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InterRebellium: A Discussion with subMedia
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Join us as we sit down with members of the subMedia Collective to discuss their upcoming series InterRebellium. In this conversation we run down the history of subMedia, beginning in the 90s rave scene, the development of anarchist media in the first 25 years of this century, and what the future holds.
Finally we discuss their upcoming series, InterRebellium, which traces a trajectory of insurgent and autonomous action through struggles around the world. The trailer for InterRebellium can be found at https://sub.media/interrebellium-trailer/
subMedia's work can be found on their site https://sub.media
You can also follow them on Kolektiva platforms at https://kolektiva.social/@subMedia and https://kolektiva.media/a/submedia/video-channels
subMedia has also released a series with recent podcast guest Peter Gelderloos, It's Revolution or Death, which can be found here: https://sub.media/its-revolution-or-death-part-one-short-term-investments/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to The Beautiful Idea Podcast
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello. You're listening to The Beautiful Idea, a podcast from a collective of several anarchist and autonomous media producers scattered around the world. We're bringing you interviews and stories from the front lines of autonomous social movements and struggles, as well as original commentary and analysis.
00:00:25
Speaker
Follow us on Mastodon and at thebeautifulidea.show. Thanks for listening.
Interview with Submedia
00:00:46
Speaker
Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea. Today we are going to be sitting down with Submedia to talk about their upcoming documentary release, sort of the history of the project and the history of the collective, and maybe get into some of the discussions about the futures of anarchist media, which is a discussion I know that a lot of us have been having for quite some time, and and I'd be very curious to hear your thoughts. So why don't we start off and just have you all introduce yourselves.
00:01:12
Speaker
I'm HeatScore. I'm a collective member member with Submedia. I've been a member of the collective for about 10 years now. And I'm Nuke. I'm also a member of Submedia. I've been a member for just over three years now.
00:01:27
Speaker
Yeah, so i know I've been aware of submedia for a very long time at this point, I think. I can't even remember back to when that would have been. It's been quite a while, but maybe could you all run through some of the history of the project? I mean, I know it's it's gone on for over a decade, obviously.
00:01:43
Speaker
Y'all have put out ah hundreds of hours of video over that period of time. So yeah, maybe maybe run the listeners through sort of what you all do and kind of where the project started and how you all got up to where you are
Origin of Submedia
00:01:57
Speaker
now.
00:01:57
Speaker
Okay, so we are ah small anarchist video media collective. We have... members in Canada, the US and Brazil.
00:02:08
Speaker
We started in, guess, 2004 was when Submedia became an actual anarchist video collective. And that was, you know, under founded by Franklin Lopez, who's no longer member, but he supports us and we love him and support his work. And he was this, he did the show called The Stimulator, which is how, so you know, submedia started and, you know, it's evolved into more things.
00:02:37
Speaker
ah Maybe just to sort of jump in, yeah. i mean because So the simulator and it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine, is how a lot of people are you know first became familiar with submedia. It actually started earlier than that. So there was kind of the pre-anarchist era of submedia.
00:02:52
Speaker
So submedia kind of first started as like ah sort of a rave like video projection project in Atlanta in like
First Anarchist Project
00:03:00
Speaker
1994. And the first thing that we actually put out, or that Frank put out, because it was a one-man show back then,
00:03:05
Speaker
It was like a CD-ROM that he put together called The Hemp Cyclopedia, which was about weed legalization. And he was he was into like Ralph Nader and was, you know, kind of maybe a a lefty sort of degen back then. But he didn't really get into anarchism until after September 11th and 19th.
00:03:23
Speaker
the anti-war movement that he was a part of and kind of starting to rub shoulders with with with other anarchists. And so the first film that we did that was an explicitly anarchist project was ah an adaptation of a chapter from Days of War and Knights of Love called Join the Resistance, Fall in Love, which was in 2004.
Submedia's Early Involvement in Anarchism
00:03:40
Speaker
So we have been making anarchist films for, yeah, just over two decades now.
00:03:46
Speaker
Days of War, Nights of Love. Wow. So for those for those of you youngsters that are listening to this, when did Days 4 come out? Was that 2003? 2002? Something like that, yeah.
00:03:57
Speaker
It was something like that. This was like the first Crime Think book I think a lot of us came into contact with. like I had gotten a copy of Fighting for Our Lives, which was like the newspaper that was getting released back then.
00:04:10
Speaker
and picked up a copy of Days Before and I remember being really pretty earth shattering for me as like a young coming out of the anti-war movement and kind of like anarchist-y type for sure. That's cool. That's really cool.
00:04:22
Speaker
So how did you go from anti-war movement up through a lot of people involved in anarchist communities today are familiar with your work during Occupy and that era. So how did you all get up from 2004 early anarchist projects into to that era of Occupy?
The Stimulator Show
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, Frank moved from Atlanta to Vancouver in somewhere in the aughts. And then he got involved with some of the organizing around the Olympics. And and this is kind of the the the period of time when it's the end of the world, as we know, and I feel fine kicked off, which I don't know, if you want to kind of maybe explain that, that show and and what it was.
00:05:02
Speaker
Sure. there was, i don't know. It was a end of the world as we know, and I feel fine was Frank's sort of had an avatar that was a talking head that was just like a closeup of his mouth and then some loops of some eyes. And it was just like a character called the stimulator. And never, that was like my first introduction to submedia was watching some of those videos.
