Regional Conversations — 2026-05-11 part 1

Conversation between Kathy & Jesse part 1 — Kathy.

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Jesse 0:00

Welcome and enjoy. On our maiden voyage today, I would like to introduce you to my dear friend and comrade, Kathy McTavish. Kathy has been an activist and organizer in our area for a number of years and has worked in the technical and logistical field, applying her computer skills as a producer of websites, newsletters for numerous groups, and generating content and printed materials for indivisible groups as well as others around our area. You ready to have some fun? I am, Jesse.

Kathy 0:34

Good to be here with you.

Jesse 0:36

All right. So would you tell us what awakened your activism in organizing for positive change?

Kathy 0:46

Well, you know, it's interesting because we're probably a similar, we're of a similar age, right? So it's like as just as a young kid, I just remember seeing all this stuff around me, like the Vietnam War, the body counts, the Southern Poverty Law Center, dealing with um uh, you know, the prison industrial system, Angela Davis. There was all these things that were happening that as a kid, I, you know, I back then, right, there was like just a few channels that we'd all pay attention to on this grainy black and white TV, right? But um as a kid, like you don't really know what to make of it. But it seemed pretty clear that things were kind of screwed up. And I was a young, queer kid, so and I didn't know how to name that. And I was what we call back then like a gender bender, so um, like a little boyish kid, you know, and again, maybe a trans kid you'd call it now, but we didn't have we didn't have any names for names for that. So I was always kind of an outsider. And I um went to school in a community where there was like this class divide, you know, people that were very poor and and people that had more money, more wealth. And there was always a lot of bullying around, and I and so just as a young kid, I just had no room for for that at all. And um, and that's kind of remained this major impulse inside of me, you know, that um I don't abide by bullies.

Jesse 2:17

Uh-huh.

Kathy 2:18

And also, I you know, and and back then too, it's like as a kid, you don't know how to name that class thing that's happening, right? But as um, and I I dropped out of high school, I was a young queer kid. I dropped out of high school and I came of age in a pretty radical South Minneapolis community. Um, and think I met some queer community at that point, and I worked at this restaurant called Modern Times Cafe, which still is doing some. Oh, yeah. And which was so lucky from when I was like 17 to 20. And um, so I was around this really radical neighborhood. There was like in the basement, there was a printing press for the Farmer Labor Association. Upstairs the loft um writers organization was just getting started. Um, people would come in and have these conversations that were all about um, you know, just like there was a lot of class consciousness that I was around. So there was a lot of um, you know, gay liberation type things that were happening. The AIDS crisis was at at its that was peaking. And so there was um just all of these colliding things. There was women's peace camp that was taking place because Greenham Women's Common in England was taking the United States to court for crimes against humanity for our ramping up of nuclear armaments. And so I became, I just became involved in all these different places, and I was lucky that I was around elders that both gave me a way forward, but also helped me name things, but also humbled me, you know, like took me to task, you know, and and raised me up, taught me some things, schooled me on some things. And so I I feel really thankful for being the co-op movement. There were still small co-ops, buying co-ops in all the different neighborhoods. So I feel like I really it was like going to school and being schooled, right? And um so that was that was that was a really important part of my um kind of building, being able to name things, being able to build some critical consciousness around things and learning nonviolent direct action type of techniques. So I had participated in a lot of those things. And I did also some arts activism at that time as well. And so I had a lot of different jobs and I was involved in a lot of different community um resistance organizations building outside of mainstream type of things. That's kind of been the main thread in my life, no matter what else I'm I'm doing. It's like this this kind of commitment to social justice. And it like once you see it, you can't go back, right? Once you see like how wealth um inequality has has been building more and more and more, and the tools that are being built, like the prison industrial complex, like where the flows of money go, like things that destroy the earth, it's like you can't go back. And so um that's yeah, I guess that's I'm just thankful to a lot of people that kind of raised me up, taught me taught me how to name things and taught me what to do about it. That there's that we can build alternatives to what we see going on right now.

Jesse 5:22

That's beautiful, that's beautiful. All right. Would you tell us um when you think of two activists in particular who have shaped the course of your work, who were they?

Kathy 5:36

That's so hard because it's like I I do feel I feel like ordinary folks all around me, you know. And um, I was I never had a car, I was always walking, I was through the walking through spaces, just being raised up by these different community groups and people. Um, but I remember when I was 17, someone gave me Angela Davis's autobiography. And I at that point I was actually out of print for a little bit, and um uh that was huge, you know. It's hard to name particular people, although they certainly, you know, I've been certainly formed by specific people, but um, yeah, that that would be a hard one. But I do remember the the moment I opened up that autobiography of Angela Davis, I was I was changed. And she's been so important, right, with doing uh, you know, all of this, like naming all these connections between things, like being one of the early people to kind of really talk about that prison industrial comp complex. So a real leader in thinking about um how all of these systems work together.

