Here’s the transcript for the speech above.
01:22
Caterina Bonandin
Hey, guys, I’m back. Hi. All right, I wanted to tell you guys a few stories. I am writing a book. It’s called memoirs of a radical. When I became an activist, it was in 2006, I was an intern at the National association of Insurance Commissioners. And basically, I was doing Internet research on insurance fraud and compiling it into a database. It was a nonprofit I worked for, and they were looking for repeat people that were going from state to state committing insurance fraud. And I was sitting there at my cubicle, typing at my desk, and this guy in the cubicle behind me kept telling me, you are not a liberal. You’re a libertarian. And I’m like, no, I’m anti bush. I’m a liberal. And he’s like, I hear the words you’re saying, you are not a liberal. You are a libertarian.
02:10
Caterina Bonandin
Will you please watch a video? And I said, I’ll watch a video. He sends me a video of Doctor Ron Paul giving anti war speech. Now here I am thinking, I’m a liberal. I’m protesting on the streets in Santa Barbara, California, against Bush, you know, marching down the street, just doing my little liberal activism. And I watch a republican congressman give a speech about ending the global war on terrorism, and I’m like, cognitive dissonance. How is this possible? A Republican can be anti war? I thought the Republicans were bad and the Democrats are good. Well, I learned about classical liberalism, libertarianism. I became a political activist, and I really did the activism thing.
03:01
Caterina Bonandin
I became a delegate to the Republican National Convention, and I thought, we’re going to go there and we’re going to get Ron Paul on the ballot, and he’s going to be elected and all is going to be good. Well, guess what I learned as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. You are essentially a prop or an extra on a tv set. You don’t have any say. They don’t care what you really want. Everything was pre given to us. We were given chant cards. When Sarah Palin goes on the stage, this is what you chant. You got Secret Service in the aisle. Sit down, sit down. We got to get commercials on for primetime.
03:32
Caterina Bonandin
You know, I’m telling you, were an extra on a set, and I was devastated because Ron Paul pulled out really close to the nominations where they were going to pick the republican nominee. And I felt betrayed and I felt heartbroken. And I thought, how is it that this person, who I invested so much time and energy into, backed out and quit? I don’t understand. What are we supposed to do? So 2009, I’m having an existential crisis. I get question everything tattooed on my arm because I’m literally, like, questioning everything right at this point. If the political route doesn’t work, what is going to work? I don’t understand what to do. And I attend the porcupine Freedom festival. Is Carla here? Carla in the back. President of the free state project right here in the house. Red shirt, hat.
04:20
Caterina Bonandin
If you guys like anarchapoco, you will love Porcupine Freedom festival. I’ve been to seven pork fest, and this is my 7th anarchipulco to give you some perspective. I love New Hampshire, and I love the free state project, and I love everything they are doing there. And it changed my life just as much as anarchapoco has changed my life and anarchapoco has changed my life. So I’m there. I’m pretty good at giving talks. I like to give talks. And there was this competition called Soapbox Idol, which Carla is the host of. And it’s one of my favorite things. It’s where you get up and you give a three minute rant about anything at all. And back in the day, they used to squirt you with a water gun if you went over three minutes. But then a mic got ruined, and that doesn’t happen anymore.
05:00
Caterina Bonandin
It was really fun. And then you get judged by a panel of celebritarian judges, and, you know, the winner gets something really nice. One year I won, and I got this beautiful knife that had a pork fest logo in it. It was beautiful. I am up there, I’m giving a speech, and I’m ranting about the centralization of the Ron Paul. I saw someone with a campaign for liberty shirt on earlier. I don’t know if they’re still here. Yeah, right there. To me, I was like, that’s the centralization of the Ron Paul campgrass roots. This is despicable. I can’t believe it. And I’m up here giving a rant. And at like two minutes and 55 seconds, it dawned on me. And I scream at the top of my lungs, I’m a motherfucking anarchist. It hit me in real time in front of everybody.
05:45
Caterina Bonandin
That’s the year I won. Needless to say, I won the competition because I was literally struck by lightning. In my mind, it was a psychological strike, not a real one. When I said literally, I didn’t mean literally. I am a millennial. I use that word a lot. Although I do actually. I’m a cusp baby. I relate to Gen X a little more. I grew up in the midwest. I came in when the street lights come on. I had a. My parents. My dad’s here. Dad, will you wave? There’s my dad, Doctor Bleisch. We had a black and white turn dial tv on the kitchen counter, you know, to change the channels. So while I’m technically, by age a millennial, I’m on the cusp. I like to see, because I really associate with the gen Xers a lot more.