00:05:26
Speaker
And it was, you know, he was like foul mouthed and he had a lot of really funny catchphrases and he was like a, you know, like ah influencer before there were influencers he was just ahead of his time and you know he would call the united states the united snakes and canada was clanida and just like rip apart like the bush era stuff and like just this like scathing comedy but in like an actual you know anarchist analysis that was like you know to me at the time is like somebody that was like
00:06:02
Speaker
squatting. i was like living in rural Tennessee at the time. And we would, you know, wait for days for like one episode of this to download so we could watch it.
Evolution Beyond The Stimulator
00:06:16
Speaker
It was just like the greatest thing. Like we would there was like the, you know, the other stuff at the time was like terrible flash animations that like, this was like the first, you know, like independent news show that I had seen that was like, you know, funny, but also pointed and had analysis that, you know, spoke to me.
00:06:39
Speaker
Yeah, I started watching It's the End of the World as we know it. I feel fine. And probably around 2008 or so, i think i I caught on around the time of the RNC in Minneapolis.
00:06:50
Speaker
And yeah, I mean, I ended up was I was going to school and learning how to cut video. And when my time came for my internship, I decided that I was going to hop on a plane and fly out to Vancouver and intern with some media. So I did that in 2010, right after shortly after the the Olympics in Vancouver.
00:07:09
Speaker
And, you know, it was pretty, pretty sweet. I rolled into the office and the first day he was like, how do you feel about making a video for crime thing for steal something from work day? I was like, I feel great. Yeah.
00:07:24
Speaker
Yeah, so, you know, we hit it off. And then when later on, Frank was touring with N-Civ, this film that he did, unfortunately, about Derek Jensen shortly before all this stuff. Oh, that's right. That was about Derek Jensen.
00:07:42
Speaker
it was He was kind of stuck touring this film while we were all kind of shit-talking Jensen and he was. Basically asked asked me if I would kind of come on and help put out you know some of the the stimulator shows while he was on tour.
00:07:57
Speaker
So I did that. And then for me, like I kind of rejoined the collective on a more permanent basis around the time of Ferguson, the Ferguson uprising. and And so I started off just writing the scripts for for the stimulator and then eventually kind of came on and and became more of a full time editor as well.
00:08:14
Speaker
So over that time, i mean, y'all have done a lot of different kinds of projects, a lot of different kinds of media over that
Adapting to Media Changes
00:08:23
Speaker
time. Like, what does that evolution look like? I mean, I know with this show or with IGD that's going down, there's like hours, the hundreds of hours of conversation that have guided that sort of how those projects have developed. But what does that look like for you all as you've sort of, i mean, not just engaged with...
00:08:44
Speaker
anarchist media landscapes, but really engage with those during a period of time when media landscapes themselves were changing really dramatically. What does that evolution look like?
00:08:56
Speaker
It's big question. do you mean just sort of the the evolution of submedia within that concept? Yeah, it' sort of how has your thinking changed about sort of what you're doing and what your role is and kind of how is that guided sort of what you're making and how you're making it over these years?
00:09:12
Speaker
A bunch of this was before my time, but as I understand it, like when I guess I can talk about like, you know, system fail, but this is was true for it's the end of the world as you know it.
Balancing News and Analysis
00:09:23
Speaker
And I feel fine.
00:09:24
Speaker
You know, when you're doing that, like funny news show you're just like attached. You're basically married to the news cycles and you have to like, just be so on top of like what, like spend hours and hours consuming like every possible news to like, see how, how can we like make fun of it and how can we present it in a way that makes sense and like,
00:09:49
Speaker
whatever. So when we were doing system fail, it was like this thing where we do an episode every other week. And you know, one episode, one week would be like a mad rush to publish the episode on time. And then the next week we'd spend recovering, like, you know, so it it'd just be like a meeting and, you know, have to write a script that day. And then, you know, within a week have like a full, like 13 minutes of video. And then,
00:10:18
Speaker
you know, translations of it and like subtitles for it and, you know, funny cut clips. And it just just became this like all encompassing thing. So, you know, there was like sort of this, like this pendulum where submedia went from it's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine. And then,
00:10:38
Speaker
towards trouble, which was like a longer format documentary series. You're like, you know, now you're not as married to the news cycles and you can like do this deep analysis. And then, you know, that was like maybe one of the,
00:10:54
Speaker
best things that submedia ever did. And then, you know, the pendulum swings back and people were like, oh, let's get back into the news cycle. So that was like the birth of, you know, system fail.
00:11:06
Speaker
But, you know, we kind of like, because of the video media format, we kind of have to have one project and stick with it. And we can do like sort of one-offs every so often, or like we try to keep ourselves agile.
00:11:18
Speaker
You know, if there is like an event, like we could, you know, make a one-off video of it. Like, when Luigi Mangione shot that like CEO, we were just kicking ourselves, like sending memes back and forth to each other. Like, God damn, I wish we were, you know, look, imagine all the things we could do with this.
Challenges in Anarchist Media
00:11:38
Speaker
Right. But, you know, we were that during that time we've been, we're, you know, like months deep into the process of the, you know, the inter-rebellion, the first episode of inter-rebellion that we're,
00:11:54
Speaker
you know we can get into later but we're just so stoked on it and you know it just wasn't a time for sub media to make a video so i don't know if i'm like you know there's there's like an ebb and a flow to our processes i guess what i'm trying to say and like yeah yeah you know sometimes we're married to the news cycle and sometimes we're like doing this more you know, longer format work that's ah analysis and diving deep into a topic.
