The Auron MacIntyre Show - FEMA Failures and the Future of Disaster Response ｜ Guest： Kevin Dolan ｜ 10⧸9⧸24

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00:00:30.600 Hey everybody, how's it going?

00:00:32.260 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

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00:01:52.840 All right, so joining me today is my buddy Kevin Dolan.

00:01:56.120 He is the leader of Exit.

00:01:57.960 He's always writing great articles on how we can be more self-reliant, how we can build community.

00:02:05.340 He just wrote one about disaster preparedness and the horrific failure of the federal government.

00:02:10.820 And I thought, well, I've really got to get Kevin on.

00:02:13.740 But the reason you're watching this now the way that you are is this is pre-recorded

00:02:17.820 because I am currently probably enduring one of the hurt, the worst hurricanes in modern life.

00:02:24.020 And so this article became far more relevant.

00:02:27.740 Now, my community was hit just two years ago with a devastating category four slash five hurricane

00:02:33.640 and had to rebuild all kinds of stuff.

00:02:36.180 It's lining back up again.

00:02:37.680 And so it's just highlighting how desperate this issue is, how important it is to be addressed.

00:02:43.180 So, Kevin, thank you so much for coming on today.

00:02:46.200 Great to be here.

00:02:47.460 So in your piece, the way that you frame this, and I think it's really important,

00:02:51.800 is not just looking at the failure that the federal government has had,

00:02:55.520 which we're going to be getting into in detail,

00:02:58.380 but also the way in which communities are going to have to step up,

00:03:03.040 where this opens up an opportunity.

00:03:04.600 Of course, disaster is horrible and we have to be prepared,

00:03:08.620 but recognizing that that responsibility is no longer going to routinely fall on the federal government.

00:03:14.300 They just do not have the capacity, perhaps, or have the willpower or are actively malicious

00:03:20.620 in their distribution of the willpower and the resources to do these kinds of things.

00:03:26.580 Can you talk a little bit about the failure that we've seen in the last hurricane

00:03:31.200 and the way that conservatives or those on the right or just those that are currently worried

00:03:36.940 about the direction of the government are going,

00:03:38.340 what they might be able to do to step up and fill that gap?

00:03:41.100 Yeah, so obviously other commentators can speak more to the reality on the ground.

00:03:48.460 A lot of people who know more about what's specifically going on,

00:03:52.380 but just from what I'm observing, it's not only like a failure to help,

00:03:58.820 it's also like interfering with ordinary people's ability to help.

00:04:03.980 And it's very much this calcification, ossification of what I've heard called the vitocracy,

00:04:14.240 the rule by veto, where just everything is denied, nothing's allowed, nothing's permitted.

00:04:19.980 Because if you fly in with your own helicopter, then that might cause a problem,

00:04:27.640 cause some liability issue, somebody might get mad.

00:04:30.860 And so in order, me as a bureaucrat, I don't get any like rewards if everything goes well.

00:04:37.300 I only get punishments if things go poorly.

00:04:40.100 And so what my objective is just to like defray responsibility as much as possible.

00:04:46.600 And, uh, and so you're seeing that with, you know, all sorts of sort of the types of aid

00:04:55.100 that they're trying to distribute, the types of relief they're trying to offer,

00:04:58.280 where they're like coming in on helicopters to pick people up or, or, or trying to distribute aid.

00:05:02.940 Um, it like represents both in the immediate sense, like a risk to the sort of local bureaucrats,

00:05:09.820 uh, uh, control of the situation that might, might lead to, you know, embarrassment or problems for them.

00:05:16.260 But in the bigger picture, it's also like kind of a challenge to the state itself,

00:05:20.920 uh, because it is, it is highlighting the extent to which the state is not serving the people in this really basic way.

00:05:28.760 And it is made much more dramatic when it is cast in relief against the quantities of money and support that we are just throwing hand over fist overseas.

00:05:42.440 Yeah. You can imagine a world in which the government just doesn't have the ability to solve all these things or runs out of money in some way,

00:05:51.800 but it's a very strange thing when you observe our Congress finding hundreds of billions of dollars for Ukraine,

00:05:59.440 finding all kinds of money for Israel, finding all kinds of money.

00:06:03.180 We just, they're just announced that they're sending money to Lebanon.

00:06:06.520 You know, we're very concerned about the modernization and the readiness of Lebanon while people in North Carolina are drowning.

00:06:13.120 Like, you know, there's a lot to be said.

00:06:15.900 There's debates about foreign aid and, and what the value is of kind of, uh, the projection of power through the global American empire.

00:06:23.940 But it's really that stark contrast.

00:06:26.320 That's just devastating.

00:06:27.680 And there are a lot of people debating, okay, did FEMA send the exact money that was earmarked for this relief aid to, to these illegal immigrants?

00:06:36.420 Are they, you can chase down all those dollars.

00:06:38.720 I have people who are documenting it, documenting that I want to bring them on and that's going to happen.

00:06:43.580 But today we're not here to hash out every little earmark and whether the money is flowing exactly where it's supposed to be.

00:06:49.840 The point is that when the government needed to draw funds for the empire, it can find them.

00:06:56.060 It can find them all day, all at once.

