This Week in the Apocalypse: October 19th, 2026

Hello and welcome to Live Like the World Is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your hosts today, Brooke Jackson, and with me is...

In May.

Woo woo woo woo! And if you're listening on Tuesday, you know what that means. That means it's This Week in the Apocalypse. Unfortunately, nothing apocalyptic has happened in the last week, and so we don't have an— just kidding, there's always something apocalyptic. Before we get into what's apocalyptic this week, we're gonna celebrate being a member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts by playing a jingle from one of the other Anarchist Podcast on the Channel Zero Network.

Yay, jingles! Jingle, jingle, jingle.

Jingle podcast, jingle podcast, jingle podcast here.

I made, like, a jingle tune for us, and I can't remember what it is now.

Oh, excellent. Teach it to me. I'll sing along.

Live like the world is dying. I don't know. It's a work in progress.

I think that's an existing tune.

It's probably— for everything, it's an existing tune.

This is true. This is very true.

Yeah.

Thankfully, we're not dying, even though the world around us is. And thankfully, there are other podcasts to listen to on the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts.

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12 Rules for What.

Inman has so much news today to share with us, and we are going to let them take the floor because any headlines I wanted to bring, they're like, oh, I'm talking about that already, because apparently we read the same news.

So this happened to me and Margaret once where we researched the exact same things without coordinating about it.

Nice.

Yeah, it was fun.

Well, I just woke up and was like, ooh, there was like protests and rioting and stuff in France, and it was massive over the weekend, and we definitely got to talk about that. And for some reason thought I was going to bring that to the table like a brilliant revelation and didn't think about like, oh, duh, Inman's gonna, gonna have researched that already because that's big news.

I told you I was doing that yesterday.

Oh man, what was yesterday? I don't remember yesterday. A lot's happened to me since yesterday, if I'm being honest.

Yeah, yeah, that's okay. That's okay. Do you have any? I've got a couple headlines too. Maybe I went overboard for this week. I don't know. A lot of stuff has happened. October's been crazy. October has been a crazy month so far.

Heard.

So my kind of big headlines, I think this is actually pretty old news at this point, and sometimes news is— the cycles that news takes is really strange sometimes. But back on October 2nd, which I'm realizing is 2 weeks ago— is over 2 weeks ago. Wow. And was not this past week. A lot of people have noted that ICE has been photographing a lot of people at demonstrations, especially people who have been arrested, but also just, like, people, you know? Like, out in the streets or, like, whatever. And they are feeding that information— all of that information into, like, Palantir-supported Oh, wow. And it's kind of like the same databases that, like, they've been using to, like, track people that they suspect are undocumented migrants. And it's— I don't know, it's like a weird and terrifying thing. And my big thing, especially against, like, Palantír, is— for those who don't know, Palantír is named after, like, these, like, magical seeing stones in Lord of the Rings. And there's like all these companies that Peter Thiel makes that are like named after things in Lord of the Rings, like Andúril, Palantír. Andúril's like a sort of magical sword, and Palantír are these like seeing stones. And the whole point in those books that Tolkien really hammers down is that the Palantírs are fucking sketchy and dangerous. And can mostly be used for no good. And so it's just really bizarre when people like Peter Thiel name shit after stuff in Lord of the Rings because I'm like, Tolkien would have fucking hated you.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like when— not the same, but when chatty people are super excited about The Punisher.

Totally.

Or Fight Club. And I'm like, you didn't understand. Yeah. You

didn't understand. My other headline, which, you know, maybe we should interview these people. So some folks set up a— we've all obviously been living in the horror of the NSPM-7, and there is now an NSPM-7 defendants unit— sorry, defendants union, which has dedicated itself to fighting the kind of politically repressive fallout of the NSPM-7. And their goals are to make NSPM-7 a household term, popularize a unified framework for fighting legal repression, speak about the subject under repression which can't speak for itself, and treat repression as an organizing terrain. And those are kind of their stated goals. And I don't know much about it, but sounds fucking rad. And, uh, Yeah, that's my other kind of headline.

Okay. Wow.

To kind of dive into some deeper stuff, though. Okay. So recently we covered a lot about Camp Oshkosh in Lokeel, Arizona, which was the site of this, like, sprawling border resistance camp, which not entirely— which, like, pretty effectively for, like, close to, like, 75 days, like, halted border construction along this, like, It's like this, like, 3-mile-ish strip of desert in Lokeel, Arizona.

Yeah.