00:12:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I just add to that maybe as i mean, yeah, we we do meet very regularly, like we have weekly meetings. And then once a year, we kind of have like, bigger visioning sessions where we kind of do talk about these sort of bigger picture things about, you know, trends that we see in in media.
00:12:41
Speaker
And that's kind of when we come up with like, make our decisions about, you know, we want to, we want to start something new or we, we think that this is going to maybe catch on. And so maybe we could, you know, we could start a new concept for a series around this or, or what have you.
00:12:55
Speaker
But I mean, in terms of basically the broader evolution of of anarchist media, I mean, it's, it's exploded since, since the media first hit the scene. And so, you know, that's, that's a great thing. Like when, when submedia first launched, like YouTube wasn't even around. Right. So yeah,
00:13:12
Speaker
So media started with just like quick time movie files being distributed on like CD ROMs. And then, you know, when, when archive.org, when, when Frank found archive.org, like that was a big thing, right? Because we could actually like host our videos online and not have to worry about paying for the bandwidth every time somebody watched it.
00:13:29
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, like, there's been there's been a whole bunch of technological advances, obviously, the explosion of like smartphones and and, you know, and social media platforms, like prioritizing video content has kind of led to a general increase in video content and and people being able to produce their media, which thankfully has produced like a, you know, shit ton of like awesome media projects by anarchists. And and you know, whether that's like,
00:13:53
Speaker
YouTube channels or podcasts or, you know, um'm just more kind of news and analysis websites like IGD, you know, it's if' there's ah the the media landscape is much more crowded, which is just a great thing, but also kind of poses its own challenges in terms of, you know, visibility and stuff like that.
Navigating News and Strategy
00:14:12
Speaker
But, you know, that's like a problem that we're very happy to deal with as opposed to, ah you know, nobody, nobody talking about anarchism or whatever, which is kind of where things were at more in the the early odds.
00:14:23
Speaker
Yeah, I and routinely find myself talking to newer participants, which you right now there's there's a lot of where I live, about like the process of like what it used to look like to do an anti-war protest back in 2002.
00:14:38
Speaker
two thousand and two or something where you would like go to a meeting and then someone would like lay a flyer out on like Microsoft word. And then we'd go to the like cooperative print shop in town. And then they would print 10,000 copies.
00:14:51
Speaker
And then you'd have to like go get them and distribute them all to coffee shops. And like a month later, you can have your rally, right? Because that's how long it like took to get everything out there. And how we probably went.
00:15:04
Speaker
yeah oh totally Right. Well, no, absolutely. Right. And there was this like this whole social circulation about how you made zines and like where you got collage material from and how you stole your copies. And like there was this whole kind of like ecosystem around all of that, which has changed so drastically, I think, in the last like 25 years or Yeah.
00:15:26
Speaker
or so And I know one of the questions, one of you raised this, and i'm I'm curious what you're thinking about this is now, but I know something we talk about as a collective often is this kind of shift back and forth between a necessity to focus on our news cycle, right?
00:15:44
Speaker
That sometimes say... a year and a half ago, and felt a little bit like we could back off a bit from the news cycle and sort of focus on bigger questions for a little while, right?
00:15:57
Speaker
Now it feels very much like there's this really dramatic pull back into the news cycle, right? For, I think, pretty obvious reasons. And I know we've been talking a lot about ways to sort of resist that pull into the daily outrage, right?
00:16:13
Speaker
Which is sort of dominates so much of the media landscape right now. But I know one way we're we're trying to do that is by having really long conversations with people like you all, right? And allowing us to delve into questions, but sort of how are you all navigating that push and pull? Like how much are you deciding right now in this moment that to be focusing on the immediate chaos ins and outs of the news cycle that we see versus focusing on bigger questions, strategic questions, kind of meta-political questions, you know sort of the other side of analysis.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we've, so that is a good
Global Focus Shift
00:16:50
Speaker
question. and And it is something that we have, that has, as as Nuke mentioned earlier, it has really defined our kind of, our output is this sort of ebb and flow. And so, I mean, and Trump is ah is a ah big magnet for kind of this desire and and he sort of really revels in in this sort of perpetual chaos and and the constant news cycle and the sort of the waves of outrage.
00:17:16
Speaker
And i mean, it's something that during the first Trump administration back then we were doing, i mean, I think that it started when, when the, when it first started, we were doing, it's the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.
00:17:29
Speaker
And then we ended up covering it as well with, you the fucking news and and then a little bit in our series System Fail. And honestly, I mean, you know, there is, it's like, it's it's hard to avoid, but there was also definitely a lot of resentment within our collective that we were kind of constantly focusing on like the American news cycle.
00:17:50
Speaker
And it is something that we've kind of been been very intentional about sort of recalibrating our focus towards other struggles like and internationally. And I mean, since ah but we've we've definitely had a lot to say about but like the incoming Trump administration, we almost did a video on it.
00:18:08
Speaker
and then And then Assad fell. And so we made the choice to cover do a video on Syria instead, because, you know, we feel that that's kind of been a something that a lot of anarchists have ah more or less been sleeping on, you know, given it's given its kind of significance in terms of geopolitics, the the Syrian revolution, I mean. yeah So i don't know. We haven't actually really weighed in too much on on Trump 2.0.
