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183 Plays4 years ago
Liz Medina is the Executive Director of the Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO. She previously served as the co-chair of the Goddard College Staff Union, UAW 2322. Last year, she launched an oral history podcast called En Masse in an effort to build working-class culture.
En Masse is part of the Labor Radio Network. She is also a member of DSA.
https://www.enmassepodcast.com/
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:03
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host, Candelante.
00:00:10
Speaker
Editor and producer, Peter Bauer. This is Ken Vellante with Something Rather Than Nothing, and got a special guest to this episode, Liz Medina, who is the head of the Vermont AFL-CIO. And I just wanted to welcome you, Liz, to the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. I'm glad to be here.
Union Roots and Shared Background
00:00:37
Speaker
Thank you.
00:00:38
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Yeah, and I came in contact with the work you do on behalf of working people. We share a common union in our background, the United Auto Workers 2322, that connects Liz and I at different times belonging to the same local union. Prior to getting into the union stuff and podcast and all that type of thing, I wanted to ask you, Liz,
Is Everyone an Artist?
00:01:08
Speaker
When you were born, were you an artist? Wow, what a provocative question. And for listeners who could not see, I was pumping my fist when mentioning UAW. It's a great union, a very important union, proud to be a part of it. Wonderful, exciting, radical history in that union, too, for another time. But as far as being born an artist,
00:01:32
Speaker
Gosh, I'm of the philosophy that everyone is born an artist in so far as we all strive to find a creative expression for meaning making in the world and trying to understand the world. And I think that's a natural inclination for human beings. And I think the artist gets sucked out of us in so many ways, unfortunately.
Creativity vs. Capitalism
00:02:02
Speaker
through just being run through the complex ideological and material apparatus of capitalism and its attendant forms of oppression that we live under. It's an alienating experience. Alienation is
00:02:21
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one of the defining features of living in a capitalist society and a big part of my artwork as well. And I think that is a force that unfortunately robs many of us of the artists within each of us. Yeah, and thank you for your comments. It's been absolutely
Being an Artist in Political Economy
00:02:44
Speaker
a critical piece of the show as I've explored art and philosophy and getting into fundamental questions about how you develop an artist, or you don't develop as an artist, but also the marketplace for artists, right? What does it like or what does it mean to be an artist in the United States 2021?
00:03:07
Speaker
And what I find is, you know, when it comes to political economy, it's front and center of how people develop and what their art is able to do. And I think in our discussion, Liz, that's going to come up because we're talking about working people. We're going to be talking about the art that you create.
00:03:26
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And how do you do it in those conditions? I wanted to ask you a major question just to frame the discussion about art.
Defining Art and Tradition
00:03:36
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I wanted to ask you another tough one right off the bat is what is art?
00:03:45
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Yes, and I do not claim whatsoever to be defining art in any kind of absolute sense, and I welcome everyone's responses and challenges to my definition of art. I think to really give a dry definition to start with and unpack it,
00:04:13
Speaker
An art is a collection of, a certain collection of world making or craft making processes that have traditions and go through different iterations throughout history and take different forms. So what does that mean? That means, you know, the practice of painting that has been around since
00:04:37
Speaker
you know pretty much forever you know we all see the cave paintings and sculpture that's also very ancient and of course there are new mediums that come into the loop but they can usually be at least discussed in relation to someone even if it seems very far and abstract to visual culture or our broader
00:05:02
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traditions of art making as we understand it. But these practices have served this kind of different craft making that rises to a higher level of personal expression, of cultural expression, of a community's self-expression.
00:05:28
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have a very different meaning, I think, in this day and age. I think it's art today, as most people would understand it, really is kind of, of course, a reflection of the type of society we have, which is
00:05:46
Speaker
So what is that? It's a market. It's about the individual and that kind of expression. And that's not to say that isn't art, but I think art more broadly is just the continuation of certain iterations of certain traditions.