And I'm not gonna recap everything that happened at Camp Oshkosh. If you want to hear about pretty much everything that's happened in those 75 days in a condensed timeline, then check out our report back from Camp Oshkosh in Lokeel, Arizona episode. It's just a few episodes back. And a lot has still just happened since that episode, which is that Camp Oshkosh has unfortunately ended. Some of that is due to a shifting terrain of, like, where the— it's like, where to resist, because they did kind of just build the wall through that area after evicting all the people who were sitting in trees and stuff. I'm feeling weirdly unarticulate this morning.

That's okay.

The end of Camp Oshkosh began after a tree sitter was taken from the Abuela tree in— which was the tree sit that was in Technically in Mexico. Hard to tell depending on who you ask in Mexico. I don't know. I mean, the tree is in Mexico. Mm-hmm. And this person ended their sit after having their platform and their provisions destroyed by the Mexican fire department. She was taken into custody shortly after descending Abuela by Border Patrol and charged with— she's out of custody now, but was charged with Violating a temporary closure order, which is a federal misdemeanor and is essentially a trespassing charge. Which, if that's all, then that's pretty fucking rad, and I hope that no more kind of like big scary charges emerge for anyone who's been involved in border resistance.

Mm-hmm. They were sitting in a tree that's in Mexico and arrested by US agents.

Yeah, which is also funny because, like, it's sort of like, leading up to it, you'd hear, like, people being like— I don't know, like, I watched this person, like, plead for their friend's life to Border Patrol, who, like, kind of just laughed and ridiculed them. This is, like, when it was like, like, who fucking knows what's about to happen? This person's just, like, in this tree, like, could fall, like—

Mm-hmm.

Has a safety maybe. And Border Patrol kept being like, well, that's not our thing. Like, we're not— that's up to, like, the Mexican authority— authorities. But then it's like, after this person descended the tree, they were, like, taken into custody by Border Patrol. Of course. It's just this, like, blame-shifting thing, you know? Yeah. It's like, oh, we can't do anything about that. And it's like, don't fucking lie to us. We're not stupid.

Right.

But with the closure of Camp Oshkosh, a fun reminder that the border is everywhere, which also means that border resistance or the fight for Tierra Libre or Free Earth is also everywhere. So you can do border resistance kind of anywhere at this point, especially because of what's been up with ICE over the past couple years now.

Mm-hmm.

Or past forever. It's all been happening for a long time and is kind of erupting in, like, bigger ways lately. The fight along the US-Mexico border, though, is especially continuing on the Tohono O'odham Nation in southern Arizona/northern Mexico. And the fight for Kitopekito Springs in Organ Pipe National Monument is also still ongoing. On the Tohono O'odham Nation, Camp Todai-ame, which is a prayer camp that's been up since August, is resisting border wall construction on the Tohono O'odham Nation, which is trying to stop border wall construction through the reservation. The reservation, like, historically, like, is— I mean, it's so much— the ancestral lands of the Tohono O'odham used to range from, like, what I've heard is, like, if you could see Baba Kivri, which is this historical like, the ancestral origin of the Tohono O'odham. Oh, okay. It's from which, like, the universe erupted and in which a god lives. And I've heard that if you could see Baboquivari, then you were on O'odham land. Okay. And now that mountain range, the Baboquivari Mountain Range, is kind of just like the eastern border of the reservation. And the reservation has also historically extended into Sonora, Mexico. And during— it was like during, like, the Gadsden Purchase in, like, 1853 or 1854, I never remember which, that sort of cut the Tohono O'odham Nation in half. Oh. But until now, there hasn't really been, like, a big physical border wall, and they're trying to do this double border wall through there. Which will more physically, literally cut the Tohono O'odham land in half.

Wow. Is this— I feel like you and I, or maybe James talked about this. No, it was you and I talked about this last time, and it was— there's a certain amount of space they were trying to make in there that, like, you could drive a truck up and down or something like that. Am I remembering correctly at all with this double wall?

The double wall? So it's like the double wall kind of runs— there's, like, the border, and then there's, like, this federal easement, which is, like, the Roosevelt Reservation. which has been, like, along the border forever. It's like all the pictures that you see of people driving along the border wall. And basically on the other side of that road is where they're building the double wall.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay. So I kind of remembered correctly. Totally. It's like a road's width of space.

