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ICE Melts as Streets Erupt, Revolt at Delaney Hall Migrant Prison, UW Campus Occupation Against War Profiteers image

ICE Melts as Streets Erupt, Revolt at Delaney Hall Migrant Prison, UW Campus Occupation Against War Profiteers

The Beautiful Idea
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Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea. So much has happened since we started to put this episode together. We've got a lot to cover, so let's not waste any time and dive right into it!

On today's episode, first we present a interview with an organizer on the recent "Statelessness" conference that took place in Evansville, IN. For more on the conference, check out this recording from the presentation, the Belki Sibe documentary which was shown at the event, a presentation from keynote speaker Jane Gordon, and a PDF booklet about the conference.

Next, we speak with someone involved in Antifa International, which supports international antifascist prisoners, and then turn towards our discussion on the recent deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles, CA.

A reminder to follow the Beautiful Idea on BlueSky, Mastodon, and Instagram and check out our website. The Beautiful Idea is also a proud member of the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast network.

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Intro:

Transition clips:

Transcript

Introduction to 'The Beautiful Idea'

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.

Episode Highlights and Social Media

00:00:43
Speaker
On today's episode, we present an interview with an organizer on the recent Stateless Conference that took place in Evansville, Indiana. An interview with someone involved in Antifa International, which supports international anti-fascist prisoners, and a discussion on the recent deployment of National Guard troops in Los Angeles, California.
00:01:02
Speaker
A reminder to follow The Beautiful Idea on Mastodon, Blue Sky, and Instagram, and check out our website.

Channel Zero Network and ICE Resistance

00:01:08
Speaker
The Beautiful Idea is a proud member of the Channel Zero Anarchist Podcast Network.
00:01:17
Speaker
So much has happened since we started to put this episode together. We've got a lot to cover, so let's not waste any time and dive right into it. Fire beats ice. First up, a dam has broken and the first real eruption in the streets has kicked off against the Trump administration in the fight against ICE and mass deportations.
00:01:36
Speaker
This pushback has been building in recent months as grassroots organizers and groups on the ground have been hard at work pushing back against growing attacks from ICE and the DHS.

Unicorn Riot Interview on ICE Collaboration

00:01:46
Speaker
We're going to start off our show with a short interview from a reporter at Unicorn Riot who talks about how ICE is coordinating with local police to create a vast army of law enforcement mobilized to attack migrant workers.
00:01:57
Speaker
Check out the full report on Unicorn Riot. Hey, it's great to be with you. ah so my name Dan Feit. I've been a reporter with Unicorn Riot since we started 10 years ago. you know, we're a nonprofit media group, and we do try to cover what happens at protests and social movements, direct action, stuff like that.
00:02:17
Speaker
And I think part of that over the years has been about trying to understand how the police work, how does high-level policing unfold. And so what kind of led me into this story was trying to understand, you know, what's going on with ICE. Obviously, the government's trying to ramp up with this ICE program. And so I felt after studying these things over years that I was in a a good position to china to try to put some more analysis on this because I felt that there wasn't enough sort of overview information about how ICE was building these giant task forces.
00:02:47
Speaker
And so I'm happy to bring this to to folks. I think it can be empowering to kind of understand better when the government's trying to do something big like this. and I want to try to, you know, give people good information about weird subjects like this that are hard to understand. Yeah, and this comes at a great time to talk about this stuff. I mean, we're seeing ramping up ICE operations all across the country.
00:03:10
Speaker
Talk a little bit about your new reporting. And ah my understanding is it focuses on The 287G thing, which is basically, as you were saying, like a way in which the state can basically deputize and work with police agencies, which isn't new. I mean, we've we've seen this under Democratic presidents as well, but Trump just seems to be going full bore with this.
00:03:33
Speaker
Yes, exactly. And, you know, I went and sort of talked about what I've been researching to some activists here in Philadelphia. And I just sort of asked people, okay I was like, who's heard of two eighty seven g And, you know, only a couple