Art's Societal Reflection
00:06:04
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And so that's, broadly speaking, what it is.
00:06:11
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add even more broader philosophical interpretations about meaning making and expression, but I think it is a, you know, to give a dry definition, I think that's what art is. And I think there's something to be rescued too about art and on other
00:06:32
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periods of time and in other cultures that could be really restorative and healing to communities today because, like I said, it has a particular meaning under our society that I think is very narrow and excludes vast number of people and limits what art can be. So I think it's ever changing and fluid, but I think it's been recognized as certain practices and traditions for sure.
00:07:02
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to explore, and thank you, thank you for that. I wanted to explore maybe a complicated idea in, you know, had a little brief discussion around, you know, working class art and how art is defined. I think when you say art to most people, what pops up is maybe a bourgeois notion of like of a painting and a place or a sculpture. When you say art to people, it tends to spark
00:07:32
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elite or high art as being art. And, you know, I think the expression, you know, working class art, you know, depicts that, you know, this comes from working people and it might have a different nature and a different type of expression. What I wanted to ask you, Liz, is how difficult do you think it is
Challenges in Working Class Art
00:08:02
Speaker
um, create and popularize, let's say working class or labor art. When most people think about like, uh, work in, in, in things like that to be something to move away from when you, when you're away, you know, when you're done with it, right? So the idea of nine to five, get home, have your meal, and then put on TV or art or do something to watch and kind of not go back into work.
00:08:32
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So what do you think as far as in our culture? Like where do we get the vibrancy from working class stories in popularized and let people know they're enjoying art and it's totally okay. What do you think?
00:08:45
Speaker
I think that's a great question to follow on, and I think it actually adds a bit, provokes something I wanted to say in the first question a bit, and that is, you know, there is a difference between, in my mind at least, art and entertainment, and I think, you know, there's a lot of gray areas and it's not a hard line, but
00:09:09
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I believe, like, probably Adorno, as much as I have many criticisms of him, I think he believed that art should be challenging and, I mean, in some ways interrogate the audience and the society at large. And, you know, that's, I think, the distinguishing feature, whereas entertainment is,
00:09:37
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just there to give us the sensations and escapism perhaps that we need in this moment, which is absolutely legitimate too because working that nine to five job or any job for that matter is very exhausting and sometimes you just need to do that and experience that. But yeah, so working class art
Exclusion in the Art World
00:10:06
Speaker
This gets to the question of, again, the way our society is structured and just understanding that in very broad terms. And I'm not trying to be a vulgar Marxist or anything, but just thinking about who gets to be an artist today. And I think that question will lead many people to find that
00:10:27
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most people who come from a very broadly defined working class background who have to, no matter what, work full time or beyond to make it.
00:10:40
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don't have funds from family and friends to support them while they build up our career in a field of art, which is very, very, very competitive. And so it excludes a lot of people by the very nature that art is competitive, doesn't pay well, is undervalued in our society. And that exclusion, of course,
00:11:05
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excludes working class people from all backgrounds, especially women and people of color, indigenous people, people who have been historically marginalized. And, you know, there is some, I think, attempt to, you know, ameliorate that fact within the art world, but the art world from my mind still is very much missing the discussion of class.
00:11:31
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I have to say that what working class art can be, that's a really important and provocative question. What is that for people who want to use art as a means to mobilize social movements, build a new world?
Art as Social Movement Tool
00:11:55
Speaker
gosh, I think working class art at the end of the day is not so much about just attempting to show working class life or pop culture, but also being made by working class people as well, allowing them to experience creation and making something in an unalienated way where they aren't doing it
00:12:24
Speaker
you know, for their employer for money per se, but they are just trying to understand and express their lives. And, you know, that's why I think working people is, I don't know if they would call it art. I find there's an art to interviews as well, a documentary form of art. And I find that to be very powerful. And I find, you know, if they, any opportunity to,
00:12:51
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bring the arts into the working class communities to be really open as well. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Liz. I am.