Yeah. And so border wall construction on Tohono O'odham land threatens to cut the nation in half, as well as restrict tribal sovereignty, which the— it's like the tribal government is, like, fiercely against border wall construction. Mm-hmm. Both from a tribal sovereignty aspect and also because it's going to destroy thousands of saguaros and ocotillo trees, both which are very spiritually and ecologically important trees. Mm-hmm. The nation has already tried to sue the Department of Homeland Security, but courts are obviously not having it. And kind of like a thing about Camp Tadayimé is it's a prayer camp. And Border Patrol has had a really heavy presence in and around camp, with many worrying that they'll be shot. The O'odham have set up an emergency medical station in San Miguel, which is much closer to the camp than the nearest hospital in Sells, and they're ready for anything from dehydration to violent injury from Border Patrol or the Mexican military, which I guess also has, like, a history of, like, super violent aggression against the Tohono O'odham people, which is no surprise, but is fucking terrible. Yeah, so that's kind of what's going on. There's recap of border resistance.

Okay. A lot going on there still.

Yeah, yeah. And sorry, listeners, I am having a brain fog day, and so if that was a little roundabout—

No, my friend, it was quite clear.

We're all wandering. We're all wandering around in the fog.

You're good. You're good.

But you know who's also not having it? This is my segue. Courts aren't having it, but you know who also isn't having it?

Most of us. Anyone. My cat is not having it right now, honestly. But who are you talking about?

I'm talking about the people of Europe, and not just Europe, but like the Balkans and also Mexico. October has been a high month for rioting. There have been so many riots in and across Europe, the Balkans, and Mexico. in just this first half of October. Okay. Yeah. So in France at the beginning of October, this big student protest movement started, which is like, it's like this long ongoing thing. This is nothing new. This is just like kind of like the newest incarnation of something. And the protests were over education. They were over schools, which included overcrowding classrooms, teacher shortages, teacher salaries, and just deteriorating conditions. Like, people being like, there's like 35 of us in a classroom and like a bathroom that like doesn't— everything's leaking or broken. Like, there's like leaking roofs in the classrooms. Right. And it's like, it's this thing where like a lot of the concerns are not just for like the state of students' ability to get education, but also for the state of educators. as well.

Okay.

Which, like, I don't know, I have a lot of teachers friends, and a lot of whom have started teachers unions recently, and it's like the same thing that we see with nurses unions. It's sort of like a cross-provider and providee mentality of like, we are pissed about these conditions because it affects people's ability to work, and it also affects people's ability to be provided with that service, whether it's education or healthcare.

Yeah.

And yeah, and so like, there's been a lot of unrest in Paris in this really confusing landscape that I've had trouble sort of like exactly following over the last couple weeks. But on Saturday in Paris was kind of this huge march which drew between— this is a depending-on-who-you-ask sort of statement— If you ask the authorities, it was only like 500,000 people, and if you ask organizers, it was 800,000 people who went into the streets of Paris and were demanding better kind of like just education and cost of living stuff. A lot of this stuff is simply related to the cost of living and the ability for people to like thrive or even just survive. And I don't know, there's this— I think there's this mentality to be like, call people like protesters or call people rioters or whatever. And I'm like, I don't know. There were like hundreds of thousands of people in the streets. And there was also a lot of violence. And some of that violence was caused by police repression. Some of that violence was caused by people looting and setting things like government buildings on fire. And a lot of people do— there's just a lot of people doing a lot of things. And the media and the authorities are really quick to be like, yeah, there's this beautiful, peaceful protest which we totally support. And then there's these, like, bad egg, like, violent people who wanted to, like, throw rocks at the cops or set things on fire, and we can't support that. I'm like, Paris is like— Paris's, like, whole history is, like, setting things on fire and being, like—

Right?

Like, fuck a king! We're gonna— we're gonna riot for the Republic! And now people are like, fuck the Republic! We— we want to be able to survive. We want something better.

Yeah.

You know?

Mm-hmm.

And at least on this past Saturday, there were, like, something like 2,400 people arrested. Another silly thing that I just want to interject is I probably talked about it on the show, before, but just the French and, like, student movements. And my favorite musical, Les Mis, famously about a student group that tried to start a big uprising that unfortunately the people of Paris did not show up for. They had not had it yet. They were not yet not having it yet. But they were called the Friends of the ABC because they were really down for literacy and student rights and just improving literacy throughout class-like statuses. And the name is this really fun pun in French called the Friends of the ABC, or if you say it kind of in French, it's like Friends of the Abbassés, which means Friends of the Abased. And, you know, they did a whole lot more than riot. And yeah, I don't know. That's what's going on in France.

Wow.