00:06:58.500 And then you get someone like my work is stepping up and saying, oh, sorry, we're just out of money for the actual thing.

00:07:03.380 The government is supposed to do.

00:07:05.100 Like it's basic job is there's a disaster.

00:07:07.940 That's too big for your locality to take care of it.

00:07:10.940 That's where we step in.

00:07:12.140 This is just basic government one-on-one functioning.

00:07:15.600 And it's got infinite money to send the, to pay the, the, the bureaucrats in Ukraine to pay off their pensions and these kinds of things.

00:07:22.140 But, but it doesn't have money to do that.

00:07:24.740 And it just becomes very clear that whether a specific dollar amount was properly allocated or maybe, maybe too much went to some foreign country.

00:07:32.760 Ultimately, what's really important is that when the people that the government is designed to serve or supposed to serve are in desperate need, it simply can't find that money more.

00:07:42.420 Just the, the, the infinite well of money just ran dry.

00:07:45.000 Yeah, and it's, well, I mean, it's, it's sort of a problem that they have created for themselves, at least in terms of messaging, where all of these fiscal crises, all of these like monetary problems, all of these foreign policy problems, they're, anyone who says, you know, hey, this is an irresponsible use of like the, the sort of the treasury,

00:08:13.680 the, the, the, the, the, the, the state's wealth and state's resources has been answered for like 15 years with like, well, there's infinite money in the federal reserve.

00:08:25.340 There's, it's like this system is not constrained by money.

00:08:29.400 Um, and what that, what that paradigm of the way money works, what that paradigm is intended to obfuscate is the sense in which every printing of money is a dilution, right?

00:08:46.100 There is, you're always taking resources from somebody to distribute to somebody else.

00:08:49.960 And so, uh, they have had a long time where, frankly, a lot of the, uh, the people who, uh, had their stuff taken from them were overseas.

00:09:03.160 Um, in terms of what, what our monetary policy, uh, how it actually cashed out in outcomes for, for people.

00:09:11.240 Um, and so they never had to make a lot of like internal compromises.

00:09:15.360 They never had to say no to this party to say yes to that party. 0.83

00:09:19.700 And, um, I, I'm not convinced that like, in this case, they really, like, there was a, like, I don't think, uh, secretary Mayorkas was like, oh shit, I'm sorry. 0.97

00:09:32.300 Oh, oh no.

00:09:32.920 I'm actually out of money.

00:09:34.140 Like, I actually check, check, check the pocketbook.

00:09:37.120 And there was just a little fly cartoon flies coming out, you know?

00:09:40.580 Right, right, right.

00:09:41.420 Which, which, which leads to kind of a darker conversation about like, why would they not, why would they not do this?

00:09:48.060 Particularly in an election year, particularly when there's, uh, ostensibly so much on the line politically.

00:09:56.020 Um, I mean, it's a bunch of swing States.

00:09:59.320 Allegedly.

00:09:59.920 Well, and the really telling thing is they said explicitly, well, we're just not going to build back in those regions.

00:10:05.080 Right.

00:10:05.980 Like we've got, you know, what, what does that mean?

00:10:08.900 Which reasons in particular, why those regions are not worth building back?

00:10:13.240 We're, we're building housing for illegal immigrants in Ohio.

00:10:17.240 You know, with that, they're, they're enriching the community.

00:10:20.440 What, why, you know, and it becomes, like you said, that unfortunately is a very sinister discussion here where we start to recognize, oh no, they don't want to do this.

00:10:28.780 Like they could find, uh, if we shook the federal reserve couch cushions, you could find the money to pay for the rebuilding of Georgia and North Carolina.

00:10:37.940 They don't want to, they hate these people.

00:10:40.980 They, they want them, their communities to fail.

00:10:43.580 They want to replace them.

00:10:44.600 It's hard not to draw that conclusion when looking at all the other things we seem to be able to find money for.

00:10:51.480 But yeah, and I think there's probably an extent to which, uh, it's a football.

00:10:57.820 It's sort of like how, um, the, the U S military loses all its war games, because when you lose war games, you get to go back to appropriations and get a pile of money to, to make it so that America will win the war game.

00:11:11.440 Like there's probably an extent to which this is just sort of, um, you know, uh, the baby bird asking to be fed, right?

00:11:20.120 Like I'm out of money.

00:11:21.140 I need, I need, uh, I need Congress right away to, to write a check, to expand my fee.

00:11:26.860 Um, so like I, you know, I can imagine there being sort of less sinister explanations if the money actually does show up.

00:11:35.900 Right.

00:11:37.820 And they, they, you know, they ride in, they save the day Congress, you know, figure something out and, and these areas do get rebuilt.

00:11:45.180 If that's the case, then you would say, I was just sort of bureaucratic, uh, you know, uh, shenanigans.

00:11:54.420 Right.

00:11:55.240 But, uh, but yeah, if the money doesn't show up, then you got, then you really start to ask like, what, uh, what's really going on here?

00:12:03.180 Well, the other, go ahead.

00:12:04.740 Oh, sorry.

00:12:05.120 Go ahead.

00:12:05.900 I was just going to say, what's cool about it, uh, if there's anything cool about it is, is watching the way that Americans have responded.