00:18:33
Speaker
Obviously, we have our our thoughts on it. But right now we are on this sort of path that we've kind of chosen. And and it could just be because of we're we're not currently we don't currently have a show that that is wedded to the news cycle.
00:18:46
Speaker
I think if if we did, you know, it would be very difficult for us to avoid making fun of Elon Musk and, you know, cutting up these these Trump speeches. I mean, you know, and and yeah, I mean, I'm sure like we we would enjoy doing that. I mean, it is it is fun to do. But, you know, at the same time, you kind of realize that this is sort of part of Trump's strategy for for sort of ah keeping people kind of off off balance and and not being able to kind of really build anything because they're always reacting.
00:19:14
Speaker
So I don't know, we we'll get into inter-rebellion and I think that there's there's be maybe part of the conversation that's more specifically focused on that, but we are really kind of looking at what what are some of the lessons that I think that people can be learning about how to build up their capacity for kind of the, the, the dangerous period that we're entering into.
00:19:33
Speaker
Right. And, and for us, I mean, there, there have been a lot of, there's a lot of ah else going on around the world that I think, You know, people in in the U.S. and and around the world who are who are focused on Trump should also be kind of paying attention to this stuff and and learning lessons and trying to yeah get ready to actually sort of build something in opposition as as opposed to just sort of reacting to things as they kind of play out.
00:19:56
Speaker
Yeah, why don't we why don't we shift? Why don't we shift over to all of this documentary series coming out?
New Series on Global Uprisings
00:20:02
Speaker
Do want to just dive right on in? Just tell us what it's about, sort of when it's debuting and everything, and and kind of what what kind of arc are you all exploring in this?
00:20:10
Speaker
um Sure, yeah. So... I mean, I think as as we've kind of talked about this this sort of back and forth, i mean, when we ended Trouble, we did so in large part because in at beginning in the 2018, and then all throughout 2019, it seemed like there was a global revolution that was sort of kicking off, right? There was there was massive uprisings in...
00:20:34
Speaker
You know, in France, in Hong Kong, in Chile, in Lebanon, in Iraq, like all all over the world, things were sort of kicking off at a pace that we felt really hadn't occurred since 1968.
00:20:48
Speaker
and And really kind of that that basically made us so decide, OK, we need to get off of this kind of long format analysis arc that we're on with Trouble And we need to get back into actually sort of covering the news and being able to give our are two cents on these uprisings that are kind of breaking out everywhere.
00:21:04
Speaker
And by the time we actually got our our ah the system fail concept kind of figured out and, you know, we're ready to start putting stuff out, that COVID had hit and kind of it it sort of, you know, put the kibosh on things. And so we we basically launched system fail.com.
00:21:19
Speaker
around the time of the George Floyd uprising. And, you know, and there was there was definitely other things going on over the end of the the subsequent years. But we we felt as though this period of time where there was this rapid concurrence of of these different uprisings and, you know, you could turn on the news and there'd be news reports from like four different uprisings that were like the largest uprisings that had happened in these countries in the past 50 years or so, all happening at the same time.
00:21:48
Speaker
and And yeah, we just feel as though basically because the world got swallowed up into COVID and and everything sort of changed after that, there wasn't really enough reflection ah given to this to this period of time and and all of the important lessons that were learned.
00:22:04
Speaker
And so our new series, Into Rebellion, is an attempt to to actually learn and and sort of catalog some of these hard-fought and hard-won lessons that that, you know, different participants in these uprisings have and to sort of try to stoke the flames of kind of like internationalism and and figure out like how, you know, we can we can build on these lessons and and kind of surpass the limitations that these these previous wave of uprisings experienced.
00:22:32
Speaker
And so the new series Inter-Rebellion, which is, that's a Latin ah word for between uprisings.
Collaborating for Authentic Stories
00:22:39
Speaker
And, you know, that kind of speaks to what we're trying to achieve with this is to sort of a dialogue between uprisings and then also kind of understanding as a temporal sense that there are kind of periods between uprisings, but that our uprisings are kind of you know cyclical processes. And so we do believe that there's going you know there's going to be future uprisings that are going to be bigger. And and you know it's kind of incumbent on us to incorporate these lessons and sort of build ties and and kind of, yeah, fight harder the next time we have the opportunity to do so.
00:23:11
Speaker
The Beautiful Idea is a proud member of the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network. Here's a taste of another project on CZN.
00:23:23
Speaker
Welcome to Propaganda by the Seed, a podcast about plants and the nerds that love them. We alternate between hour-long interview episodes that usually focus on a single species or crop, and shorter episodes that focus on topics related to plants like grafting, composting, and the rest.
00:23:41
Speaker
You can find Propaganda by the Seed on the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts, at propagandabytheseed.com, or most podcast platforms. I'll see you deep in the weeds.
00:23:59
Speaker
So maybe walk us through some of these these sort of scenarios that you're capturing here, right? Like, I think as you said, there's been an almost unparalleled period of of political resistance over the last, you know, decade even.
00:24:14
Speaker
i mean, I know I've been involved in this for 25 years. I've never seen anything even like the period that we've been through in the recent past. But as you said, it it it was sort of a strange period because of lockdown.
00:24:26
Speaker
So maybe walk us through, like, what what are you sort of covering? Like, which which struggles are you kind of exploring in this series? And what are some of the lessons that are kind of coming out of those explorations as you're sort of going through them?