00:13:00
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And I know there's a lot there. I think it's useful to identify working class art and what it is, but I think you can even get into what the materials are, how it appears, what's the method of distribution, how it's shared. But in order to continue the piece about working class art as directly applied to your work as an artist and
Exploring Worker Histories
00:13:26
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You have a podcast called On Mass, and I've listened to it. I really enjoy it. And storytelling, and I listened as well to, I believe it was John Henry. I love that legend. So you do that, and you create that. Can you...
00:13:48
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help the listeners understand what you're doing, capturing those stories, presented them in a podcast format, and how that ends up being an expression of yours as an artist.
00:13:59
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Yeah, it was quite a transition for me because my background is in visual art and I had been trying to convey concepts and little fragments of stories through visual art for some time and finding myself frustrated in that I can't get the detailed richness of
00:14:24
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a more in-depth story in a single image or anything of that nature. I kind of let theory get to my head too. I read probably too much Walter Benjamin and was thinking about the ways in which
00:14:42
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art is, especially painting and other single image visual culture, is appropriated to mean different things once you try to get acceptance in the official professional art world, which we could, of course, talk more about. But I was very protective over, perhaps, to a fault about, you know,
00:15:08
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what stories I want to say, what they mean, and precisely those words. And so I thought, maybe I just need to go to history. It doesn't get more concrete than the actual details of people's lives and history. And of course, there's subjectivity there too. So I decided to look into history right in my own backyard in very Vermont. And I had been getting more involved in the labor movement here
00:15:36
Speaker
And it seemed like a nice bridge between my interest in movement building and art making. And I found, you know, some wonderful archives from the Federal Writers Project, which was under the WPA in the New Deal in the 30s. And I just was taken away by the richness and detail and multidimensional characteristics of the stories I encountered from
00:16:07
Speaker
Barry and their granite workers in the early 20th century when that project was done. I think it's so easy for us to think that
00:16:21
Speaker
I don't know, that we're alone, I guess, in our struggles. I think that's the tendency and the pressure is to just isolate and light us and individualize our experiences. And not only just on the individual level, but in relation to time and place as well and all the rich context around us.
00:16:42
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And I thought, well, wouldn't it be incredible to, you know, continue this archive of oral histories of workers in Barry, you know, and by, you know, collecting oral histories today and, you know, seeing the comparison between now and then. And then on top of that,
00:17:04
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having another person perform that and relate to it even further and just try to see out what issues are still pertinent and really present with us today as workers in this community and from out more broadly and what are some of the differences and how can we learn from the past and what do we need to do differently
Class Context through Oral Histories
00:17:25
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And I think putting it through a class context of working people is such a powerful unifier in being able to bring stories together, bring experience together, while also honoring difference. Because it's a huge group of people, and we're not all experiencing things the same way. So I thought,
00:17:48
Speaker
Let's do an oral history project. Let's have people perform them. And have it be a whole season. So you're getting a lot of different perspectives between the past and the present. And we're thinking together about what it is to be a working class now and then. And where is our agency? And what do we want to do as a class?
00:18:08
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it's a hell of a podcast. And I really enjoy those stories. I have a propensity to really like the stories. I mean, people view it a lot of times as mundane. But I think that's kind of embedded in our head when we think about the daily experience of somebody working and their struggles. It's just that we haven't elevated that. And I appreciate that.
00:18:37
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elevate it and so you can listen to it and guess what a lot of people are drawn into it when they listen to those stories like wow and um in the sense of place too in particular about vermont which i see as a unique you know place with a unique history um without the like strong urban centers and rural aspects and uh so uh i guess i'm saying i love the vermont when it's there um
00:19:06
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I want to switch gears a little bit,
Leadership in Vermont AFL-CIO
00:19:08
Speaker
Liz. And I just wonder if I could chat with you about, in general, you work in a very important role. You are the head of the AFL-CIO in Vermont. And for listeners who aren't familiar with the structure of labor, it's a confederation. You could probably describe it better, I can. But American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which combined
00:19:37
Speaker
to the chagrin of some, historically, post-World War II and things were going on there. So it's a labor federation, and of course when we're talking about workers, we're talking about a huge variety of workers, and you're an activist.
