy of a generation that believes that government doesn't do anything that they want it to do, and towards, it's a step towards regaining agency over governance. And that's what I want it to be; I don't know if that's what it is. So, the lesson to be learned is like, we can... two things: one, you have to participate, and that whole apathy thing, you can't... that's not going to cut it anymore because what happens then is just the people who do care are the ones that tend to be caring about money and not about whether or not people that aren't making money are going to be OK. This... government is not inherently moral, and right now, it's driven predominately by investments, and that's not legitimate anymore. If we're going to actually move forward and be... 00:42:00and care about and care about our neighbors [inaudible], and we're actually going to move forward and inject some morality into the government, it needs to be by people who care about that. It needs... there has to be some agency, and it has to be based on morals and values, and that has to be not based on capital, like capital gains. So, that the one thing there's, the first thing is care and do something. And then the second thing is there are people who are working against us. Keep in mind that there are "enemies." There is a struggle to be had. There are... there's a media outlet, there's a new source that is not going to televise your actions because they don't want you heard, and so, we can no longer rely on the narrative of the media to construct our social narrative. We can no longer rely on corporate driven media sources to inform us because, 00:43:00whether we like it or not, they have monetary investments involved, and so that's inadequate. So, the second thing is keep in mind that there are people working against us. There are people working against the better interest of the population is I guess the way to put it. Whether or not I mean us or whatever. So yeah, get out, do stuff, and also watch back.

MM: OK. Well, on that note, that's pretty much everything. So, thanks.

MG: Cool.