00:24:40
Speaker
We plan to cover, you know, uprisings by the country that they happened in. And we want this to be a multi-part documentary series. I'm sort of starting with the guillet jaune, you know, the yellow vests. Excuse my French.
00:24:56
Speaker
It's terrible. Guillet jaune. Thank you.
Lessons from Global Uprisings
00:25:00
Speaker
um So we're basically trying to cover like from the end of 2018 about mid the George Floyd uprising, but we want to ah cover, make one episode per country. And the first episode is about the Estadio Social in Chile, which was, you know, started with kids avoiding the transit fares and like turned into like a nationwide, like uprising that shook the foundations of power there.
00:25:32
Speaker
And we want to cover the shutdown Canada and Canada, like, Yeah, we've got 10 countries on our list. And I mean, this might change. We've had a couple of people get back to us and ask like why like Iran isn't on the list, for instance.
00:25:45
Speaker
But yeah, in terms of the countries that we wanted, we were going to look at, we were going to look at starting with Chile. The next one that we're hoping to do is going to be on on shutdown Canada. The Gilets Jean uprising in in France.
00:25:57
Speaker
We also want to look at Haiti, the uprising in Haiti, the uprisings in Lebanon, the October revolution in Lebanon, the revolution in Sudan, ah the Tishrin revolution in Iraq.
00:26:10
Speaker
We want to look at Hong Kong. I believe Ecuador, and then there's maybe one other one that I'm forgetting. But yeah, the plan is that we want to we're using this as an opportunity to also connect with the anarchists in these different countries or or participants who took part in these uprisings. And so they're going to be collaborative documentaries that are done with local comrades.
00:26:33
Speaker
And so, for instance, like we've been working on the the first one on the S.A.E. Social. We've been doing that with a crew of Chilean comrades. And we've had, you know, we've been able to work with like a local videographer who's who's been filming all of these interviews for us. we've We've done a collaboration with a well-known like podcaster from like a Mapuche podcaster who does the Escape from History podcast or vlog series that's hosted on Collectiva and yeah I mean it's it's it's been awesome to actually sort of build these the relationships and they've been pretty excited to sort of tell their story because there's been a lot of movies and documentaries done about the SD to Swiss to help there's a really you know
00:27:12
Speaker
pretty famous one done called Mi Paisa Imaginario by Luis Guzman, who was like, Patricio Guzman, who was the filmmaker who was kind of famous for doing a film like The Battle of Chile about Allende. But he kind of, he went went back and did like a documentary on this. And it was kind of just a little slop and and, you know, the whole thing about how, you know, they they succeeded in the end because they they managed to ah have this referendum to pass a new constitution and then Boric gets selected and,
00:27:42
Speaker
Yada, yada. Right. and And I mean, like unsurprisingly, the anarchists have a different take on that. and yeah So I think, you know, there, one of the big lessons is just how much the state will contort itself in order to recuperate any any serious threat to its rule.
00:27:59
Speaker
I think that in other uprisings, there'll be different lessons that are kind of the primary tactical and strategic lessons to take away. But we do hope to to to draw what we can from them and to sort of give space to local participants to kind of tell their story.
00:28:13
Speaker
So I guess, you know, the question that comes up for me is why now?
Revolutionary Optimism
00:28:18
Speaker
Right. why of all the moments in history, you know, and and this gets asked about every moment in history where there's sort of a radical uptick in political militancy or or confrontations with the state.
00:28:32
Speaker
But why now? but I think it's it's difficult to see the recent past as history, right? But what was it about that period that really created the dynamics that led to this kind of you know overlapping network of sort of you know networks of rebellion that kind of exists around the world today? like what What is it about this period that's different? Yeah.
00:28:56
Speaker
Well, in terms of why why now, as as in terms of like why we are actually focusing on it, I think that this wasn't necessarily the primary motivation of the time, but I do think right now, I'm happy that we're doing this because I really think that we need an injection of revolutionary optimism.
00:29:13
Speaker
I think that things are so incredibly bleak right now that it is important to you know to be able to remind ourselves of our of our capacity and our potential. but I think that people are getting pretty demoralized and and sort of demobilized by, you know, the the threats that kind of are, have been on the horizon for a long time and are getting, you know, pretty dangerously close, right?
00:29:38
Speaker
So, I mean, that's kind of part of the motivation for that. i don't know, Nuk, if you want to ah I mean, I think we wanted to do this while the participants of these uprisings are still, you know, around to tell their stories. And so that like these lessons aren't lost to history, like this stuff is still, you know, in pretty recent memory. And we hope that by,
00:30:01
Speaker
examining these struggles you know we can take that knowledge and use it for the fights to come that seem like they're coming maybe sooner than we had thought but we just don't want to lose this stuff to history yeah yeah and what do those struggles look like so i was right so we're good it's a main i big question i guess i as a speaking from the u.s i think there's a need for anarchists in the U S to sort of break embrace this revolutionary internationalism that we, that we're talking about here, because, you know, i I'm, I was like watching one of the interviews that we did, like just the uncut interview of that
US Policies and Global Impact
00:30:43
Speaker
we did for this. and
00:30:45
Speaker
they're talking about the disinformation campaigns against the uprising and how it's straight out of like CIA and FBI and Cohen until a pro you know, playbooks.