06:26
Caterina Bonandin
So anyway, I was struck by this realization that I don’t believe in centralized institutions that aren’t voluntary at all. I’m anarchist, but I didn’t know what that meant. So here I am at pork fest, and I’m listening to these debates between menarche and anarchy and menarche and anarchy. And is there a role for limited government? Is there not? All these debates are going on. And I’m just thinking and I’m listening, and like, it sunk in. The seed was planted and it sprouted in real time right in front of everybody. Okay, so as I’m on this journey, I’m what I called at the time, post political. We got into police accountability activism. Now, some of this was going on in New Hampshire, and it was a little intense. They would, like, really get in police officers face, like. Like videotaping cops and things like that.
07:11
Caterina Bonandin
For me, I never went out and did this on purpose. It always happened in the moment. And there were two times that I got arrested because something happened in the moment, and I spoke up and stood up for somebody who was being harmed by police. So I’m going to try to tell two of those stories. Those are kind of the vintage stories. And then I’m also going to tell a little bit more of a modern story, because the real theme of this talk today is coercive control. Has anybody heard this term before? Coercive control. It’s a very new term to me. I’ve learned it in the past year. Does everybody here know what coercion is? If you know what coercion is, raise your hand.
07:47
Caterina Bonandin
Okay, this is where you’re basically doing something under the duress or under the threat of violence or something bad happening to you. So coercion and coercive control can happen in any type of relationship. And probably without a doubt, you have experienced coercive control. This can happen from a government to the people. And that’s what I was really focused on in my early activism, was this political institution and the coercion taking place there. But it can also happen from a parent child. It can also happen in a lover relationship. It can also happen in a workplace employer relationship. Have any of you in your life experienced coercive control? Raise your hand if yes. Has somebody forced you to do something under threat, whether it was getting hit by a parent, an employer making a threat against you, or even a lover?
08:42
Caterina Bonandin
So almost everybody here raised their hand. I would be surprised if you really started to think about it if those of you who did not raise your hands have actually survived this whole lifetime without being coerced to do something, because it seems to be the way that our society functions. Right? And that’s where this police accountability activism comes in. My research, my post political research, were doing a project called Operation Defuse, and were really focused on the department of Homeland Security, fusion centers. Who’s heard of fusion centers, raise your hand. Okay. This is a very american thing. So for those of you who are international, I’ll be very brief. The Department of Homeland Security, they are in the United States. They are a post 911 institution.
09:25
Caterina Bonandin
And in 2005, there was a piece of legislation, and it was called the 911 Commission act of 2005, and they called on the creation of these institutions called fusion centers. These are multi jurisdictional law enforcement collectives where the local police department in Kansas City will apply for a grant to the Department of Homeland Security, and they make an agreement with the FBI, with the Department of Homeland Security, with the CIA, with all the local police like, Kansas City is a state line going down the middle. Kansas is one side, Missouri is on the other. Missouri and proud. Thank you very much. And those police jurisdictions will all come together under this fusion center institution. At the time I was doing my activism, there were four in the state of Missouri, which is where I’m from. Born and raised, by the way. Go chiefs.
10:17
Caterina Bonandin
They won last night. You all may not care, but I’m hometown proud. Yeah. So with that being said, a report was issued in the state of Missouri by the fusion center run by the Missouri Highway Patrol. I was alerted from somebody who was listening to the Alex Jones show, and they messaged me and they said, alert. Alert. Red alert. This report has been leaked. This was a report written by the Missouri department, the Missouri Highway Patrol, and it said, be on the lookout for potential radical, violent militia members. We were not called terrorists. Alex Jones and other sensationalists used the word terrorist. But the actual report read, potentially radical, violent militia members. Here are some identifying characteristics. They might have a Ron Paul Bumper sticker on their car. They might have a Bob Barr bumper sticker on their car. He was the Green party.
11:11
Caterina Bonandin
Who was he? Libertarian party. Chuck Baldwin, Constitution party. If you have seen the documentary America freedom to fascism that was listed on there as a warning sign, which, by the way, we’re airing here this year. And so I’m reading this and I’m like, oh, God, I have every single one of those bumper stickers on my car. Like, oh, my God, what are we gonna do, right? And so we mobilized, and we showed up to the Missouri legislature, and we showed up with a DVD of America freedom to fascism for every Missouri state senator, every Missouri state Rep. We printed off information on Ron Paul, Bob Barr, all of their stances, because here’s the deal. Potentially radical, violent militia members are not supporting Ron Paul. He believes in peace. He believes in voluntary relationships. He does not believe in coercion. Neither did we.