Jesse 6:41

Yes, yes, indeed. Um what changes have you seen in uh the social justice movement since you began your work? Has it changed a great deal since you began, or has it morphed into something else, or is it is it are are you operating basically off of it? I mean, it seems like the times have changed a great deal since the time that you and I were growing up.

Kathy 7:13

But the right I think the tools have changed, the like um the things that the system that we're we find ourselves in. I think that a lot of things were co-opted a lot. So there was um this thing where we're all like we live in capitalism, and capitalism is really effective at taking um resistance movements and turning turning them into products that can be kind of um where their their potency, their power is just kind of diminished. For example, like as a queer person, like as a young dyke, I have to say I was in a very radical community that was thinking about class, it was thinking about race, it was thinking about all of these intersecting things, but not as something, you know, it's not that like when I was walking down the street, right? I just stood out. So I was harassed, I mean, it was hard to be, it was hard to come of age, I mean it was hard to be in the school I was in. I'm so all of those things were about my feeling and my need to develop another story about myself. That's true. But I felt like I was part of a larger movement. And I think that that um there's a way in which neoliberalism or like or or capitalism has taken, you know, like this identity piece and dulled its power and turned it into something that's more about the products that you purchase to show your you know, freak flag or whatever. I mean, it's like so it's more like it's products that you purchase or psychotherapeutic ways that you can, you know, take care of me, and which isn't to minimize. I mean, I really know what it's like to be bullied. So I'm not minimizing how difficult it is to come. And I and I also feel like coming of age in South Minneapolis, I mean, it's like the level of violence against um, like I was lived like along Franklin Avenue against umbi people in my neighborhoods, against black folks in my neighborhood. I mean, it was it's like huge, huge. The violence against um, you know, that that whole thing that happened around poverty, the racialization of poverty. I mean, that all of that was all around me. So it's not to minimize what it's like to be a young kid growing up within those systems, but your individual need to um, you know, to develop a self, to develop a healthy self. But there's something about it being then pawned off to enduled and co-opted into capitalist systems of that is just about feeling better individually that lost its some of its solidarity, lost some of its larger potency. And I and that's what's kind of exciting about right now, right? That it's like it feels like there is this upswell of yeah, we might be really different. We might be pissing each other off constantly. We might have ways in which we are so bumbling forward, being ignorant, making, you know, all of these things, brushing up against all this friction. And yet there's one thing that's happening here about around fascism, around the incredible distribution, you know, the distribution of wealth upwards, the incredible destruction of our environment, of the the water we drink, of the incredible extraction of our labor that leaves us just with, you know, left with not enough money to eat, you know, to feed our kids. I mean, all of that, like there's this thing that has mobilized us as a as or seen, allowed us to see a solidarity again. That's been kind of something that's I feel is in in recent this past year, you know, I feel like has been like we we actually we might all be different as neighbors, but no, you cannot kidnap my neighbor. No, you cannot, you know, like a concentration camp in my neighborhood. I feel like there's some way in which things are starting to connect and we're starting to see together this is like, even if we're really different, there's a big no here. We're not gonna go along with this fascism, we're not gonna go along with this incredible destruction of our communities and and our planet.

Jesse 11:42

Um which podcasters and substacks do you prefer to listen to? What are you are do you have any favorites?

Kathy 11:51

Um I like to I'm sort of I like to listen to a lot of strategy.

Jesse 11:58

Uh-huh.

Kathy 11:59

Like folks that talk about like I like a lot, I like critical theory a lot. I do like um like a I like folks that are just really incisive about kind of naming, naming what's happening around us, you know, naming their finger on what kind of what those structural things are that we're facing all around the world, and then have some ways forward, like some strategy ways forward, so that we think about not only how do we resist effectively, but also and how has resistance worked in the past, how is it different now? But also how do we build something better? How do we break out of the confines of our imagination, which have been so formed by capitalist upbringing, by neoliberalism? Like, how do we actually break out of that? And sometimes I think that critical insight, allowing the possibility of something, something new to take shape in our imaginations. I like those podcasts are and I also really like people that are very local. Um like um the the podcast that we both have listened to, um Mike's uh group is is talking about um mining. Um we'll make sure to put links to that particular podcast. Um local radio, you know, the voice of just really, really local folks talking about what's happening in our communities, uh or just playing music for each other or talking about the weather. I love that that that too.