00:19:55
Speaker
Can you just give us a little peek of what it's like? No, just in your role in trying to represent all worker voices and just give us a little bit of that. I'm happy to.
00:20:11
Speaker
It's so much there's so much involved in it that I don't know if I can do it full justice, but I will say that, you know, first of all, this is that this is where my heart and my everything is in this work and I.
00:20:27
Speaker
I really believe that the change that we all want to see in terms of climate change, racial oppression, inequality really hinges just as it has in the past, but it will look different on the working class and its particular
00:20:45
Speaker
Position in society to make change because we do make society in fact and we forget that so I I would say you know that being in this position though is a huge challenge and I am challenged every day. I think Democracy is hard. I think people don't maybe at least me. I'm speaking for myself really I you know when we
00:21:11
Speaker
A lot of us just want to do what we want to do, especially artists, right? A lot of artists, unless you're in a dance group or theater or something where it's more collaborative, it's really about individual control and decision making over everything.
00:21:27
Speaker
And you don't get that in an organization. It's not about you. It's about the organization. And you may, at times, have very strong opinions that go against the grain of the majority. And you have to sit with that and accept the process that is unfolding. Because democracy is important even if it doesn't always get you what you want 100% of the time.
00:21:55
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It's important because there is a fundamental element of human dignity in the practice of democracy that becomes enlivened, which is our agency to make decisions in the world about how we live together.
00:22:14
Speaker
as individuals and collectively. And so many of us are unfortunately alienated from that through our very broken pseudo-democracy we have in the United States and in our workplaces too. Our workplaces are not democratically structured. They get to be that way a little bit more when a union's there.
00:22:38
Speaker
because then the workers have a seat at the table but without a union it's just the boss and management and that's it or the shareholders really at the end of the day and so you know it's empowering and exciting and also very very hard and you have to have a lot of conversations every day with everyone to make them not make them to to welcome them into that process
00:23:06
Speaker
And to make them feel comfortable and valued in that process is what I was really looking for. Because we will all disagree at some point, and we all have, our lives are tied up in the project of what we're doing. We are fighting for people's lives. And so it's, you know, there's a big emotional element. So most, you know, my work is just really the simplest way to describe it is talking to people all the time.
00:23:33
Speaker
Trying to listen and trying to hold this fragile thing of a democratic labor movement together. Yeah Yeah, and we're speaking with Liz Medina head of the Vermont AFL CIO artist activist podcast producer of the podcast on mass and with creative
00:23:56
Speaker
working types. I'm sure there's another 600 items in there as well. So you talked about art and your ideas around it.
Future of Art and Society
00:24:08
Speaker
I want to ask this specific question of arts, and I know you've gone into these elements, but just specifically addressing, what do you think that the proper role of art in society is right now, today?
00:24:23
Speaker
Gosh certainly not for me to say I think you know that has to be democratically discussed right going back to that, but I I think Where what I guess about you know for me. I think of that is Where would I what what art do I want to see or where what what would be the most? ideal fulfillment of art in this moment and I think That would be just
00:24:53
Speaker
letting people be able to make art. And that requires so many things. So it requires more free time. And right now we live in a situation where people are working more than the 40 hours that the labor movement has fought so hard for. The Frito-Lay victory was a bittersweet one, at least
00:25:20
Speaker
from my perspective, I'm sure maybe from the workers too, that they won one day off a week. They deserve the full weekend. That's our legacy, and that is something that's necessary. And when workers were fighting for the eight-hour day in the late 19th century, that was a huge part of it. The argument was, we want time for intellectual, cultural,
00:25:49
Speaker
artistic expression. We don't want to be just automatons working, living hand to mouth. We are human beings. We're not here to just survive. We want to thrive and find and discover all the potentialities that lie inside of us and being the artist. We are born with that. I don't see any kid who doesn't pick up a crayon or an instrument or something. It's in us.