12:07
Caterina Bonandin
And so we showed up face to face, belly to belly, to show the governmental institutions that this report was wrong. And we showed up and went door to door. We talked to every single elected official, every single one. We filed open records requests. We showed up. Missouri sunshine law. You got three days. Give me all these documents. And we put pressure on hard. And what ended up happening is the report was retracted. The head of the fusion center was removed. And a whole bunch of us woke up because we found out that these fusion centers existed. So we began to visit these fusion centers, created a group called Operation Defuse, and we began traveling all across the country.
12:50
Caterina Bonandin
And I’m telling you, I’m 23 years old, and I am pulling up to fusion centers, some of which are run by the National Guard, some of which are run by local police departments, some are run by state police departments, whoever applied for the grant, and they’re not expecting us. Some of them were. We tried to get appointments, but often they didn’t respond. And we’re showing up with open records requests. We’re knocking on their door, and we’re sitting down and we’re meeting with these people. So this is already going on. And then this report comes out. Well, no, the report comes out. We are inspired to do operation defuse. We go on tour, and I show up at Porkfest because I came to talk about what I learned.
13:26
Caterina Bonandin
So in 2010, I showed up to the Department of Homeland Security’s fusion center conference that was taking place in New Orleans with the homemade Austin, Texas press pass. We printed them at Kinko’s that morning. And when we showed up to their conference with our press passes, DHS called hotel security on us. The Department of Homeland Security called hotel security because they did not know what to do with two radical activists showing up with homemade press passes. Well, in the end, they let us in. They let us into this fusion center conference because we have. The freedom of the press exists in the United States. Sometimes you have to assert yourself, and what you’re going to hear through my stories is that free speech exists, too. But sometimes I’ve had to assert myself, okay?
14:12
Caterina Bonandin
Because like Jeff was saying at the end of his talk, were always free. It’s when you stop believing that you become oppressed truly. And if you can believe that in your heart you are free, you can walk through this world as a sovereign, and you can do crazy things. So we walk into this fusion center conference, and we go to every single vendor booth they assigned us. Each an FBI liaison. My girl, who was not expecting me to be there, who was assigned to me, like, why are you here? And when I would respond, she’s like, her eyes are twitching. And I’m, like, explaining to her, like, decentralized government and corrupt institutions. And while I was there, I attended all these workshops.
14:51
Caterina Bonandin
And I learned in 2010 that they were going from the thumbprint database to the fingerprint database, to the palm print database, to the retinal scanners, to the facial scanners, to the tattoo database. Okay? So they literally said what was coming. And there at the conference, here’s the vendors selling the red light cameras and the speed trapping cameras and the sound cannons and I’m picking up all the literature. This is what they’re selling to our police. They’re literally selling these weapons of oppression at these conferences that I got into with the press pass that I made myself. Okay? And so we’re looking at this, and we’re like, oh, boy, something bad’s coming down the tracks. Something really bad is coming down the tracks. This is not good. And I said, we picked up everything from all these vendors.
15:32
Caterina Bonandin
Well, one was a CD ROM, and we put that CD ROm into a computer. They listed who they were monitoring and who they were watching. So I walked out with the list, literally, of who they were watching. I had a radio show on 90.1 in Austin, Texas. They were monitoring that radio program. They were monitoring that station. And the owner of the station, our bookstore, brave new books, that my ex and I bought after we ran it for a few years. They were monitoring brave new books, antiwar.com, comma. They were monitoring antiwar.com, who sued them later because of this CD ROM that we got. And they won because they were illegally, unlawfully being monitored by the FBI and other institutions. Okay, so here we are. We’re in New Orleans. We get into this conference. We walk out.
16:17
Caterina Bonandin
I am telling you, all the literature and things I had was, like, my hands were down here. It was stacked up to my chin. I’m, like, walking out with all these papers. They all thought it was nuts, but went through every single one, and we’re chronicling what’s going on. So here I am. I’m in New Hampshire, and I’m here to give a talk about what I learned. And the presentation I gave was called understanding the mechanics of the police state. And I’m, like, breaking down what I’ve learned and what’s coming down the pipes, and what they are telling is coming down the pipes. And I find out that there is a 420 rally taking place in Nashua, New Hampshire. And I’m like, ooh wee, delegal, where I live. Let’s go see this. This is going to be cool.