00:12:13.760 Um, because it's, it's very, uh, there's a lot of spontaneous organization happening and that spontaneous organization is, is like multi-purpose.

00:12:27.260 Like it doesn't, the, the, the people who are forming bonds right now and establishing themselves as credible and competent, uh, in a, in a crisis.

00:12:35.040 Those, those, those people, uh, the, the, the, the, uh, uh, social power that they are building in this crisis does not go away when the crisis is over.

00:12:46.100 Um, and that's, that's, that's sort of the thesis of, of the post, which is that, that, uh, the way the mandate of heaven is, is, is reclaimed, uh, sort of from an incumbent is, uh, it, it rarely starts with a fight.

00:13:01.640 It usually starts with being credible and competent in ways that the state is not.

00:13:08.420 Um, and, and, and, and establishing yourself, you know, not as a, uh, not as an agent of chaos and agent of destruction, but as the, the guarantors of good order, guarantors of, of public safety and public health and sort of, uh, sliding into roles that the state is not fighting you over roles.

00:13:31.660 The state is abdicated and, um, this is a situation where, you know, FEMA, et cetera, like they're trying to push back.

00:13:46.700 They're trying to sort of, uh, stop this help from getting through, but they really can't like, like in, in, in broad strokes, like they can threaten, they can sort of, you know, warn people.

00:14:01.460 People cajole people, but like, they're actually not going to like jail people for trying to bring disaster supplies to a disaster area.

00:14:11.240 Like, I just, I don't, I don't see that happening as, as, as, as malicious as you might think they are.

00:14:17.000 This is still a media managed state.

00:14:20.780 Um, and part of the chaos of our present situation, part of what makes it so volatile and interesting.

00:14:29.240 Is that they are no longer in complete control of the, uh, instruments that generate the narrative.

00:14:39.240 And so, you know, as, as, as malicious as you may believe them to be, they face a lot of constraints.

00:14:46.000 And one of the constraints is they're going to let this help get through.

00:14:49.400 Um, yeah, you included this picture, uh, which I think might be the picture of the, of the disaster.

00:14:57.480 Like for me, that kind of solidifies what's going on here, the mules carrying, you know, supplies over the mountain when, when nothing else can get through.

00:15:06.260 And it, it, there's a couple of incredible things happening here.

00:15:10.860 First, the idea that any government would actively restrict aid in a disaster is just absolutely wild.

00:15:20.280 And when you recognize, you know, at first people, Oh, how, why would you do this?

00:15:24.240 Well, that doesn't even make sense.

00:15:25.480 Like it's hard to even fathom it.

00:15:27.380 And then you slowly realize, Oh no, this is an industry for these people.

00:15:31.400 You know, there, there's a list of preferred, uh, charities.

00:15:34.460 There's a list of preferred, uh, vendors that get supplies.

00:15:37.860 People are getting rich every time FEMA walks into these places.

00:15:41.660 These aren't, it's not an accident.

00:15:43.480 This is a cash grab.

00:15:45.220 Every time they go in to do disaster relief, this is Southern reconstruction.

00:15:49.200 Who gets the, who gets, who gets to rebuild the, the, the rail lines, who gets to reorder the economy.

00:15:55.700 That's what's happening here.

00:15:57.240 And so the reason that they're pushing back is not just that, Oh, well, you know, we just don't like these people and we don't want to help them.

00:16:05.160 But because their plan is actively saying, no, we need to isolate the assistance so that it only flows from us.

00:16:13.380 Only we get credit.

00:16:14.780 Only we make money.

00:16:16.060 Only we have access.

00:16:17.880 And so that's really the motivation here.

00:16:20.460 And when you see all these amazing people stepping up and doing heroic feats to make sure that their fellow Americans are safe.

00:16:28.340 And you have a government saying, Oh no, no, no, we don't do that.

00:16:31.140 That we're in charge.

00:16:32.360 You, you have to push up.

00:16:33.420 That, that is something that is so, and like you said, they can't stop all of this.

00:16:38.100 Ultimately, there's just no way to do it.

00:16:39.920 But the fact that they would even try that they would even, even put that just as so incredibly damning that I don't have words deficient, sufficiently explain the level of evil.

00:16:50.980 But, but ultimately it really is understanding that tied in with all that money and tied in with that system.

00:16:59.500 Ultimately, as you point out is sovereignty.

00:17:02.320 Sovereignty is dependency.

00:17:05.000 Those that are dependent on a system.

00:17:08.360 Those are dependent on a group.

00:17:10.280 Those that are dependent on a government, that person, that group, that government are sovereign over them.

00:17:16.460 And if those people in that region aren't dependent on the federal government, if help comes from elsewhere, then that is power that the government is losing.

00:17:27.600 And they recognize that just as much as we do.

00:17:30.740 They know that that is something that they are failing to achieve when they lose control and other people actually help.

00:17:37.060 Yeah, and there's a comparison to be drawn to the anarcho-tyranny in the cities with police sort of standing down and refusing to prosecute criminals.

00:17:50.760 Like, most of us grew up in an environment where...

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00:18:27.400 Sort of interfering with that process of law enforcement was, like, almost unthinkable and, like, very unwise.

00:18:37.720 And few people even contemplated it.