Controversy of the 287G Program

00:03:45
Speaker
of hands went up. It's a pretty obscure subject. But 287G has been around for quite a while.
00:03:50
Speaker
And it sort of fell into disrepute back around 2011 when joe Arpaio, who was the sheriff in Maricopa County, Arizona, was doing sweeps, doing racial profiling, doing very sort of pre-Trump style, very spectacular you know detainment of ah immigrants and that kind of thing.
00:04:09
Speaker
and the DOJ had said, oh, this is not acceptable, how this has been going on, you know, and at that point, 287G kind of fell into the background and wasn't such a large factor for quite a while, but it was never taken off the books, right, because both political parties have been very reticent to reel in the powers of of Homeland Security and ICE after 9-11 when those agencies were bundled from pre-existing agencies.
00:04:36
Speaker
And so it it does create a deputization system. And they've been adding dozens and dozens and dozens of agencies, so state agencies like the National Guard in Florida, but also college police departments, right, which is which is weird. And college police don't really have the level of accountability that a local police department would have. So I thought that was pretty striking. And so Florida has been the place that's added the most accountability local agencies to this system.
00:05:08
Speaker
So what I found was that the, there's three different models. There's a warrant service officer model, which is like, think it's kind of sending out like individual for warrants type of activity.
00:05:21
Speaker
There's jail enforcement, which I think was maybe a little more well-known. That was like, Filtering people when they get arrested and then detaining them. If they're already arrested, then detaining them for ICE. And then there's these task force models. And so the task force model means when the police are out and about, it's not just at the jail.
00:05:39
Speaker
And the great example of that was what was done in Tennessee. recently and around Nashville, and they were using the the highway patrol in Tennessee in conjunction with a limited number of ICE agents to to sweep, and they arrested probably around 200 people in a sweep earlier in May.
00:05:58
Speaker
And so that type of scaling up is basically why the feds need this what's called a memorandum of agreement. So when we study how these agencies get connected, the agencies have limited personnel.
00:06:12
Speaker
And I think that's important for people to understand. They don't have an infinite number of people. They can throw at everything. Right. And so they use these memos like 287G to kind of like attach the agencies to each other.
00:06:23
Speaker
But at the same time, like we also found that like in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the sheriff there has signed on to 287G, but the county board the commissioners, they don't want them to do that. They voted against it, but he's doing it anyway.
00:06:38
Speaker
And ICE is like, okay, fine. we're You're a part of our program now. and But again, it's like they don't, ICE doesn't have enough personnel to just be doing this all by themselves. And besides 287G as well, what we find is that they're pulling agents out of the regular FBI work. They're pulling them out of alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. You know, we've been hearing about other agencies as well besides two eighty seven g But 287G is still, i think, the channel in which they can...
00:07:07
Speaker
organize the most personnel to be doing this. I think the bigger picture is also that you know since 2020, since the George Floyd uprising, people haven't wanted to be police officers. A lot of counties like are very strapped for cash. And I think a lot of local governments are kind of hoping that if they get involved in detaining people for immigration detainers, that they can kind of keep their county jails like afloat, keep their you know payroll afloat, right?
00:07:34
Speaker
They're hoping that I think if they participate in two eighty seven g and other and other detainer programs that we talked about in the article, that that will help kind of protect their counties. And so I just kind of wanted to, I think it can be helpful for people to just kind of understand these multiple levels and how it doesn't all just sort of happen purely within the federal government.
00:07:53
Speaker
It also happens within local governments. and And also that I think that local politicians, local civic civic groups, civil liberties groups may not be aware of these systems and what's happening over the years. What I've found is that when I've stumbled into like a huge system like this, like there isn't that much information out there about it. So I just kind of want to.
00:08:13
Speaker
you know, improve the quality of the information that's available so that people can kind of orient themselves and, you know, ah to take action as they see appropriate with a better understanding of the whole environment.
00:08:23
Speaker
And so 287G, I think, is probably the largest channel that's involved in this type of thing and sort of scaling up and finding more personnel. But it's not the only one. And there's a lot