16:50
Caterina Bonandin
And so I get in a car with someone, I don’t even know who, and I show up, and I get there, and, you know, the people are smoking. Things are going great. And then I kind of start to get bored. Like, we’ve been here a while. I didn’t drive myself. I’m ready to go home. And so I go lay down on a bench, and then all of a sudden, I felt an energy shift. And I sit up. What’s going on? I turn my camera on. Immediately, two undercover cops showed up, and they were arresting a teenage black boy. Here we are, a bunch of adults, most of whom are from out of state white adults, and they are arresting one teenage black boy. So I got my camera on Zoom, and I’m walking up, and I’m like, what’s going on? What’s going on?
17:34
Caterina Bonandin
What’s going on? What’s going on? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Why are you arresting him? Look at all of us. There’s adults here. What are you doing? What are you doing? I’m telling you, I repeated myself 500 times. This video is on YouTube. This was pre streaming, but post YouTube, so it was videotaped and uploaded. You can still find this video. So I lean into the cop car. There are activists everywhere. Activists everywhere. And this undercover cop arrests this boy. A cop car pulls up. He’s sitting in the back. Chaos is going on. People are chanting. Things are happening. I leaned into the front seat, and I said, what’s your name, baby boy? We’re going to get you out. Spell me your name. And he tells me his name. And then a cop pulls me back.
18:11
Caterina Bonandin
Get out of the car. Get out of the car. And I’m like, okay. In that moment, an activist named David Crawford, who I did not know at the time, he sits down in front of the police car so they can’t drive off. Now, I have never, ever seen this type of activism before, okay? Like, I’m coming from the political world. This is crazy to me. And he’s holding his wrists. He’s got his wrists locked together, and he’s down on the ground. I don’t know what’s happening. So my camera’s zoomed in, and I walk up, and I’m still asking the cops, what are you doing? What are you doing? And they’re telling everybody to get off the road, but somehow they didn’t tell me. They look at the people next to me. They’re next to me. No one told me to get off the road.
18:44
Caterina Bonandin
So if the police car is right here, it’s facing this way. David’s on the ground right here. They take David over here. So he’s at, like, the back left wheel. All the activists are on the sidewalk over here. Well, I don’t even know. My adrenaline’s going so high because he’s saying, my wrist. They’re hurting my wrist. Someone videotaped this. He’s begging for someone to videotape it. I think my alarm to make lunch for my kids is going off in my fanny pack. It is for four minutes. Sorry, guys. Sebastian Bach was playing. I was like, why do I keep hearing classical music? It’s coming from me. I run my life by alarms on my phone so I don’t forget to do things. So. Okay, here we are. David’s on the ground. He’s begging for somebody, please videotape. They’re hurting me.
19:35
Caterina Bonandin
And I’ve got my video camera and I come in and I’m like, I got you. I got you. I got you. And I look up and I see the officer open his mace and he puts his hand on his mace and he starts to take it out and I scream at the top of my lungs, he’s got mace. Do not mace him. I mean, I have never yelled so loud in my life. Every video from every angle in the entire property hears me scream. Do not mace him. I’m probably 10ft from the officer’s face and I know that he physically felt the power that came out of my mouth because he put that mace back in and he clipped it shut. But then I hear a dog barking. Okay. I had no idea. I was the only activist still on the street.
20:14
Caterina Bonandin
It was me and all the backup police officers had shown up. I hear a dog barking. I’m facing this way, videotaping. I hear a dog. I turn around, boom. I am looking at an officer straddling a german shepherd and he points at me. And the first words I hear him say are, arrest her. And first words out of my mouth were, do not sic that dog on me. I am here to document this and within 6 seconds I am on the hood of a car being put in a cage. Why? Why? What did I do? I’m begging to know. What did I do? What did I do? Why? Why? Why are you putting me in a cage? What did I do? Well, I don’t know. Then why are you kidnapping me?
20:51
Caterina Bonandin
The police told me they did not know why they were kidnapping me, but another officer told them to. This is coercive control. Do what I say or I put you in a cage. And that is what happened to me. They kidnapped me and they put me in a fucking cage. And they told me I was not going to get out. They told me they didn’t know why I was there or when they were going to charge me with something. Now they tried to bring me a bologna sandwich and I was a vegetarian and I sent it back. And so then they bring me a nutrigrain bar and I’m like, that has high fructose corn syrup. And I sent it back.