00:18:40.700 And when, you know, the summer of love went down, a lot of people started to realize, like,

00:18:48.720 Oh, like, these police officers are actually not here to protect us from criminals.

00:18:54.500 They're to protect the criminals from us.

00:18:56.440 They're to prevent us from stopping this, from getting involved, because that would be a major power leakage.

00:19:01.100 And, you know, in earlier times, when, you know, law enforcement felt like it was executed competently and more or less in the interests of the community,

00:19:13.580 I don't think most of us really pushed back on, like, the monopoly on violence.

00:19:18.020 We were, like, sort of like, well, yeah, you know, that's who's in charge and you don't want to interfere.

00:19:21.800 And with, with, because you can make it more complicated.

00:19:24.560 You can make it dangerous.

00:19:25.360 Like, like, the stuff FEMA is saying about, like, oh, yeah, you're messing up our flight paths or you're, you know, you're getting in the way and you're creating problems.

00:19:33.740 Like, that's all true.

00:19:34.840 Um, and if FEMA were actually, like, on top of it and handling it competently and didn't seem like they were, you know, like, actively trying to impede, uh, people getting help.

00:19:49.140 Then I think we would all go, like, oh, yeah, you know, you should probably go through the proper channels and you should probably, you know, make sure you report to your designated, you know, because, because you would believe that, like, you would actually be put to work in some kind of a useful way.

00:20:00.920 Um, I mean, I did that, uh, in, in 2005, I was, uh, graduating senior in high school and me and a buddy, uh, went down after hurricane Katrina to Houston and just, uh, kind of walked around until somebody put us to work.

00:20:15.820 And, and yeah, it was like the official channels.

00:20:17.620 There was official, you know, for all the, for all the talk about how, um, you know, chaotic the, the, the Katrina situation was, you know, there, there were people who could, who could put us to work and we felt like we were doing good.

00:20:28.020 And, uh, yeah, in this case, it's very much like, no, stay away.

00:20:34.380 Like, don't like, don't, don't get involved.

00:20:36.300 Don't help.

00:20:36.820 We don't need your help.

00:20:37.660 We don't want your help.

00:20:38.520 And we're also not going to help.

00:20:39.800 Like, that's exactly right.

00:20:43.760 That you have this moment where, okay, the coordinated effort is more efficient.

00:20:48.680 Yes.

00:20:48.940 It does actually make more sense for these things to flow.

00:20:51.900 There's a reason you set up this architecture.

00:20:54.200 If you actually plan to do the work, right.

00:20:57.780 But as you say, same, the same problem you're having, you know, people are being denied aid or being turned away when they try to help in North Carolina for the same reason, Daniel Penny is in jail.

00:21:10.200 Yes.

00:21:10.720 Right.

00:21:11.280 It's exactly the same.

00:21:12.160 It's, it's, it's because they represent an alternative to a system that has decided it's no longer doing that job and no one else is allowed to do it either.

00:21:23.700 It's not, it's not that it exists and it's just, uh, you know, there's a, you know, some problem somewhere.

00:21:28.700 It's like, no, we're actively not going to do this, but we can't let you do that because that will make us look bad.

00:21:35.960 It will mess up our plan.

00:21:37.620 And so we're not going to do it.

00:21:39.660 We're going to hold this, but you can't do it either.

00:21:41.860 And, and this is really where that crack forms.

00:21:44.940 And I want to get deeper into that with you.

00:21:46.340 Cause like you said, in the piece that creates opportunity for leadership.

00:21:50.440 And I think that's the really critical thing.

00:21:52.420 Obviously the, the problems, the issues, the, the downright atrocities that are happening with our government and these disaster efforts.

00:22:00.080 And what I can imagine is only going to be much worse as what's right now.

00:22:03.820 Category five is bearing down on Florida, planning to go up a, a corridor that has already been hit by this storm, uh, or the, the previous storm in a similar way.

00:22:15.240 This, this could only get worse.

00:22:17.060 And we're, we're speaking slightly into the future, but those watching this are probably knowing right now how bad things are getting.

00:22:22.420 But I want to get into that, that possible opportunity for leadership in these moments.

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00:22:47.540 Their end game really is to pack the court.

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00:22:54.960 The frightening thing is that come January, their plan could become our nation's reality.

00:22:59.800 Simple majority votes in the House and the Senate combined with the President's signature could turn their plan to pack the court into law.

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00:24:10.180 So as you already pointed out, you have these moments where regimes start to lose a grip.

00:24:19.240 And it's not because necessarily there's some immediate conflict.

00:24:23.800 There's not that civil conflict breaks out right away.

00:24:26.880 It's that in these areas that are domains of sovereignty for the state, there's a failure.

00:24:34.580 There's a competition because a space has opened up.

00:24:38.320 It's weak regimes that see this kind of failure, not strong ones, not competent ones.

00:24:43.560 And so what a lot of people observed, of course, in the case of, say, Ron DeSantis in Florida, is that a moment where the pandemic was clearly being used for political gain, where enemies were being punished and the aid was being withheld and people were being treated in ridiculous ways.

00:25:01.880 He carved out this safe space, the safe moment for Floridians and many people concentrated there.