Trump Administration's Immigration Policies

00:08:34
Speaker
of like kind of follow the money kind of qualities to all of this.
00:08:38
Speaker
I think it kind of begs the question, like, Why are they adopting this strategy? It seems like this is just going to piss people off and anger folks. Is that the goal? are like Are they just so desperate to hit these numbers that they're just kind of going after people in the back of a restaurant? you know I think that one thing that's important to know is Stephen Miller and Tom Homan are the two top Trump advisors that are architects of this.
00:09:03
Speaker
Miller has been very adamant, even yelling at the ICE leadership, like we need like 3,000 arrests a day, and know, 3,000 attainment. Or the day after they they removed the leadership of the two divisions of ICE, which is called HSI and ERO.
00:09:20
Speaker
They removed those leaderships because they aren't doing enough of what they're wanting. I think that a large part of this goal is really just to try to keep America, you know, as white as possible and just to remove, remove people that are in no way whatsoever a public health threat, you know, people that have no criminal records. They've, they've tried to remove people for,
00:09:44
Speaker
Speeding tickets that were dismissed, for example, in the in the student channel. This is outside kind of like what's been going on with students, which is another huge arena. I think another term that's just been talked about in the last few days is the State Department wants to create what they euphemistically call like an office of re-migration, which is actually a term that comes out of the white supremacists in Europe and Martin Selner and the generation identity, kind of like the related to the identity Europa idea of previous years.
00:10:13
Speaker
And that that euphemism, re-migration, means trying to expel as many people as they can that aren't white, arguing that they'll culturally never be able to assimilate.
00:10:25
Speaker
There's a piece on the State Department put on Substack that talks about how these people can't assimilate to you know Western tradition, which is another euphemism from the Sellner type of movement, basically. so I think that's really, when you boil it down, that's what the goal is.
00:10:43
Speaker
but But I do think that they try to dazzle people, right? They're trying to intimidate, you know, not just activists and community members, but also like the Democratic Party officials, anybody that's not aligned with the mega agenda. So we see that with the the judge that's been charged in Milwaukee, for example, who seemingly just like had a person at court exit through one hallway door instead of another and they try to charge that judge.
00:11:09
Speaker
Again, that's to try to send a message. I think a term that is sometimes used is dazzle, which is like a kind of like bombastic intimidation to disorient people and try to rush through things.
00:11:21
Speaker
And, you know, and we've seen that the opposition to the White House has been kind of slow and moving this year. And so some of that does come from, I think, from disorientation and not understanding the systems.
00:11:32
Speaker
very well. And so I feel like if we map out the systems, we can get a better handle on it. We also saw it was reported. So my story kind of looks at like a number of different localities, like what's been going on in Texas, what's been on Florida, Maryland.
00:11:45
Speaker
There were immigration rights advocates that wanted to try to stop 287G in Maryland, but they they weren't able to get anywhere on this legislative session. But that kind of showed that like there is like opposition building and official channels to these kind of deals.
00:11:59
Speaker
And there are several states that do not allow 287. We also saw a few days ago that the White House you know declared there were what is thought of as sanctuary cities or counties.
00:12:10
Speaker
and they're going to try to like cut their funding for unrelated programs for this. We've seen that a lot where the White House will, you know, make up some excuse and then say, oh, no, now you don't get any funding for unrelated stuff. And we're going to try to use that as a stick to centralize control. So, you know, it's it's about centralizing control. It's about also pretending that a lot of and undocumented immigrants are a security threat when they're demonstrably not.
00:12:37
Speaker
they will commonly claim in the news that people are a security threat, but then they don't come up with any evidence in court. And that led to the, you know, the Seacott detentions as well. So, you know, there's a lot of disinformation that's used to kind of create or do you like threat construction. Right. But, but also too, at the same time, like they're pulling in all these law enforcement that have other things they're supposed to be doing, but now they're all being put on civil immigration enforcement. So like,
00:13:03
Speaker
It seems like right now the FBI is actually covering up that