21:27
Caterina Bonandin
Well, unbeknownst to me, all the activists from the rally were now in the lobby of the jail, smoking weed on the front steps of the police department. Needless to say, I got out that night. But then here’s where being kidnapped is one thing, okay? Being put in a cage is one thing. Coercive control is more than physical violence. Because I had the threat of jail time hanging over my head for six months. I showed up for my first court hearing, and they rescheduled it. So I fly all the way to New Hampshire to be sent home for six months. I did not know if I was going to be put in a cage or not. And I was scared. And I started drinking a lot of alcohol because I did not know what to do. I did not know what to do.
22:18
Caterina Bonandin
But an amazing lawyer who was attending this time, it wasn’t porkfest that I was attending. Actually, I was at liberty for him. Correction, I was at liberty for him. And this amazing lawyer named Seth Blaustein, heard the story and he offered to represent me pro bono. And he breaks down the millisecond, by millisecond of me videotaping, turning around, because thankfully, there were like 500 cameras there. That’s an exaggeration. There were probably like twelve, but there were a lot of camera footage. When I show up to court, three officers testified against me, and all of them told a different story, and none of their stories matched the video footage. So I get up on the stand and the prosecuting attorney says, well, how did you know they were police? And I was like, the violence? Because they’re, like, wearing, like, jerseys.
23:07
Caterina Bonandin
They’re like, well, how did you know? And I’m like, that really stands out in our crowd. Like, if. If you are instigating violence, you are either a cop, an FBI agent, or mentally unstable if you’re in our group, because that is not something we do, and it stands out, and that is how we know, because we are maintaining a vibration of peace and love. So they decide we’re going to give a deferred verdict. So I get sent home for 30 more days, and I still don’t know if I’m going to be extradited to New Hampshire to be put in a cage again. The level of fear that I experienced during that time period is not something that I can properly communicate, because it’s not something most people have ever experienced. These are the types of stories I’m telling in my book.
23:56
Caterina Bonandin
Radicals of a memoir, flash forward. Here I am, this I say this with the most humility. Rockstar activist. Like, I mean it. I was on CNN, I was on Jesse Ventura, conspiracy theory. I was on Yahoo. News, yahoo. Travel. Like, I was getting the mainstream media. I was a rock star activist, and I married a rockstar activist in my first marriage. And this is how I learned the lesson that coercion is more than a political problem. It’s an interpersonal one. And it has existed in our community. We’re all coming from very damaged backgrounds, very damaged communities. And some of us carry our pain into our families and into our marriages and into our relationships because that’s what we’ve learned. Many of us were raised by the institutions through school, sometimes churches. There’s all sorts of institutions, and they train us to obey.
25:08
Caterina Bonandin
And so, like Jeff said on doing that programming, it’s a multi year thing and it takes a really long time. And I didn’t know at the time that I had entered into an extremely abusive dynamic. And as somebody who, I fought for my free speech, and I won twice in court against law enforcement who unlawfully and illegally arrested me. But what happened in the next twelve years after I started having children is that I found myself in a cage in my home. And there were really scary moments then moments of violence and anger, things directed at my children that were really scary. And I was ashamed. I was afraid to tell people because we had a very public relationship.
26:01
Caterina Bonandin
And so I’m going to tell you something right now that I’ve not spoken, because in the summer of 2021, I lost my right to choose how to educate my older children in court and family court. Because my ex husband, who is also an activist, who runs events like this, and I’m not going to names, but you might be able to read between the lines. You might know. I’m not going to say it. He decided to use the state to oppress me when I decided to leave the violence of our home. My son has been diagnosed with dyslexia, but it took me three years of fighting to even get him a dyslexia test. Because you see, in the state of Texas, when you get divorced and have a 50 custody, I wasn’t allowed to have my son tested for dyslexia without his consent.
27:04
Caterina Bonandin
And he used the state to enroll my child, both of my older children, in a private school. In our divorce, I lost the right to homeschool in my divorce. This is someone who sells homeschool workshops online, and he makes six figures a year promoting homeschooling. And he took it away from me and the kids. And when I saw that my son was falling behind in this private school, I began to speak up for him. I represented myself in court, and it was a huge mistake. It was during COVID I had a zoom hearing. I didn’t know how to present my evidence, and I didn’t know I couldn’t read notes because my lawyer in my divorce always had notes. And I didn’t know that as the witness and the lawyer, I couldn’t have notes, and so I didn’t present any of my evidence.