Jesse 13:27

That is neat, that is good. Yeah, Mike is Mike is a really special guy, you know. He's he's like talking about sulfate mining, and it's like the other day I was at an event with him, and um, you know, we got to talking about it, and pretty soon all these other people started gathering around, and it was kind of like he he was just I mean, he it's like that's what he lives for. I mean, that's it, that's his passion. And he, I mean, and he'll he'll talk about it in in in in a knowledgeable way for a good long time. And it's kind of like it was like it was getting pretty intense, and you know, I'm an intense person myself, so I just but I but I eventually just thought, man, these guys are really into this and they're really talking. So I it you know, I had to I had to run off and do go do something else. But I mean it's he's fascinating. I mean fascinating things that he's talking about too.

Kathy 14:16

Yeah, they explain things that are are kind of hard to understand, right? I mean, some of them hard to understand, and so they just kind of break it down. Um, I just was watching some stuff too. Um uh this guy named Johnny, who's a filmmaker, um, out of like I met him through Shania out of like Ake and Grand Rapids. And but Johnny like has some had a um interview like with Liana Goose from Rise of Fair. It's really great, really great stuff. We have like a lot of folks that are doing, like I think that's what we we have to do, that right? We have to keep a hold on being the ones that shape our stories and being the ones that that we listen to during this time of this tsunami of misinformation, right? It just is really a gift to like I met Johnny, I trust Johnny. Like, so when I saw his work, it's like okay, I know who's giving me this information. Love rising here. So I know, like, you know, I've been following them for a while. It's really local information. I can see it with my own eyes, but they help me name it or give me a way forward of what to what kind of actions to do about it. And so um, yeah, there's something about doing that for each other, being each other's journalists, you know.

Jesse 15:30

Mm-hmm. Um what do you most fear about this moment in our country?

Kathy 15:39

The tools that are being used against us, like the surveillance tools are so profound, and also just the level of destruction of of our um of the planet, like can we come back from it, you know? Um, because we've sort of set these large forces in motion. So can we repair, you know, that rise of repair? Can we repair together? Can we do something? Can we repair? Um, and can we see it in time? Like, and and just the um the inequal inequities of wealth, can we have enough mass mobilization to topple that? Or do they just keep getting to buy more and more tools of that they use against us, you know, with prisons, surveillance, weapons, advertising, miss you know, information? Like now very few people own these huge platforms in which most of our communications and and news news media goes through. So it's like like can we can we mobilize quick quickly enough, powerfully enough to topple that? I think that's it feels that feels pretty I I don't remember ever feeling at that level. I've I've always felt like that we're hurling towards sort of a fascism, but um but it the tools are just so profound now. The concentration of wealth is so pro pro profound now.

Jesse 17:13

What so okay, so t tell me, is there anything at all that gives you any hope that we can come out of this? And what what what kinds of things would they be?

Kathy 17:24

The people, like what happened, Minneapolis and St. Paul, right? What um what's happening around water issues and activism around like we can't take this anymore. We can't just you can't keep squeezing us um for our labor without being able to afford any like all of our hospitals going away, all of our health care going away, no child care, no having to work three, four jobs and not being able and still not being able to make it. You know, it's like you can't, only a few people owning all the housing, you know, these huge um groups of people that are owning all the housing and jacking up the rents, and the people that are rising up against that, I think is that's where sometimes I just feel like some of this organizing, I just feel like I just love the people that I'm working with. I just feel they're so smart, they're so courageous, they're so loving, they're so giving, and that feels to me like that love feeling, you know.

Jesse 18:27

Uh-huh.

Kathy 18:28

I just I just that feels in the midst of grief, you know, that that feeling of this potency, that power that we have together is just really and just how courageous we are, you know? Um like that, that feels that feels hopeful.

Jesse 18:49

What do you think needs to change? I mean, what kind of changes would you wish to see? If we get if we come through this, there's a there's a whole notion about um reconstruction, about reimagining, reworking, re-constituting the form of government that we have, you know, that we were accustomed to. Even even through the seventies and eighties when it was on the way to destruction already. But like if you were gonna reconstruct um the form of government that we have right now, what kinds of things would you put on your priority list?

Kathy 19:35

Redistribution of wealth.

Jesse 19:37

Uh-huh.

Kathy 19:38

You know, in the in the light of some people making trillions of dollars, you know, like we can like just actually do the math. We can afford a lot. We can afford really a lot. If we just take from one individual, even we just took all of their money. Oh, I leave them some mansions because they probably couldn't live in an apartment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they probably don't know how to cook. So they so you know, like um, but basically, you just one person it would if you redistributed the wealth of just like five people, it would be incredible. If you do that, it would be incredible what we could afford, actually.