Nationwide Protests Against ICE

00:13:07
Speaker
it's not opening other investigations because they've assigned their staff to work on civil immigration enforcement. And they're basically now covering up what they're doing. So so it's getting messy and it is about intimidation and trying to condition people to a more authoritarian situation.
00:13:24
Speaker
experienced in the United States. But I think at the same time, like you saw in San Diego, i think regular people don't find this very tolerable because they they know it's already become very obvious that it's about not just intimidating or trying to grab like people that might be dangerous.
00:13:40
Speaker
It's also about trying to grab people that obviously are not a public safety risk at all. And so there's a lot of this going on and they're trying to ramp it up. And and again, I think 287G is such a a center of gravity. It's such a ah key heart of the machinery because otherwise they can't scale it up very well at all because they still don't have enough other federal police they can throw at this.
00:14:02
Speaker
So there's a lot of information in the story. I also wanted to outline how the database system work and Palantir and all of that, as well as how these other federal task forces work that that could be put into action. And and there's you there's great levels of detail about it, but I do believe that if we provide solid information, everyone can be empowered. It can be a less intimidating ah subject to take on and grapple with. So I really hope everyone checks out the story.
00:14:25
Speaker
It's on our website, unicornriot.ninja. We're nonprofit media, and we really appreciate everyone's support over the last 10 years. So thank you very much for having me today. In late May, resistance began to heat up at courthouses around the US as people moved to block ICE agents from snatching people at court hearings regarding their immigration status as the Trump administration pushed for accelerated deportation numbers.
00:14:47
Speaker
These confrontations then escalated into street clashes in San Diego, Minneapolis, and several other cities before popping off in early June in Los Angeles, California. On June 6th and 7th, thousands mobilized following militarized ICE raids on several workplaces surrounding a federal building in downtown Los Angeles, and demanding that ICE release hundreds of people captured by DHS.
00:15:10
Speaker
The next day people bravely faced off with ICE after federal authorities raided a Home Depot and attacked those in the wider community who came out to protest. Fierce clashes broke out between community members and state forces, with people throwing projectiles at ICE vehicles, eventually driving them from the area after several hours.
00:15:29
Speaker
The next day, Trump moved to federalize several hundred National Guard troops already in California to deal with the fires, who were then sent in to guard the detention center, leading to more clashes and rioting as the Democratic mayor put a curfew in place and the LAPD began a campaign of mass terror and brutality against protesters.
00:15:47
Speaker
Solidarity demonstrations and similar revolts began to pop off in more cities as people began to shut down courthouses with mass pickets and mobilize to kick ICE agents out of hotels, and respond to immigration raids with rage and determination.
00:16:01
Speaker
Things popped off in Seattle, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, and beyond. CrimeThink has recently published some amazing report backs that can be viewed online.
00:16:14
Speaker
There's also been some amazing zines published recently to check out and distribute in your community, including Seven Steps to Stop Ice from CrimeThink. It is Fascism, Start Acting Like It from CrimeThink.
00:16:26
Speaker
Fire and Ice, Lessons from the Battle of Los Angeles from Ill Will. Don't Let l LA Stand Alone, A Message to the Gathering Resistance from It's Going Down. Meanwhile, in Newark, New Jersey, where demonstrators have been demanding the horrific Delaney Hall ice prison be closed, prisoners there launched a rebellion which led to several people escaping, according to a report on Jersey Counter Info.
00:16:48
Speaker
A few days ago, riots broke out at the federal ice detention center in Delaney Hall in Newark, New Jersey. Detainees faced increasing abuse and starvation from their jailers and fought back, reportedly setting fires and knocking down an internal wall used to contain them.