27:51
Caterina Bonandin
And what was presented was that my homeschooling sucked and that my son was behind because of me and that I was harassing the school. And he got the school to testify against me, a school that was financially incentivized to take away my rights to the tune of over $800 a month tuition for each of my children. My ex husband and a private school colluded to take my rights. And I finally got a lawyer, and I went back to try to fix things, because, of course, after were out of court, he immediately put the kids back in home school. And we had three, two and a half wonderful years returned back to home school. But I needed my son tested for dyslexia. I needed him tested for dyslexia. I’m dyslexic. My current husband is dyslexic. I knew my son was dyslexic.
28:38
Caterina Bonandin
He wasn’t learning the normal way. So I got a lawyer because a tutor hit my daughter. A tutor my ex hired hit my daughter, hit her, and he would not fire her. And I was required, under the duress of contempt of court, to deliver my children to whoever he picked to educate them. Or I could be put in jail. And in our orders, it says that if I talk online about this, I can go to jail. So you may notice the way I look has changed over the years because I’ve been living in fear. I got fat because I’m afraid. And my pain body developed to protect me. And I stuffed my words inside, and I was afraid to speak because I didn’t want to be put in a cage.
29:28
Caterina Bonandin
But I have been oppressed by somebody in our community who used the state to take away my right to homeschool and prevented me from getting my son the help he needed for three years. And I got a lawyer, and we requested discovery, and I got all the emails. He was telling the school I was crazy. He was telling the school I was a bad mom. He was saying this to their teachers, to their tutors, and to the state. So, thankfully, activists in our community, who I felt brave enough to tell was going on, they raised money for me to get a forensic psychologist who analyzed not only me, but all of our email communications and all of our text message communications.
30:13
Caterina Bonandin
And that psychologist determined I have an above average iq, I have zero mental health problems, I have zero emotional problems, and that the emails I sent to the school were normal advocacy emails. And he also told me he cannot diagnose my ex. But after reading our conversations, he believed I married a clinical narcissist and potential sociopath. So here I am, forced by the state to allow this person to make all of the choices about academics for my children. And I can go to jail if I don’t deliver them where he picked. So I went back to court in November, and some of you may remember last year, I was scared. I was scared because I had started to speak my blog, sovereignliving.com dot. I started to blog on it.
31:05
Caterina Bonandin
I started to tell my story of what I’ve been through, and I was afraid of going to jail. In March of last year, after sitting with Bearhardt, I don’t know where he is doing bufo. Last year, I had an awakening. I was always free. I was always free. My ex can’t oppress me. And so I decided, you know what? We got a diagnosis in January of last year. He would not hire a tutor. He would not help my son. So I got trained on dyslexia intervention, and I risked going to jail to teach my son to read. And at age ten, my son now reads. You have no idea how scared I’ve been. It is more scary than the threat of going to jail for activism. This is the threat of going to jail for my motherhood.
31:53
Caterina Bonandin
And I have been silent, and I haven’t told people. And I just want to say thank you for hearing my story, because I went to court in November, and the judge said, you should have appealed this two and a half years ago. I can’t change this. Follow the proper procedure. I could go to jail for speaking to my kids schools. I can go to jail for talking to my kids about their father’s educational choices. He enrolled my daughter in the wrong grade in public school in fall, and I decided to risk going to jail to tell her she wasn’t behind and that he was not telling her the truth. And when she would go to her dad and say, dad, I shouldn’t be in fifth grade. I should be in 6th, he’d say, your mom’s not allowed to talk to you about that.
32:36
Caterina Bonandin
All of these things I could have gone to jail for. These are things that normal mothers do. I have not committed a crime. I have not done anything wrong. And the state took away my rights because some asshole went to court and told lies about me. And I didn’t know how to defend myself. And quite frankly, I reached out to those activists from back in the day. I’m not going to names, but they turned their back on me and they did not help me. They did not stand up for me. And you want to know why? They said, well, he’s doing good things. He’s making such a big impact. We don’t want to get involved. This is personal. This is not personal. This is political.