00:30:57
Speaker
And it's just like, right? Like liberation for peoples of the world is kind of tied up with like the U S state has to be destroyed. And like, I think we need to be able to seize on this moment where like so much of the state is being dismantled by, you know, our fucking enemies. But There is a moment of rupture and it is something that, you know, we need to get organized around and capitalize on and start building this revolutionary structure now. And, you know, we're going to have to take risks and it's going to be dangerous times. And like
00:31:36
Speaker
Yeah, this video series is about, you know, collective groups of people that took risks and tried to upheave the social order and had some success in that.
00:31:47
Speaker
And we want to build on those successes and we want to fucking tear this shit down once and for all, you know? Yeah. In terms of kind of what the sort of catalyst for these different uprisings during that time, I don't know if that was also part of what you were kind of asking.
00:32:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, there's a whole school of thought that would kind of, you know, frame this in terms of economics and kind of, you know, like the declining rate of profit or whatever, all all these kind of like grandiose sort of explanations that of of why these crises are getting bigger and bigger. Right. But I think like anyone can kind of see, we're just living in like a time where we're just getting squeezed more and more.
00:32:31
Speaker
And that essentially a lot of the, the recuperative policies that were put in place to build the social welfare state are, are being dismantled and have been, you know, being dismantled for years now. Mm-hmm.
00:32:46
Speaker
because the state no longer thinks that they're necessary because they want to rely more on the stick. And so I think, you know, I mean, one of the one of the the projects that we've taken some inspiration from and we've been in contact with is a group called the or collective called The People's Want, which put out a manifesto that we, I would highly recommend everyone check out.
00:33:05
Speaker
And they have a longer window in there as they they look back to the period starting with the uprising in Argentina in 2001. And then they also kind of, you know, in this in this bigger picture, they also incorporate the Arab Spring. Right. But I mean, I do think that you can sort of look at this period beginning with the late anti-globalization movement. And, you know, you could go earlier, include, include,
00:33:30
Speaker
zapaista is the the Caracazo riots in Venezuela in the 80s even, right? But we are just in a period where like the contradictions of of capitalism are getting
Capitalism and Climate as Catalysts
00:33:41
Speaker
very extreme. And then on top of that, you have the effects of of climate change causing, you know, drought and c collapse of like food security in places, you know. And so, yeah, I mean, we're we're going to be entering a period of, of increased strife. And, you know, there's, there's not many military and security planners that would tell you differently, right?
00:34:03
Speaker
Or the people that are, whose job it is to forecast what the future is going to look like for social conflict, right? They all see this coming as well, right? So I think it's not a coincidence that, that there's been, you know, bigger and bigger uprisings. And I do think that the COVID pandemic being kind of a a dip in this is not, you know, it's going to be an aberration.
00:34:25
Speaker
If you look at like a sort of longer view of history, I think that we're, you know, on the path towards bigger and, and, you know, more violent uprisings in in the coming years and and decades to come.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah. And i I think the question I'm talking about with people in you know, off air, you know, in private conversations is how we navigate this. Right. So, know, I mean, a theme that's come up in this conversation a bunch is how much anarchist communities have grown in the last 25 years, right?
00:34:57
Speaker
Just how much different the scale is, how much different the reach is, the capacity is. I mean, it's a night and day, sort of difference.
00:35:09
Speaker
And, know, someone I know, and I'm not going to out who they are, who's a very, very, very smart person, has been positing that they're viewing this moment right now as sort of the counter-revolution to the things that have happened since the mid-1990s, right?
00:35:25
Speaker
While at the same time, we're also watching everything fall apart.
Counter-Revolutionary Complexities
00:35:29
Speaker
And I know, i i mean, I have a lot of thoughts about this, but how are you all navigating that, right? So it it changes the terms of how we do politics, right, pretty drastically.
00:35:39
Speaker
And how are you all navigating that sort of change, right? Like, how are you talking about things like crisis, right? Like, how are we talking about the consolidation of state power, right? Like, it feels really difficult to talk about those things without falling immediately right back into the push and pull of the outrage cycle. Yeah.
00:35:56
Speaker
Right. And so for you all, what does it look like to navigate all of that? I mean, these kinds of things which we've never had to really think through how to cover, how to talk about before, at least during our lifetimes.
00:36:09
Speaker
I mean, I would just say, I think that the within the context of the United States, that the counter-revolution to the uprising was Biden and Black Lives Matter, to be honest. like It is like the the way that the the the George Floyd uprising was sort of recuperated, not to to to knock like everyone involved with Black Lives Matter, but the way that it was channeled into a very institutionalized kind of, you know,
00:36:35
Speaker
Back in the Democratic Party, essentially, right? I mean, that was the recuperative side. and then, yes, maybe this is kind of that there's elements within like the Trump administration who are kind of pushing forward like a, yeah, more a more repressive, you know, like.
00:36:50
Speaker
balls out kind of revolution. Right. But then there's also just like people and in, in, uh, in his administration or people who are grouped around Peter Thiel and Elon Musk or whatever, who are kind of just pursuing their own revolution, right? Like their ideologues and of their own, their own variety. And, and like, you know, frankly, like I, I don't really know that they're like their plan is, is, is, is that coherent? Yeah.
00:37:16
Speaker
Like, I mean, it's it's scary because a lot of these things that we've been talking about for a long time about like, you know, ai augmented surveillance and and, you know, all these things like these are the people who are kind of pushing this forward. And so they have a lot of very terrifying capacity.
00:37:30
Speaker
But, you know, I mean, if you've been reading some of the stuff about their their plans of kind of just like their their plan is to basically take down the United States government and replace it with kind of a like a, you know, almost like an anarcho-capitalist kind of like networked city-state kind of model for the future, which doesn't really seem like it's that well thought out, be to be honest.