00:26:15
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And so I want to see a world that supports people having the time for that, having the material access for that. I want organizations to also, if they have any ability whatsoever, to have
00:26:32
Speaker
the arts be part of their movement making because that's something really exciting for people and makes them feel like it's not just work all the time or extra work, you know, that it inspires and beautifies the incredible values and change we're trying to seek, which are, you know, beautiful in themselves, actually, oftentimes, beautiful ideas.
00:26:56
Speaker
of freedom and democracy and justice. And so I think I want time for that. I want to see it in the movement. But I don't think we'll be able to see a fully ideal proletarian art until we actually overcome capitalism and move towards a socialist or communist society democratically such, of course,
00:27:23
Speaker
Um, whichever term you want, you can have debate about that, but, uh, and yeah, and yeah, you're talking about, I mean, not, not to interrupt, but you're talking about the fundamental conditions in which you're able to create, you're able to create under. And that's been what you've been saying. Um, it, so that's the societal element. That's the political and societal element.
Romanticism in Marx's Critique
00:27:46
Speaker
I think there are romantic notions in the, you know, in the
00:27:48
Speaker
critique, if you look at Karl Marx, a lot of people don't realize that the fundamental, the fundamental piece, at least for me, is romantic. It's hopeful. It's positive. And it has to do with the fact that why is it that large masses of people have to sell their labor in order to have a go of it? And you could see how art is going to be sacrificed, you know, right off the bat, right? Because I can only sell my
00:28:15
Speaker
hands, in my mind, but you don't want it to be artsy. So I'm sorry to interrupt there, but I hear what you're saying as far as how you end up producing it to begin with and how it gets out there.
00:28:30
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, sorry. I was going on and on, so please interrupt me any time. And I don't even know if I was really answering your question, so please cut in. It's a conversation. It's a conversation. I mean, the name of the show is, why is there something rather than nothing? Completely impossible question. So all the questions tend to be rather impossible. And that's, I don't know, that's why. But hey, I'll say, I'll name some artists that I really respect right now, some artists that I think
00:29:00
Speaker
are you know the kind of art we made you know outside of the movement are in its own thing a lot of unsung heroes and that and you know they don't get the acclaim and nobody made most people will recognize their names there are people in the community and everyone's community but um there's a you know going back to art that is critical uh Alan Sakula is um
00:29:24
Speaker
was a big influence. Fortunately, he passed away some time ago, but he has a very clever way of talking about, of showing and explaining
00:29:43
Speaker
political economy that's easy for everyone to understand. He has a lot of photo and text exhibitions, but he also did a documentary called, I think it's called Fish Story, if I'm remembering correctly, but it explores shipping containers.
00:30:05
Speaker
as a conceptual way and visual way, following them throughout the world to talk about global capitalism and the social relations of production and consumption in the division of labor more globally. Very big hard concepts to break down in a simple way, but he is able to do that visually by selecting this motif for the shipping container and the way he also brings in just
00:30:36
Speaker
you know, very succinct dialogue, but it's mostly, it's oftentimes visual. Fred Lautner is a great artist who uses his art to talk about factory conditions in Mexico and elsewhere by, you know, cleverly, you know, jamming, culture jamming, sending t-shirts to be printed by a group of workers where it says,
00:31:05
Speaker
talks about their conditions, if I'm remembering correctly, things like this. And so I think there's, you know, documentary art has a huge role to play right now and is very important, even though I know some people find that dry, but also, you know, conceptual art that kind of plays within the system to reveal the contradictions is really exciting to me.
00:31:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. One of the things that I've done, because I work as a labor rep for quite some time, and I'm an artist as well, is the integration.