00:25:09.660 And the reason that DeSantis continued to build momentum is in these moments, whether it be, you know, the culture war with Disney, whether it be schools and education and DEI and gender stuff, in every one of these moments where the state was trying to force these things down and there's no other resistance, he stepped in.

00:25:29.120 And again, you see this with hurricane stuff.

00:25:31.980 Again, two years ago in my area, we had a devastating hurricane.

00:25:35.620 They were told that the bridges to the barrier islands, which still had large populations on them, were completely wiped out and they would be out for years.

00:25:43.660 And DeSantis said, rip out every permit, get rid of all of it.

00:25:47.160 I don't care.

00:25:48.340 Make it happen.

00:25:49.320 Whatever it takes, whatever the budget is, whatever the manpower is, I don't care.

00:25:53.580 It happens.

00:25:54.260 And these things went up in weeks and months instead of years.

00:25:57.680 And that's the kind of thing that gains you loyalty, right?

00:26:02.220 For someone who grew up in this area and loves this area and watch that happen, that is something that puts me ride or die when it comes to DeSantis being a governor in my area.

00:26:13.420 And even though, you know, we've got another devastating hurricane coming this direction, I know we're going to be in a better place than Georgia or North Carolina is, if only because the competent leadership that exists there is going to make a huge difference.

00:26:26.520 And I think that's the kind of thing that you're talking about in that article, where that opportunity to build those local and regional power structures really pushes back against the state as a whole.

00:26:38.080 Yeah.

00:26:38.700 I mean, several of the examples that I've used on my podcast, I mean, I've talked about Taliban, I've talked about Hezbollah, which, you know, obviously don't endorse Taliban or Hezbollah.

00:26:49.360 But viewing them as alternative power structures that are pushing against an overwhelmingly militarily superior opponent and winning, that's something that's worth studying.

00:27:03.440 And in both cases, you find that, like, a lot of times it gets chalked up to like, oh, you know, they just, they won because they were so ruthless.

00:27:14.780 They won because they were, they were so, you know, willing to go places we wouldn't go.

00:27:20.540 And maybe there's some truth to that in some domains, but, but, but really, it was about the provision of services that the existing power structure could not provide.

00:27:30.960 Like, like, a lot of people don't know that Hezbollah started as like clinics and schools and like, like job help, like, like job training, like, like an NGO.

00:27:42.960 And they started doing like neighborhood watch patrols, which when the civil war broke out, became, you know, militias.

00:27:50.040 And then once there was war with Israel, they were sort of able to justify holding on to their armaments while the whole rest of the country disarmed.

00:27:59.420 Because they were like, well, we're right on the border with Israel, we have to keep fighting this war with them. 1.00

00:28:03.280 And of course, they ended up like actually deliberately prolonging that war so they could hang on to their weapons.

00:28:07.560 But, but, but it's about establishing themselves as the place you go.

00:28:17.120 Like, if you, if you, if you're, if your home got bombed out by artillery or rocket, you found your like Hezbollah neighborhood rep, and he would like quote out, you know, here's what needs to be done to rebuild your house.

00:28:29.620 And, you know, here's how we're going to, you know, get you, make sure you got groceries for the next couple of weeks.

00:28:33.780 And, and, you know, if, if, you know, if you lose your job, you go to your Hezbollah guy, like that's who you go to. 0.96

00:28:39.220 And similarly with the, with the Taliban, a big part of what they would do to get people bought into their program was they would go to bat for you with respect to like your water rights or your grazing rights.

00:28:54.220 And they would say like, we're running the, you know, like, like, like, Kabul has their, like, equivalent of a county recorder who says, you know, where all the water rights are and where the, where the sort of boundary lines for the land are.

00:29:09.680 And, you know, they've got theirs, but like, you know, local warlords and bureaucrats are like just stuffing their pockets and, and, you know, drawing the lines, however they want them.

00:29:20.060 But we're going to be like, honest and fair, and we're going to actually have like Islamic courts that, that, that hash out who things belong to.

00:29:29.880 And so then, you know, the guy who, who owns some, some grazing rights in some territory that's contested, you know, when the Taliban comes and says like, hey, it's time to put a rifle in your son's hand and have him go fight for us.

00:29:41.440 He's, he's not exactly fighting for like Sharia or the caliphate or, or, or, or the, the, the, the warlords interests.

00:29:49.200 He's fighting for his own water rights.

00:29:50.780 He's fighting for his well or his sheep or whatever it is.

00:29:53.480 And so by, by providing this like very seemingly pedestrian, like essentially like counter county recorder's office type service, they were able to get a ton of buy-in and, and that, that space was opened up precisely because the Kabul government was failing to give people sort of recourse justice in, in terms of these land disputes.

00:30:17.160 And it was, and it was just obviously corrupt and everybody knew it.

00:30:20.260 And so, uh, similarly, uh, the, the alternative power structures that emerge, uh, from, from these crises, you look at, you look at South Africa as well.

00:30:34.920 Like, like the fact that, um, I had, I had a podcast episode with canine Reaper, who's a, I think he calls himself a community safety activist.

00:30:42.480 Um, there's lots of like euphemisms for basically they're like, they're like private police and, and they're able to like, they're able to exercise so much more latitude in terms of like their sec, not their second amendment rights, but they're, they're, they're, they're right to bear arms.