Rebellion at Delaney Hall

00:17:02
Speaker
At the same time, Delaney Hall was swarmed by waves of protesters who slowed operations and drew the attention of ICE and other federal pigs away from the events occurring inside. Protesters stood their ground and prevented ICE fans from entering the facility and thinned out the number of pigs helping to prevent the riot from being quelled.
00:17:19
Speaker
During this juncture, four men who were kidnapped and imprisoned at Delaney Hall by ICE were able to make their escape from the heavily fortified facility. As of now, they are still free, liberated from detention.
00:17:31
Speaker
Because of the brave actions of the individuals detained inside Delaney Hall and the protesters outside, four people were able to escape and gain freedom. It doesn't matter how fortified the state's prisons or detention centers may be, how many federal pigs there are, what weapons they have to brutalize people, solidarity can and will win.
00:17:48
Speaker
Keep fighting by any means necessary. End of quote. There's also so much happening on the ground that it's impossible to give a full roundup of everything, so be sure to check It's Going Down on Blue Sky for daily updates.
00:17:58
Speaker
We hope to get a new episode out soon with a better picture of the full extent of the growing wave of anti-ice action, as well as some thoughts on the massive No Kings demonstrations, which took place on June 14th, bringing millions of people into the streets.
00:18:12
Speaker
May Day 2025 This May Day, tens of thousands took to the streets across the U.S., celebrating the radical holiday which honors the Chicago anarchist martyrs and the fight for the eight-hour workday.
00:18:24
Speaker
Labor unions, immigrant rights groups, and community organizations held demonstrations across the U.S., decrying the Trump administration's growing attacks on labor unions, immigrant workers, and beyond.
00:18:34
Speaker
Anarchist and autonomous groups also held demonstrations and gatherings across the U.S. s to honor the holiday, with various events, actions, and interventions happening in numerous cities. For a full roundup, check It's Going Down.
00:18:47
Speaker
Notable mentions include anarchist-organized May Day gatherings and festivals in Eugene, Oregon, Boise, Idaho, Seattle, Washington, Nevada City, California, Bloomington, Indiana, New Orleans, Louisiana,
00:18:59
Speaker
and in several cities in North Carolina. An anarchist festival took place over several days. In Reno, Nevada, a mutual aid fair was organized. In Denton, Texas and Binghamton, New York, anarchist book fairs were organized, while in Richmond, Virginia, anarchists also organized a march, which met up with other May Day demonstrations.

May Day 2025 and Anarchist Involvement

00:19:16
Speaker
Meanwhile, in New York City, people occupied the former Yippee HQ building before being evicted by police. Finally, autonomous groups held anti-ice marches in Tacoma, Washington, Eugene and Olympia, Oregon,
00:19:28
Speaker
and San Francisco, California. Puget Sound anarchists posted a report back on the anti-ice march on their website, and the Dissonant Times, a new autonomous publication out of Eugene, Oregon, also has a report up on anti-ice action on May Day, writing, quote, On May 2nd, there was a call for a Black bloc under the slogan May Day Melt Ice in response to the federal government's unrestrained escalations against migrants and people connected to last year's Palestine solidarity movement and non-white people in general.
00:19:59
Speaker
A short, small march yielded some light property damage and a fairly heavy response from EPD, resulting in four arrests. Despite the modest attendance and intensity of attack, this was an important testing of the waters here in Eugene, where the climate of repression is shifting, with police beginning to take a more hands-on approach. Police tactics are evolving, and so should ours.
00:20:19
Speaker
And at the same time, this action proved that confrontational street action is very much still possible here. Things are bad, but you can definitely still while out and get away with it. The inspiration we derive from others is unbound by time and space, and as an offering of gratitude, we tend to this cosmic fire, stoking its eternal flames.
00:20:37
Speaker
Our shouts and laughs and screams fan the embers of resistance. Together, each exhale creates ignition. Clearly, there is a taste for more heat in in Eugene. The limits of endless peaceful marches and rallies were reached a long time ago, and we invite others to take initiative themselves, in person, in the streets, in spirit, and or in the numerous other avenues which sustain our counterattack.
00:20:58
Speaker
Despite setbacks, we will keep growing, offering each other grace as we pivot and learn from mistakes. Momentum excitedly continues to build within us. We know when to resist and when to release." end quote In the Bay Area of California, members of the Industrial Workers of the World, i ww w are celebrating a recent victory following over a month of pickets and strike activity at Urban Ore, a large retail hub that sells used home hold items and construction materials.
00:21:25
Speaker
Writing on social media, union members wrote, quote, after 40 days on the picket line pressuring the owners of Urban Ore to meet with us, engage with us at the bargaining table and bargain seriously to address workers' needs, we have reached agreement in terms to end our strike.
00:21:39
Speaker
We are feeling incredibly proud of the effectiveness of our strike, grateful for all of the support we've received from community to make that happen, and we are looking forward to reaching a full collective bargaining agreement. We have made some big wins, which wouldn't have been possible without the pressure we were able to exert through our direct action.
00:21:55
Speaker
Solidarity forever. Cop City Trials Start Trials for those