Art in Labor Movements
00:31:43
Speaker
And I had a recent conversation with Ricardo Levens-Morales in Minneapolis. And that show will be, that show's upcoming.
00:31:57
Speaker
And I was profoundly moved by hearing what he's saying about the integration of art in the labor movement, the artistic expression of workers coming up through rather than something that comes up from above. And his ability to connect concerns about the environment and well-being as a human to these, I found
00:32:21
Speaker
just really moving and incredible. So one of the things I'm trying to do is like either through documentary and film with my members, I'm looking to create like a union scene that takes the individual creativity of my members and be like, hey, so people can see each other just as more holistic as creators. And when I mentioned that to him, I forget exactly how I said it, but he was like,
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah, that's going to be right in the center. That's how we come up. And that's how we organize. And I'm like, yeah. And so it was such a radical shift in my mind because I was thinking of in a sense of like, how can I place this in? And that's fine.
00:33:01
Speaker
but it really is organizing and is expression. And I told him, the first time I realized this in a nutshell, and I represent teachers and support staff, was in the Wisconsin Uprising and Revolt in 2011. And I worked for Madison Teachers at the time. I had never seen the creative expression of my members. And I had never seen the creative expression of my members unmask. And
00:33:28
Speaker
Seeing them express their frustration, anger, sarcastic wit, jokes, and do it artistically on signs and around the Capitol, my mind was blown. I never even knew my people. I never even knew them, even though I did.
00:33:51
Speaker
So that was such a profound, and I had to reminisce back to that. And I believe, as we were talking about working class and art, as a conceptual piece, there's this vibrancy when we get into our own, our creators, our collective creators, our members, and our siblings in the movement. That's where the fuel is, it seems to me. And he handed that over. Is that where the fuel is, Liz?
00:34:19
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I couldn't have said it better myself. And I think the more ways we can give creative outlets to members and to movement makers and movers, the better.
00:34:35
Speaker
And hey, zines are, you know, to go back to what working class art is, medium is kind of important too, right? Because it has to be something accessible in terms of, like, you can't cost too much to produce. You don't have, you don't have, you can't have a lot of, you know, obstacles to learning how to necessarily do it either.
00:34:59
Speaker
And what is better than a cardboard sign or some pieces of paper that have your demands maybe and some drawings and circulating that. There's so much beauty and interest I think in that. And it's often overlooked. But I think that's changing too.
00:35:20
Speaker
I think there's a way which we can think about a lot of these practices as a form of art, as a community finding expression in these specific visual culture traditions, right? And at the same time, building, trying to build a new world from it and maybe new possibilities for art. So yes, absolutely. Yeah, and thank you. It was like,
00:35:49
Speaker
seeing people alive and truly alive on a higher level. And words ain't going to do it justice, even though I'm trying to do it. But to see that and being like that, those are human beings who, gosh darn it, they're under stress. They're having fun. At least they're having their say and being like, you're not going to pull this shit on me without a fight. That's right. Oh, some of my favorite moments organizing here in Vermont, we love to make art here in Vermont.
00:36:18
Speaker
I have to give special shout out to Vermont Workers Center and Migrant Justice. Whenever they're having a rally, there's usually an art build night and the community just comes alive. It's not everybody who participates. A lot of people are shy about it, but a good group of people will show up and we'll put on some tunes and we get really into either helping out with the
00:36:41
Speaker
collective banner or making your own, thinking of fun phrases, images, what have you. We've had beautiful banners of historical leaders and all kinds of amazing creations come out of those builds.
00:36:59
Speaker
I see them as a form of art for sure. And I want to see more of it. Yeah, I know. It's like they can, hey, want to have some fun with this type of stuff. I'm going to ask you a little bit of a curveball here, a different question going back to the beginning or your development as a person, as an artist, as a worker.