00:37:51
Speaker
And I mean, there there have been other ideologues who have tried to pursue their own kind of revolutions or their own sort of ideologically motivated sort of coups and in in Washington, thinking about like the the neocons under Bush. And I mean, You know, they ran into the, they were kind of contained by their own sort of hubris to a certain extent, right?
00:38:10
Speaker
I mean, not to minimize like all the horrible things that they did. they They were managed to do tremendous amount of damage. But for me, like the counter-revolution, yeah, like the thing that that, that this seems to be something else. Like the counter-revolution to me was with Biden in in the US. And yeah, this is something, something new and and more ugly and and worse, but one that potentially, yeah, could,
00:38:32
Speaker
lead to like a really big upheaval in like the U S and, and, you know, that's something that anarchists really need to be kind of ready for. And, you know, i know that's, that's easier said than done. yeah But yeah, I do think that when the chips are kind of on the, on the table, that people have the capacity to kind of resist in a way that is, is,
00:38:55
Speaker
you know people here are not really used to. you know And i'm I'm speaking from um so-called Canada, and we're a pretty docile and pacified country up here as well. right But you know there's going to be there's goingnna be ah lot of strife, and I don't think that the outcome is as certain as some of these more ideologically minded reactionaries think that it's going to be.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Well, and let's, I mean, you know, we always close on a sunny note on
Influence and Safety in Media
00:39:22
Speaker
this show. Let's close with the question that I think that this leads to, right? Which is, there's always kind of a tension in anarchist media projects.
00:39:31
Speaker
It's one that I think all of us that work on them feel, which is that on one hand, we are trying to have the broadest sort of reach that we possibly can.
00:39:43
Speaker
On the other hand, we all recognize that if we're effective at doing that, then that creates danger for us, right? Creates danger for us in our projects. It creates danger for any anarchist project to be successful.
00:39:56
Speaker
Going forward in this period where the state is overtly adversarial, right, is not even pretending to exist in this sort of space of dialogue and compromise, but is is entirely adversarial.
00:40:14
Speaker
How do anarchist projects start to navigate those complications, right? Being able to stay mobile and flexible while still being able to sort of increase reach in a way which is safe and sustainable and aware of the conditions that we're going into ah in other words how how do we start to think about building anarchist media projects for the time that is coming that is already here in many ways but that is definitely very much on its way well think our reaction to that you know in terms of submedia we've
00:40:47
Speaker
you know, we're kind of not interested in compromising with our enemies and we're interested in being adversarial, you know, like we've gone through like, Oh, do we make some stuff that's toned down without cop cars on fire so that we can get like funding or whatever. And,
00:41:03
Speaker
It's like, no, we're going to always have the cop cars on fire. We love those. That's like kind of our shtick, and we're not going to um compromise on that. But you know that those concerns like sort of led to you know the founding.
00:41:17
Speaker
with like and Submedia is a co-founder of Colectiva, which is on the Fediverse. It's a Mastodon instance, which is sort of like a decentralized version of Twitter. But then...
00:41:31
Speaker
quietly collectiva.media which is a pure tube instance where we host all our videos it's like a place we host all our videos as you know other anarchist projects um anti-media co-founded it with us and they're an anarchist video media project in brazil and they're rad as fuck It's on anarchists, like servers maintained by anarchists and other anarchist projects host videos there. And it's sort of quietly become like quite the library of video media content from like a lot of different people.
00:42:06
Speaker
Like the Escupamos de la Historia, one of the people that we worked on, the Inner Rebellion series is on there. There's... just like terabytes of video on there and you could just go there and find something new to watch. It's like an anarchist YouTube.
00:42:23
Speaker
So yeah, we need, we need to build our own networks of distribution is what I'm trying to say. And you know, we, we can't be at the whim of you know, these tech bros that are trying to destroy the government right now. You know, we're already banned from Twitter and like great good riddance and, you know, we're,
00:42:46
Speaker
I think that what I would kind of just add to this too is just that like, there's been like, I've heard definitely the argument that it's important to be on these platforms because that's where people are. And, you know, there are people who spend a bunch of time trying to navigate this sort of minefield and, and, you know, keep up to date on the algorithms and maybe just use,
00:43:07
Speaker
you know, creative ways of kind of getting content out and bypassing all of the roadblocks that are put up by these surveillance capitalist platforms. But I mean, i also just kind of think that the the reality is that we're not going to win over everyone just through through media online. And I think that we all really do underestimate how much we are kind of trapped in our different sort of content bubbles, right? I think that like the way that that social media has has developed has been towards just sort of reinforcing these different sort of bubbles that we exist in and kind of disseminating content that people that they know people are already going to watch you know and and that's going to keep them on their platforms. Right. so
00:43:51
Speaker
You know, submedia's views have gone down considerably over the years on on these platforms. But we do have, you know, a pretty consistent group of of people who kind of watch our our things. And so that's basically our audience. I think that like, I mean, while it's important to have this stuff on the Internet so that when people become activated and they go looking for this information, then they will find it I think that it's kind of, you know, ah a bit of a it's a bit wrong headed to actually kind of think that we're going to be able to sort of reach these the and uninitiated masses online or something. Right.