Jesse 20:14

Yeah, it would. I mean, I look I look at how how how Trump, for example, is um you know, whole you know, uh it goes into Iran and then he he totally miscalculates, totally miscalculates, doesn't listen, doesn't know anything, doesn't listen to anybody, goes in there and he's holding the whole god dang um planet hostage, you know, economically and all the rest of that over oil. Over oil, you know, and it's like it's all about it's all about the oil. And I'm sitting there going, there's something wrong with this picture. And how is it that one man can hold a whole world hostage, in you know, economically hostage, because he can't, you know, because he he he's not smart enough to figure it out. I just sit there, I wonder at this thing, you know. I mean, as an example, yeah. I think we're talking about the same thing, and so it's time for the people to take the power back. It's time for the people to take the power back. Right. And that's that's where that's where the con you know, where the you know, the preamble of the constitution tell we the people. It's all about we the people. Okay, so that that pretty much that pretty much covers everything. What else would you like to talk about today?

Kathy 21:30

Well, I would like you to talk about like what have you read this week? You know, what's up in the news this week for you?

Jesse 21:37

Oh well, let's see. I ordered from um there's a this is a place called Better World Book, and every time that you order a book from them, they purchase another book for someone else who who needs one and who is trying to read and who wants to read for the first time or doesn't have access to books because of their economic situation. So I ordered from Better World. Books today. A book by Studs Turkle called The Good War. And it was kind of like, and as primarily because when my dad is a World War II veteran, and he's he's a hundred years, he's gonna be he's a hundred years old, he'll be 101 in November. And um he's still very sharp. I mean, he's still a real sharp guy, but the one thing that he would never ever talk about was World War II, what it was like to fight in World War II. The only thing that he would say is I mean, he comes from a German background, and he grew up in a German household, and the people that were speaking or that that were living there spoke fluent German, and so he he knew how to speak German. So when he went over to the war, he he worked at he worked in intelligence, but he also worked for some of the officers and stuff. I mean, he was a he was a private, but he because he spoke because he spoke German, he he was able to intercept some of the messages that the Nazis were sending over. And one time somebody asked him at a party, they said, Yeah, so what was it like fighting against your own people? And he goes, I wasn't fighting against my own people, I was fighting against Nazis. He drew the distinction between the German people themselves who were also suffering at the hands of Nazism, and um, and the everyday, the everyday people that were just trying to get by, that were just trying to make it, who were blackballed because they they were put in uh the category of being unreliable people. They they were unreliable, they they they couldn't be trusted to uphold Nazism. And you had you had to take all these different oaths and stuff in order to uh work for the German government at the time and and to uphold the Nazi regime. He says, no, I I wasn't fight, I wasn't fighting against German people, I was fighting against Nazis, and there's a difference. He would never talk about any of that kind of stuff. So I thought, you know what, if I pick up Studsterkel's book, I might learn something about some of the things that he went through that he can't talk about. He was injured in the war, he got he got shot in the war by friendly fire and was sent back home again before he was done, but um before his his commission were his not his commission, but before his time was up in service. But um I was just thinking about, you know, I I just thought about that and I thought, man, I want to I want to know something more about first of all, I want to know something more about what he experienced or some of the things that he may have experienced, but I also wanted to know more about Stud's Kirkle. And I I love that guy, you know, I I love how he interviews people. Him, he and Terry Gross are probably the best interviewers I've heard on tele on on either television or or radio, that are just like, you know, it's like they they just let people talk, they just leave open-ended questions and they let people go and and um they let people be who they are and and be themselves. And that's that's my that's my goal. That's my goal with this podcast, is to make sure that you know I can bring out bring out the the the real in the in the people that that are here. So that's what I'm that's what I'm I'm looking forward to reading that. I just got done finishing up Hard Times, which is also a studs turkle book, about the depression. And that's kind of my the area where I have the greatest interest in American history anyway, about what it is to survive, about how what it takes to for a poor person to survive in the midst of a of an economic crisis and a dust bowl and prohibition and a whole bunch of other stuff that was going on in economic collapse. So I'm I've I've been reading those kinds of things right now. Is there anything else you'd like to share with us before we leave?

Kathy 26:06

No, this is it's great working with you.

Jesse 26:09

It's great working with you too. Thank you so much for being here with us today. We hope you've had that you have a fresh perspective as we journey together through our time today. Take what you need and leave the rest. Let us know how you feel about this podcast. If you have any topics you'd like us to talk about, please let us know. This is where you come in. You need to let us know what you like, what you need to hear, what you you know, what topics are are really playing a dynamic role in your life right now. We're trying to make this a bet a better podcast every time we meet. A gentle reminder our efforts cost money. So if you're able, please feel free to hit the donate button at the end of this podcast and make your contribution. Thank you for listening today. See you next time and keep hope alive.