But there's— it's the same stuff, just elsewhere, you know? In Milan, Italy, also on October 17th, a lot of people clashed with the police over rising costs of living. In Tirana, Albania, On October 14th, tens of thousands of students took to the streets and set a government building and 2 banks on fire over rising costs of education and government corruption. Oh, shit. And it was like after this summer of other protests that were sparked because of— so in Albania, Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is like part of this firm or whatever that's trying to build a luxury resort along the coast— Right. The coast of Albania. Right. And people are— people are not having it. You know, the courts aren't having it, and neither should we.

Agreed.

Yeah. So there— I don't know. Yeah, there was also a ton of— a ton of people in the streets rioting, protests, whatever, in Tirana, Albania. In Madrid, Spain, at the end of September, there— a large tent city emerged in protest of the housing crisis in Spain. And this was after an 87-year-old woman was evicted from her home because the rent increased by guess how much percentage-wise?

Oh gosh. I can't even imagine. Did it double?

It— I'm pointing upwards for people who can't see this video call.

Oh, okay. Higher than double. Higher. Did it triple?

Not quite. Her rent was increased by 230%.

Oh my God.

Which I guess— does that mean triple? Does that mean that it tripled? If it was increased by 230%, then it's 230% on top of the original cost, or is it—

Yeah, it depends on how you talk around the numbers. So if you say it increased by 100%, that usually means it doubled. And if you say it increased by 200%, then yeah, I guess that would be actually tripled. But it's confusing the way that number works. So yeah, more than tripled.

Yeah. Double to triple. And this was after an investment fund bought the apartment that she had lived in for 70 years.

Wow.

Yeah. In Lisbon, Portugal, similar tent cities have emerged in protest of the cost of living. And yeah, I don't know. Reading some of these articles too, it's like there's just these, like, waves of similar things. Like, There's a tense city. People are protesting. There were clashes with police, water cannons, tear gas. A lot of the governments being like, yeah, we're into protests, but there's just a few bad eggs making it violent, and the police just attacking people. So I don't know. Where's the truth lie?

Police attacking people?

The truth lies in that the cost of living is fucking insane and people are fucking pissed. Yeah. And not having it anymore.

Yep. Good for them.

Yeah. And then my last little thing is that in Guadalajara, Mexico, on October 11th, tens of thousands of people marched for clean drinking water in a city where the kind of, like, water infrastructure has just, like, severely deteriorated and has become— like, there's, like, water rationing and shit in Guadalajara. Yeah. Due to— it's both poor infrastructure and unclean sources of water. And it's people reporting foul odors or sediment or discolored water. The government is trying to do stuff about it. Allegedly. But there's just not really any clear solutions. And so tens of thousands of people went out into the streets. There were clashes with police where ironically they were sprayed with water cannons.

What is it with the police and water cannons?

I don't know.

Okay.

Yeah, that's kind of the news that I got, which I did kind of speed through, so.

There's a lot going on, but you covered it all.

I covered it all. Yeah. Do you got anything to add? Anything's Any things you've been thinking about?

I have been thinking about gardening, which is the wrong time of year because it's time to be shutting down our gardens, but thinking about how much more food I want to plant next year and feed myself, which it's good to start thinking about early if you want to do some seeds indoor in the winter. So even in this time of winterizing and things getting cooler, I'm thinking about plants growing.

Yeah, that's nice.

Yeah. I like growing things.

Hell yeah.

Hey, do we have anything cool coming up for strangers? I feel like there's something going on now and other stuff possibly coming. Oh, I remember, we've got, um, that new fancy zine that's up for pre-order, the really pretty green and gold covered one.

Yeah.

What's that one about?

Um, so we have a new zine out by Margaret Kiljoy called The Folktales of Lowland Sacan. And it's 5 standalone stories that explore the rich folklore of Sekhan, the shattered country from Margaret Killjoy's novel, The Sapling Cage, which came out in 2024 from Feminist Press. And it follows the adventures of peasant knights, helpful witches, and hungry fairies. The stories have it all: romance, intrigue, and a man who would obviously rather be fishing than saving royalty.

Who can blame him?

Yeah. And the zine is beautifully illustrated by our illustrator, Robin Savage, and designed by Cassandra, and printed by Eberhard Press. And it is this beautiful green with gold foil. And it's a duplex, the cover's duplex printed. So there's a lot of cool art on the interior of the COVID as well. It's just a beautiful zine.

You know, if you're into like Christmas and Yule and giving gifts and stuff, I just realized that like that color scheme would kind of fit with the holiday season too. and might be like a nice gift.

Oh, totally. If you're into that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. If you're into that kind of thing. And we also have coming up soon, I have a new thing coming out soon.