00:30:59.180 They're right to, uh, protect themselves with weapons, um, than Americans are just because the state can't really contest those rights and actually needs their help just to maintain basic order.

00:31:11.440 And so, uh, you know, when people talk about like, like the, the, the problem with like the, the militia movement in the nineties, and I mean, there was a lot of problems with it, but one of the problems was that they were trying to contest space that the federal government was still, uh, competently executing and defending.

00:31:33.060 And so the difference between those guys and like the South African community safety guys is the South African community safety guys are doing something that like everybody acknowledges is an urgent present need.

00:31:46.880 Like for everybody, like for everybody, including the government, even, you know, the government may, you know, hate people who look like canine Reaper because he's a, he's a white guy, he's English. 0.51

00:31:56.480 Um, but it doesn't matter because they actually need the help.

00:31:59.400 They actually, they actually value what he's doing.

00:32:00.920 And so he's free to do that.

00:32:02.600 And then like, you've got the Orania guys who are building like a, uh, Afrikaner only community.

00:32:07.320 You have to be of Afrika, like Dutch descent and speak Afrikaans.

00:32:10.600 And like, they're able to do that.

00:32:12.800 And that would never be permitted in the U S because of the decline of state power in South Africa.

00:32:18.660 And, and so I guess the, the, the point of the whole piece was like the way to build power is by being useful and doing things that everybody acknowledges need to be done.

00:32:30.720 There's this kind of like Jordan Peterson, like clean up your room, uh, uh, character to it.

00:32:35.880 Like, you know, take, take responsibility for something that nobody else is taking responsibility for.

00:32:41.160 And like, one of the cool things about living through a catastrophic, like competency crisis and failure of all our institutions is that there's all kinds of responsibilities being abdicated right now.

00:32:52.320 And, um, so it's a target rich environment.

00:32:55.760 Yeah.

00:32:56.020 There's obviously nothing great about living through the collapse of a certain form of civilization.

00:33:01.500 You know, we're, we're, we should acknowledge this from the output.

00:33:04.040 We're not rooting for necessarily like dour outcomes that come.

00:33:08.180 This is not saying, yeah, we're, no, we're going to miss, we're going to miss having everything, uh, centralized.

00:33:13.240 We're going to miss, uh, the, we're going to miss these central institutions that, that provided all these services.

00:33:18.940 Uh, that's going to be really rough.

00:33:21.260 But, but what it's about is like, you know, where do you look for the opportunity?

00:33:24.960 How, how do you, how do you get yourself and the people you care about squared away?

00:33:28.700 Yeah, there's, there's a lot of people who said, you know, we were in these kind of online spaces and they say, well, okay, that's great.

00:33:37.800 We've got all the theory, but what do we do?

00:33:39.860 What, what does it look like to apply this?

00:33:42.280 What does it look like to make a difference in a real way?

00:33:44.820 We know that a lot of the politics is fake.

00:33:46.860 We know that winning an election is not in and of itself a real victory.

00:33:51.140 So what does actual progress look like?

00:33:54.080 And the answer is something that they don't want to hear, but it's absolutely correct, which is what you just said.

00:34:00.200 Okay.

00:34:00.860 Yeah, you can, you, you can go vote, go cast your vote for Donald Trump or whatever.

00:34:05.240 That's fine.

00:34:06.240 But then work with an organization, build an organization, create an organization in your community.

00:34:12.720 That fills a need, that fills a hole, that takes care of something that no one else has taken care of.

00:34:17.860 When the first hurricane, you know, just a couple of years ago hit my hometown, my church became the church for the area.

00:34:26.160 Like if you needed, you need, okay, how do we get something repaired?

00:34:29.460 Where do we go for food?

00:34:30.880 Where do we go?

00:34:31.720 You went to this church, right?

00:34:33.400 That's the one thing people know about it.

00:34:35.500 And when this hurricane comes again, I promise you, people are going to be looking to that church and say, how do we solve this problem, right?

00:34:44.640 That is critical.

00:34:46.760 That is, that is something that no election can buy you, right?

00:34:50.320 That, that is a reputation for order, for stability, for competence.

00:34:55.780 It's that simply, you can't get through just some kind of political process in and of itself.

00:35:01.560 This is politics in its most basic and most organic creation.

00:35:06.560 And so you're absolutely right to say that, you know, we're, we're not excited about, you know, as I've pointed out in my own book, the total state, when it comes apart, most people are going to be in a terrible place.

00:35:17.340 They're not going to be ready.

00:35:18.480 They're not going to be prepared for this moment when these things come apart.

00:35:21.540 But it is this moment now where guys can build these things, where people can step up and take that responsibility that will allow your community to succeed through these things.

00:35:32.380 And it will be the intentionality that you put towards this stuff and your willingness to do the work and assume this responsibility that no one else is willing to assume that will make the difference when things like a hurricane, a natural disaster, or some other failing of the federal government affects your area.

00:35:48.420 You will build that reputation.

00:35:49.780 You will build that credibility and people will rely on you along with, of course, you doing the very good thing that you are doing on top of that in order to create a situation where your community is a better place and you have real leadership.

00:36:04.200 You know, there's something that, that, that matters.