33:16
Caterina Bonandin
This is my children being oppressed by the state, by somebody who makes money off of probably people in this audience, you in this audience, I’m sure that there are people who have spent money buying a bitcoin class or a homeschooling class or some get off the grid class from him. And I want you to know the money you are spending on those programs is going to lawyers to oppress me and to take away my right to educate my children. And it’s terrifying to say this, but you know what that judge said after he told me he couldn’t overturn any of those draconian things? He turned to my ex’s lawyer and he said, her lawyer’s right. The first amendment to the US Constitution is a very powerful defense.
33:56
Caterina Bonandin
So if you try to put this mom in jail for talking to her children, for talking to their schools, or talking to all of you, we’ll be talking about the first amendment of the Constitution. So I stand here unafraid. I stand here unafraid. Finally, for the first time in twelve years as a mother, I don’t have legal freedom, but I have spiritual freedom. And I spent a lot of time living in fear, only to find out I wasn’t going to get put in jail after all. And I feel like this drives home the point that Jeff was making. We were free the whole time. I was free to speak to my children the whole time. I was free to educate my son the whole time. But I was afraid. And living in fear wreaks havoc on your health.
34:54
Caterina Bonandin
You can do all the right things, you can eat the right food, you can do the right movement, but if you are living in chronic fear, you’re not going to feel good. This is coercive control. It exists in our community. And as somebody, I don’t want to use the word victim, because I don’t feel like I’m a victim anymore. I understand. I’m the co creator of my reality. And there’s things I could have done twelve years ago, eleven years ago, ten years ago to circumvent this from happening. But I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and I did what I did, and I walked the path that I walk. I learned about codependency. I learned about these things. I’ve changed myself. I have evolved. Coercive control is anytime you find yourself acting a certain way out of fear, you are being coercively controlled.
35:47
Caterina Bonandin
And it doesn’t just come from the government. It can come right here and it can come inside your own home. And I’ve recently come to the conclusion I live in an intentional community. I’ve lived there for three and a half years. It’s amazing. I love it. And the conclusion that I’ve come to from my experience with anarchopoco, from my experience living at Greenbrier, intentional community, is that you cannot have community without accountability. It is a requirement. Underline, bold, italic, red font. You can not have community without accountability. So if there are emotional tyrants in your space, you need to clean house. And that is what we did here with anarchopoco. And that is why the vibe has changed. That’s why you see Lilly looking completely different. The inner transformation is revealed through the outer transformation. Has anyone here heard of the hermetic principles?
37:02
Caterina Bonandin
As above, so below, as within, so without. Everything is always in vibration, everything in motion, right? As we heal ourselves, we will heal our families. As we heal our families, we will heal our community. And as we heal our community, we will heal the world. But you can’t do it by videotaping police. You have to do it by doing the work on yourself. So I just want to leave with one last note. Everybody on the team at anarchopoco has read the book the four agreements, and we practice these four agreements. Can anybody in the audience name one of them? Do your best is one. Don’t take anything personal. My behavior is about me. Your behavior is about you. You’re out of alignment. I’m not going to take it personal. I didn’t used to do that.
38:00
Caterina Bonandin
I was joking at the orientation yesterday with the staff. If someone’s coming to you with some energy, we’re not responding with oh, no, girlfriend, no. We’re responding with hey, okay. Right? Because it’s not personal. It’s not about me. When you’re out of alignment, another one’s be impeccable with your word. We have to maintain integrity. And the way we do that is with impeccable word. We are casting spells with our word. And the words that we say create our reality. Don’t say what you don’t mean. Take a deep breath before you speak. If the person was in the room, would they want to hear what you’re saying? If not, change the way you say it. We need to be treating each other with love, with gentleness and kindness.
38:46
Caterina Bonandin
And I truly believe from the bottom of my heart, truly, that all that fear that I was experiencing, it purified me. And it brought me to the point where I am right now, which is where I believe truly and fundamentally, I am free. And I am never, ever in my life going to participate in the coercive control paradigm again. If I feel that fear rising in my body, I am going to take a step back and I am going to decide what the empowered, freedom loving human being named Katherine would do. And I am going to act from that place instead. And if that is something that we can all do as a community, we may see global freedom in our lifetime. Thank you guys for hearing my story. I am very grateful. I have never told this publicly.
39:48
Caterina Bonandin
A few people here have heard it before behind the scenes. But as I said, I’ve lived in a lot of fear. And I want you to know I’m truly grateful because you’re the first people to hear me speak about this in a public forum. Thank you. I love.