You do?

Which, yeah, it's this, uh, uh, it's a game and a comic. The comic isn't by me. The comic is by Forest Storz and Shelby Criswell, um, called Curse of the Maw King. And I wrote a weird little self-contained RPG for it. Um, and it's about— you, you can soon, soon play a game as some punks fighting the mall or trying to escape from it. Unclear, unclear which.

Okay, well, you've been known to write some pretty great games, Inman, so that sounds like fun to me.

Yeah, I think it'll be fun. I don't think it'll be fun. I know it's fun. It's fun. We're having fun.

Absolutely. What we need this winter is more games.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, that's all I got.

Okay, awesome. Thanks for being here with me on this lovely morning and talking about the best and worst things happening right now.

Yeah, of course.

If you want to know more about the best and worst things happening right now, there's lots of news sources in the world that talk about them. If you want to talk about the things that we talked about with us, you can check in with us on our social media platforms. We are at the places with the things and the tags, uh, you know, like you do on the meets that are social.

Yeah, maybe you're not having it with us and you want to tell us.

We do sort of enjoy that feedback, especially when it's constructive and you're like, hey, here's the thing you can do better, or here's the thing you did wrong. That's actually kind of helpful. And we're like, oh hey, thanks for helping us improve and be better people.

Yeah, we like that. Totally. Like, one day I'm gonna understand how Celsius temperature works and That will be fun.

Yes, and I will get better at understanding different units of measurement, which do make more sense than, uh, the— what we use here in the United States. Sorry, world.

Yeah. But what I'm not gonna change, listeners, is my voice. It's here. It's beautiful. Please stop making fun of it.

Never ever.

If you want to support us in other constructive ways, then you can support our publisher, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, and you can support Strangers in a variety of ways. What ways are those, Brooke?

Oh man, there's so many good ones. Like we said, you can, you can add us on social media or follow us, get to know us a little bit. You can check out our website, tangledwilderness.org. We've got links to cool information there, some free zines, some beautiful fancy zines that are for sale, books that we sell. You can support us on Patreon if you would like to. That's where the bulk of our funding comes from. And it is in fact what makes it possible for us to do this podcast and our other 2 podcasts and to mail out a monthly zine and pay authors for writing those zines and a lot of other good stuff that we're able to do in the world. And we are just constantly and deeply grateful for the Patreon support that you all have shown to us over the years. We'd like to give a special shout out to the Patreon members who support us at the $20 a month or more level. And Inman is actively making changes to the list of people that I need to thank right now.

We got a new one. I don't know what they want us to shout out yet, but, but we got a new one and you're going to get shouted out. You're acknowledged. I feel like shouted out doesn't sound good. Acknowledged? I don't know.

Catcalled? I mean, there are a lot of cats on the list. Dogcalled? Nope, that's, like, too close to dog whistle.

We're gonna celebrate you. We're calling your cats and dogs their names that you asked us to shout out.

That's right. Here they all are. Are you ready for it? Sarah, Bridget, We Will Remember Flora Tristan, the Chattanooga Free Store, Santa Fe Food Not Bombs, Glenn, Please Fight Anti-Fatness, Arizona Sunsets, Bunny Bionics, Patrick Harnett Marshall, All Wiener Dogs Everywhere. The first 2 chapters of The Eden Project by James Hollis, Kiwanis Socialists, the Athens People's Assembly of Athens, Georgia. Your Canadian friend. Tiny Nonsense. A Future for Abby, the Canadian Socialist Rifle Association. Max, Lancaster County Chooses Love. Astoria Food Pantry, Enchanted Rats of Turtle Island, Feral and WV, Blink Cat, the Massachusetts chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association, Jenny and Phoebe the cats, Jason, Aiden, and Yuki the dog, Alexander Gopal, Sunshine, Optikuna, Portland's Hedron Hackerspace, Julia, Appalachian Liberation Library, Lord Harkin, Baby Acab and her 3 great pups, Ephemeral, Princess Miranda, Janice and Odell, Ali, Papa Runa, Milicia, Theo, SJ, Paige, Pocono Pink Pistols, Nicole and Tick for the Dog, David, Towser's Love of Bumblebees, Carson, Dana, Chelsea, Amber, Marjorie, The Truth That We Will Outlive Them, Kirk, Micaiah, Chris, The Incredible Rennerai, Micah, and if you've made it this far, you know who comes last. Who is the greatest and the most immortal? Say it with me now.

Hossa dog!

Thanks for listening.