00:36:06.260 It's not just votes tallied somewhere.

00:36:08.480 It is a tangible thing that saved your community.

00:36:11.600 People remember that kind of stuff.

00:36:13.000 They, they, they go to bat for that kind of stuff.

00:36:16.060 Absolutely.

00:36:16.460 And yeah, and I think when you're talking about that sort of being the foundation of the state, I totally agree.

00:36:20.460 I think a lot of people have, because they're, because they're very jaundiced with respect to our present government, they sort of take a negative view of, of, of states in themselves or even of power.

00:36:35.320 Um, but I would argue that like, when you, when you, when you sort of read about like the primordial origins of the state, it's like, it's like primarily like families and tribes trying to take care of themselves and trying to take care of each other.

00:36:50.140 And, um, the people who rise to the top are not always like bandits and raiders.

00:36:58.460 Like they're very often like sort of the, the, the, the dragon slayer, the, the, the, I've got this, this, uh, verse, um, that black and orange thing in the back there.

00:37:08.120 You can't read it obviously, but it's Isaiah 58.

00:37:10.460 Um, it's my favorite scripture and talks about, um, being the repairer of the breach and the restorer of paths to dwell in.

00:37:16.160 Um, and I think that's sort of the role that we should see for ourselves is, uh, and, and it talks about inheriting the waste places.

00:37:26.920 Um, it's, it's a very, it's a very powerful scripture.

00:37:30.300 And I, I think it, it's, it's almost like an instruction manual for what we're trying to be.

00:37:35.180 Um, so, so yeah, uh, be, be of service, be useful, be credible.

00:37:39.960 And like, you know, in my case, um, I have never been, you know, I'm, I'm not a pipe hitter.

00:37:47.260 I, I, I don't know how to like, you know, clear a door or anything.

00:37:51.040 Um, so, so what I have tried to do is to connect the most useful people that I can and, and help them help each other and, and, and connect them with resources, connect them with funding.

00:38:03.260 Like, like, like be kind of in between, um, because I'm not all that useful in a concrete sense myself.

00:38:12.160 Um, so, so, but, but I mean, like when you look at, when you look at who succeeded in the, uh, the collapse of the Soviet Union in, in the civil war in the, the Balkans, um, even, even in South Africa, any, any, any period of like extended chaos.

00:38:29.920 Um, it's not necessarily, it's, it's usually not like the people who bugged out to a farm who do well, who thrive.

00:38:40.720 Uh, it's usually the people who like figured out how to get stuff, who like figured out like how to, you know, if you, if you needed to get a friend through a checkpoint or you needed, you needed a connection on some cigarettes or some vodka or some diapers or, you know, all kinds of things.

00:38:57.060 Um, the people who knew how to get stuff and how to, and how to solve problems for other people.

00:39:02.540 Um, that was who really thrived.

00:39:04.920 And, you know, obviously some of those people were like also criminals.

00:39:08.380 And so like, you can, uh, I guess what I would say is.

00:39:13.040 Well, you know, talking about Taliban, talking about Hezbollah, we're talking about like the, the, the Russian mafia and the, who became the oligarchs.

00:39:19.180 Like, we're not saying like, these are, these are great people who are exemplary in all ways, but like, uh, it's not, um, the way to power is not strictly just by being like the most monstrous.

00:39:36.060 Uh, the way to power is by finding ways to be useful.

00:39:38.760 And like, sometimes the people who are the most useful, like are also, you know, bad people in other ways, but like, you can just be useful.

00:39:46.580 Yeah.

00:39:47.020 There, of course, you know, a lot of people look at the state and they just see the monopoly on violence.

00:39:51.640 And of course that matters.

00:39:52.660 It's a, that's a, a deeply, we're not dismissing any of that.

00:39:56.120 And that's why often it takes, you know, these organizations that you're talking about to, to route, to rival and challenge things.

00:40:03.320 Right.

00:40:03.540 But ultimately that is not the only thing that the state does.

00:40:06.480 In fact, it's arguably not the most important thing that it does.

00:40:10.140 Yes.

00:40:10.340 You have that arm.

00:40:11.520 Yes.

00:40:11.680 You have that capacity, but it is really, again, the, the ability to make civilization possible, to facilitate these things, to be the resolver of problems in any given, better be a material, whether it be social, whatever it is.

00:40:26.020 You're the person that people turn to.

00:40:27.980 You're the organization that people assume will be in charge.

00:40:31.460 You're the one that is going to step into that breach.

00:40:33.980 And in these moments where the state is failing or choosing to fail, or, you know, whatever, however you want to, you know, parse the incompetency or malice, you know, a debate.

00:40:47.480 Ultimately, when those positions open up and those opportunities open up, when people are yearning for that need, that leadership and that guidance and that facilitation, the fact that you're standing there and you're willing to make a difference and you're willing to get that done is just going to put you on another level.

00:41:06.260 And I think it's really important for people to recognize that there are so many ways to do this, right?

00:41:11.420 Like you guys have the exit group.

00:41:13.280 There's the old glory club.

00:41:14.820 You can do this through your, through your church.

00:41:16.940 You can, you, there are many ways to organize these things, but you need to start thinking about that organization, right?