00:44:26
Speaker
The reality is just that there is going to be resistance. And when resistance happens in the real world, it's going to resonate with a lot of people. And then, you know, there if if that those actions that are kind of catch their attention,
00:44:40
Speaker
are anarchist in nature or are anti-capitalist or anti-state than people who you know who agree with them are are going to look and and seek us out right i think that that's kind of where we sort of landed on some of these some of these questions i mean it's not to say that we don't you know that we're you're we're pure purists about the whole thing like we do still post our videos on meta platforms and on on google's platforms youtube and stuff like that but But yeah, to to sort of reinforce, I guess what Nuke was saying, I mean, we've we've determined that like what's important is that we kind of have a platform where we're not censored and you know that we kind of put our efforts into sort of building that up.
Independent Platforms for Anarchist Media
00:45:20
Speaker
and And so that's what we've been doing over the past several years as is trying to sort of build our own kind of and shift as much of our already sort of built-in audience from these other platforms over to less toxic platforms like Massive Honor or Peer 2.
00:45:35
Speaker
That's great. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, i i also, I'm i'm a a person who uses Collectiva. I think everyone who's listening to this show should... go get an account on collectiva.social.
00:45:46
Speaker
It's like Twitter, but like 500% less toxic and Elon Musk doesn't make money off it. And it's run by really cool people. So everyone should go it. Can I also just say that ah we are actually looking for people to help with moderation on collectiva as well.
Inspiration from Resilient Struggles
00:46:02
Speaker
You know, submedia is... How can people involved with that? You could message moderator at collectiva or you could email us at... Collectiva at riseup.net.
00:46:12
Speaker
Or just ping some media on there. We're, and we can help connect to you. Awesome. So closing out, looking around the U S looking around Canada, Canada,
00:46:25
Speaker
Mexico, the world, as we're going into this next period, what are are the struggles that you're looking at for inspiration? So as you're sort of looking for ways to to work through this period of time, like what are the struggles that you're drawing ideas from that you're drawing you know hope from right now?
00:46:45
Speaker
For me, it's, you know, Palestine right now. If I could just, right, if I could have, like, one half of the bravery of, like, a Palestinian teenager throwing a rock at a tank, I think I'd be all right in this time.
00:47:00
Speaker
Like, just the images coming out of there are just... I mean, tragic, but people are just so resilient. And like, you know, but I think one of the hot spots of resistance in the world right now, my heart has really gone out like over this past year and a half, especially, but like, you know, it's been a thing that I've, you know, watched perennially and it's, I don't know.
00:47:28
Speaker
I don't know how people do it. I like, I would probably break in that situation if I'm being honest. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, living up on the northern half of the imaginary line, I mean, we take a lot of inspiration from indigenous struggles up here.
00:47:45
Speaker
And so I would kind of say, you know, they're a pretty constant source of inspiration and and sort of, you know, being grounded and and science being able to spend time with with communities that are really tight-knit and that know how to throw down, but also you know don't really fetishize it in in you know in a way, right? you know That it's just sort of something that needs to be done.
00:48:06
Speaker
And when it needs to be done, and it it gets done. I think it's always very humbling and and inspiring. And then, yeah, I mean, globally, there's you know there's always things popping off, really, right? So...
00:48:18
Speaker
I don't know. i mean, ive I have found a lot of inspiration from some of the uprisings and in the Middle East, from like the Arab Spring. And yeah, I do think that that's kind of things are pretty ripe for another another big wave of of uprisings across like the Arab world. And Latin America is always kind of ready to pop off. So I don't know, you know, there's there' a lot to watch and take inspiration from.
00:48:45
Speaker
Cool. Well, is there anything else that you all want to talk about, mention to listeners, plug, anything like that?
Encouraging Group Screenings
00:48:54
Speaker
I just want to say the series Inner Rebellion is designed to be you know screened in groups. So if you are listening and you...
00:49:05
Speaker
you know, run an anarchist community center, just have an affinity group of friends that get together and watch movies or whatever. Hit us up at crew at sub.media and, you know, tell us you want to organize a screening and we will get you a packet of screening materials with discussion questions that you could use or, you know, not because, you know, anarchy, like whatever, you don't have to use our packet, but it might be nice for some things to think about.
00:49:37
Speaker
Anything you score? No, I think that, that, that, that does it. Thanks for, for the reminder. new And yeah, thanks for having us. Really excited this project as well. Yeah. Thanks for having us.
00:49:48
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And thanks for being on the show. I've been following your work for a very, very, very long time and yeah, keep it all up. You all do an amazing job. Oh, maybe show everyone. Sorry. Oh, God.
00:50:00
Speaker
One thing, actually, I guess maybe if you want to put this and edit this back in there is that yeah the thing I'll just point out is that we've been doing a multi-part series with Peter Galdulos about climate change and you know how we need to kind of reorient our thinking on that. So that series is called It's Revolution or Death.
00:50:19
Speaker
And we put out two of those. And our plan is to release the third one. We're going to work on it once we once we're done with the first Inter-Rebellion series. So I would expect it sometime in...
00:50:31
Speaker
May. And we're hoping with that one as well, that by the end of it, the three of them will work pretty well as like a ah screening and discussion package as well. That's awesome. Well, thanks for being on the show and thanks for everyone for listening. We'll be back soon.
00:50:46
Speaker
Talk to y'all later.
00:50:52
Speaker
Thanks for listening to today's episode of the beautiful idea news and analysis from the front lines of anarchists and autonomous struggles everywhere. Catch you next time.