Personal Background and Influence
00:37:25
Speaker
Liz, who or what made you who you are? Oh, what a question. Well, goodness, my material conditions, don't you know? So, hey, you know, I grew up speaking of those, you know, I think where I grew up and
00:37:50
Speaker
uh... so many factors are so i grew up in a at russell town in central new york and a low middle class working class you know how we want to find a household as uh... essentially as an only child and i think that probably had a big role to play uh... you know even if i want to romanticize you know something a different story but
00:38:15
Speaker
you know, figuring out, I didn't have as many siblings to communicate with or anything like that so it was really, art was a way to communicate to others, sometimes to myself and I think that had a huge role to play and I think also,
00:38:34
Speaker
I think a lot of movement people are drawn to art because art is a really powerful way of trying to understand the totality of your experience. So I grew up in this Roosevelt town and I saw a lot of people struggling in my hometown, some people doing well, and I just didn't, I was struggling really to understand why.
00:38:59
Speaker
And I wasn't finding the answers in my social studies class per se. I wasn't finding answers in history necessarily. As we know, there are history, labor history, people's history, very, very sparsely addressed. And so I felt like, OK, well, what if I just try to figure that out by getting something, some ideas of what I'm thinking, what I'm seeing, and trying to relate
00:39:24
Speaker
these elements on just a canvas or a piece of paper or what have you and trying to understand myself in the world. And I think it just really comes from this burning why and desire to understand. And I think the why is probably the biggest influence of why I'm a artist and that why was just
00:39:45
Speaker
you know, hanging over my head every day. I went outside and I saw downtown at more vacant blocks, you know, more people, you know, who, you know, weren't getting their needs met and yet working really, really hard every day. Yeah, and I think sometimes when you're younger, like,
00:40:06
Speaker
those questions come up. It's almost like artistically or like the philosophical questions that come up, right? I mean, I asked the question, you're an artist when you're born, well, you're a philosopher when you're born, right? Because when you're a little kid, you'll be like, why is that? You might see like, why does that person have to live on the street and other people don't have, I mean, a kid might ask, they'd be like, be quiet. That's uncomfortable, right?
00:40:25
Speaker
But, you know, I grew up in Kentucky, Rhode Island, and with the birthplace of the industrial revolution in the United States, with plans stolen from the British, a typical American story, right? And same type of thing, you know, down, down economy, you had the big employer Hasbro there, the toy manufacturer, all you have there is the corporate offices and things are being manufactured.
00:40:48
Speaker
Same old story, you know, um rust belt central new york pennsylvania, ohio Um, and I think the experience of growing up in that without like, you know overt working class consciousness is confusion Is confusion like why is this why did this happen? Why is mom and dad having to work? You know as much as as they are and um
00:41:12
Speaker
uh in in in i it's such a big impact for me where i was born was such a huge impact on the who and the what because i felt like i was just like had a certain propensity towards this thrust in it and then i'd be like what's up with this
00:41:27
Speaker
system here and the impacts on people that you would see. So some similarities there. Yes, very similar. Well, that explains you, too, then, right? Well, for me, what explains me, I mean, it's tough to explain, but that explains me and getting to the university, being the first kid in family and going to university and having somebody say, hey,
First Encounter with Marxism
00:41:57
Speaker
You ever hear of this one? And being like, what is that? And then I ran from there. Same. Yeah. Just needed the opportunity, right? Right. To have some...
00:42:10
Speaker
Give me the book to tell me what's going on. Yes, yes. And if it's the economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844, then so be it. Liz, super big question. We're leading up to it. Why is there something rather than nothing? What a big question. I feel like we need to have
00:42:37
Speaker
Neil deGrasse Tyson on here to talk about that.
Why Something Rather Than Nothing?
00:42:42
Speaker
Yeah, you know, well, oh my gosh, well.
00:42:47
Speaker
I think they're in a dialectical relationship and the nothingness is always creeping up to destroy the something and against the force of entropy, the nothing, right? We strive to build something because something is life and something is everything that we know on this pale blue dot, as Carl Sagan once said,
00:43:11
Speaker
And that's all we have. And it's precious to us. And without it, we are nothing. And our drive to live and be in the world is a drive for something.