00:41:24.900 You need to have a place that people can notice that it can recognize who's doing this work.

00:41:29.700 How is it getting out?

00:41:30.620 You know, if we need something, we go to the exit guys.

00:41:32.740 If we need something, we go to the old glory club.

00:41:34.920 We need something.

00:41:35.880 We go to this church.

00:41:36.740 Like these are the, the social spheres that are exerting influence in our community and that we can rely on, on, on a regular basis, that it's essential to not just recognize that you need to, you know, take a step, but you need to find other people, like-minded people who are willing to bind together and do that and do the hard work when no one else will, because you're not, this is not a project you can just do on your own.

00:41:59.340 No, absolutely not.

00:42:03.540 Nobody can.

00:42:04.620 Like there's, we, we are, we are a hundred percent social creatures.

00:42:08.600 We are, we are built to, to live and work and act in tribes.

00:42:12.820 And I, I did a, I did a podcast about de-territorialization a while ago, which is kind of a big fancy word for sort of being shaken loose from your evolutionary context, the context in which all of your adaptations were developed.

00:42:26.560 Um, and so having to, having to sort of survive from first principles in an environment to which you are not well suited, uh, which is sort of where we're all heading.

00:42:36.980 And, um, one of the reasons that, uh, human beings are able to be knocked loose from pretty much any context and still be like the apex predator of, of whatever environment they find themselves in is our ability to, uh, intelligently problem solve and use technology and our ability to mob up and work together.

00:43:02.460 Um, essentially, you know, your, your, uh, your digits, your ability to manipulate the world with your, uh, with your hands and your ability to, to lead and organize others with your voice.

00:43:13.360 And so, uh, essentially exits all about that.

00:43:16.400 It's, it's about, it's about developing both of those skillsets, making us more competent, uh, sort of shape rotators and word cells as it were.

00:43:24.660 Um, and maybe your audience doesn't know what that means, but, but, but, but, but it's a very online set of phrases.

00:43:32.300 Yeah.

00:43:32.420 It's a very online set of phrases, but better able at manipulating the physical world and better able to, to organize socially.

00:43:39.940 Um, because that's, that's what's, it's really, uh, given like, it's not just this one thing.

00:43:46.860 It's not just the state, it's not just, um, the sort of the AI revolution.

00:43:51.640 It's not just, you know, the potential for nuclear war.

00:43:54.920 Um, it's like the idea that you can predict what the environment is going to look like for your kids, uh, in like 15 years.

00:44:04.800 Uh, it's, it's impossible.

00:44:06.580 Um, the, the future is so, uh, volatile and so nebulous right now in a way that it maybe never has been before.

00:44:13.840 And so my, my sort of thinking is you got to look for what's meta adaptive.

00:44:18.060 You got to look for what's, for what makes us more adaptive, regardless of the circumstances.

00:44:22.540 Well, I hate to break this to you, but now James Lindsay is going to accuse you of being part of my globalist plan of regionalism.

00:44:29.080 We've done nothing but talk about regionalism today.

00:44:31.740 And that's exactly what the WDF wants us to think, right?

00:44:34.740 Like that's George Soas is really thinking, you know, if I can just get Kevin and Oren to devise this, you know, uh, system where groups work on their own and provide for their community, then I will have conquered the globe.

00:44:48.440 Uh, but we will, we'll have not done anything to dispel that, that conspiracy theory.

00:44:53.060 I take, I take cash, I take check, I take crypto, George, reach out.

00:44:57.820 Yeah.

00:44:58.040 Anytime.

00:44:59.160 Fun funder of exit.

00:45:00.380 You'll, you'll get, you get those Soros bucks.

00:45:02.060 And then as soon as you start doing the rainbow streak through the, yeah, I'll know, I'll know what's happened.

00:45:06.960 Yeah.

00:45:07.640 Slowly the exit flag is the, the, the, the rainbow flags on top instead of the.

00:45:11.860 It's got some chevrons on it.

00:45:13.400 Yeah.

00:45:13.620 It's circles.

00:45:14.820 Right.

00:45:15.520 It's very inclusive.

00:45:17.520 Uh, yeah.

00:45:18.280 Exit there. 0.77

00:45:18.980 Yeah.

00:45:19.820 All right, guys.

00:45:20.440 Well, we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up.

00:45:22.400 We would normally do the questions of the people, but of course this one is pre-recorded because of the hurricane.

00:45:28.180 I hope everyone is staying safe, uh, during this time.

00:45:31.520 Kevin, if people want to read your, this latest piece or find your work, where should they go?

00:45:36.160 Yeah.

00:45:36.380 So it's blog.exitgroup.us.

00:45:39.700 Excellent.

00:45:40.220 All right, guys.

00:45:40.700 Thank you everybody so much for watching.

00:45:43.160 If it's your first time on the YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe, click notification and the bell so that you know,

00:45:49.540 when the streams normally go live.

00:45:51.760 Uh, and of course, if you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, you need to subscribe to the Oro McIntyre show on your favorite podcast network.

00:46:00.340 Stay safe out there guys.

00:46:02.120 And as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - October 09, 2024

FEMA Failures and the Future of Disaster Response ｜ Guest： Kevin Dolan ｜ 10⧸9⧸24

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