00:43:26
Speaker
I don't think we could exist without us striving for something. There's something that drives us a will to live, whether that be justice, love, beauty, unfortunately, some more, less virtuous values, right, as well. Accumulation, wealth.
00:43:50
Speaker
things like that and you know that's why we something is driving us so we are nothing and the nothing doesn't take over kind of like reminds me actually this just spontaneous that people probably think I'm silly but it makes me almost think about the wolf and never-ending story and you know he represents the nothing that you know threatens to destroy the world and everything and
00:44:18
Speaker
That's what it is, and a really simple way of one of my favorite childhood movies. Well, the damn families, you went from the dialectical to the never-ending story, so... You know, I mean, that's, you know, you're good. Your creativity is good. That's fantastic. I love it.
00:44:40
Speaker
So we talked about your multiple roles and all the guests that I talked to. I like you being an activist and engaged with the world. I always invite the guests to let the listeners know of where to find you or where to find your podcast or the work of creative people that you enjoy or working concerns or whatever the case might be. So what can people do if they want to learn from you or interact or anything like that?
00:45:09
Speaker
Thank you. Yes, I'm so bad at promoting myself, so I'm so glad you asked. I am trying to be on present on social media, at least on Twitter. You can find me at Liz, M-E-D-I-N-A-R-T. It's kind of like a smooshing of Medina and art. So L-I-Z-M-E-D-I-N-A-R-T.
00:45:31
Speaker
party is my Twitter handle. And Onmass Podcast is my podcast Twitter handle. I don't post on there as much, but I really am trying to do more. And I am excited to say I am working on my second season of Onmass. I have two on the stove, on the burners. And we'll figure out which one comes up first and bears fruit first.
00:45:59
Speaker
One revolves around Wardstown and some oral histories I found there. And the other concerns are United Slate, actually, of Vermont State Labor Council. And all the exciting adventures we've been on together, including, you know,
00:46:19
Speaker
our general strike vote that stirred the national for some time. And just talking more broadly about labor federations and why we need them, what they have done, how can we coordinate as a labor movement today. So stay tuned for all that. Follow me on Twitter. Also, Onmass Podcast has a website, onmasspodcast.com, and I occasionally try to post updates on there.
00:46:48
Speaker
I really appreciate that. And I tell you, I want to just mention too, Liz, I mean, I think it is kind of, you know, on this podcast, I've had, you know, the ability to talk to a lot of folks. And I think it's kind of a special thing to note where, you know, as a sister in the labor movement, we belong to the same labor union geographically come from the same, you know, type of place and some similar experience.
00:47:12
Speaker
I just want to recognize that it's pretty darn special for that to happen on a podcast. I really appreciate your time. I really appreciate your work because when people work in the field, you know how it is, right?
00:47:30
Speaker
You know how it is. You don't know exactly, but I kind of know how it is. So I really appreciate your work that's inspiring. For art too, for art's sake and thinking about ways for working class people to know, recognize that they're artists,
00:47:51
Speaker
post that painting or a blog that they didn't want to because they know they're an artist or they've had some encouragement that they are. And lo and behold, then you get more art artwork. So I appreciate everything you do to kind of help that engine help that engine move.
00:48:12
Speaker
Thank you. This was a very special treat for me too. It's such an honor. You know how it is. It is a special to be able to connect in this way as not only people interested in art and practicing art, but also as labor activists and appreciate it. When you're a labor activist, as any kind of person in the movement, time is very precious. We know how consuming that can be. So thank you again for having me.
00:48:37
Speaker
Yeah, and we've been speaking with Liz Medina. And again, thank you so much and hope to chat in the future about the development of the work that we're involved in. And thank you so much for your time, Liz. Have a great evening. Thank you too. This is something rather than nothing.