Resistance Against Cop City and Far-Right Threats

00:22:00
Speaker
targeted by the state for resisting the Cop City counterinsurgency training facility have started, with supporters rallying outside of several recent hearings and dropping banners in solidarity across the U.S. Be sure to check out monthly installments of In Contempt on It's Going Down and updates at Wilani the Free and Fire Ant Movement Defense.
00:22:20
Speaker
Anti-Fascist Action and Pride Defense As Pride Month kicks off in the face of ongoing threats from the far right, gender fascist and Christian nationalist groups are attempting to move in the terrain opened up by Trump, as communities are mobilizing in response.
00:22:35
Speaker
Recently in Davis, California, a black bloc absolutely wrecked a Turning Point USA tabling event with no arrests. In Portland, Oregon, grassroots journalist Alyssa Azar covered a recent mobilization against Turning Point USA, featuring anti-trans speaker Riley Gaines.
00:22:51
Speaker
This is from We Will Free Us. Quote, when news spread that TPUSA would be bringing Gaines to PSU, students quickly mobilized. One flyer called for people to, quote, stand up to transphobia on PSU's campus.
00:23:04
Speaker
and outlined plans to meet in the park blocks at 6.15pm and walk to the third floor of Smith by 6.30pm when Gaines event was set to begin. Another flyer promoted a quote trans slash queer pride block party at 6pm with games like frisbee and badminton emphasizing quote sports are for everyone.
00:23:24
Speaker
The crowd continued to grow, eventually reaching a few hundred. Most people stayed in the park blocks, but a smaller group gathered at the front of the Smith building, waving flags, holding signs, and confronting people waiting in line to see Gaines.
00:23:36
Speaker
About 30 minutes later, some protesters in the back managed to hold open the doors of the building. A few people rushed inside before cops could intervene. According to a witness, it turned into a quick game of cat and mouse.
00:23:48
Speaker
Protesters got out without being arrested, but shortly after, PPB repositioned their officers directly at Smith's front entrance. The first arrest followed minutes later, just outside the building. What happened at PSU on May 5th wasn't just about one speaker or one protest.
00:24:04
Speaker
It was a clear example of how far-right groups like TPUSA are being platformed and given institutional space to grow. it was another example of liberal and institutional complicity.
00:24:15
Speaker
Another example of transphobia being normalized under the guise of quote, debate. Another example of police escalating against queer and anti-fascist resistance. It is yet again another example of media outlets sanitizing repression while demonizing resistance.
00:24:30
Speaker
But people showed up anyway. They danced, they took risks, and they made it clear. Queer and trans communities in Portland aren't interested in playing nice with fascism." end quote Meanwhile, in Seattle, Washington, over 500 people mobilized against a far-right Christian nationalist rally featuring Matt Shee, a former Republican politician who called for using violence to establish a Christian theocracy.
00:24:52
Speaker
For several hours, people bravely faced off with Seattle police who made several violent arrests. In Montreal, Clash MTL reported, quote, Anti-abortion activists' day thoroughly ruined today.
00:25:05
Speaker
Their charter bus was blocked before it could leave Montreal and delayed for close to an hour. Then, in Quebec City, counter-demonstrators encircled them and drowned them out with boat horns before continuing to block and surround them repeatedly when they tried to march.
00:25:18
Speaker
Riot cops were outflanked and pushed back, and a message was left on some activists' cyber truck, end quote. For a longer report back in French, check out Montreal Counter Info. On July 14th, neo-Nazi groups and crews of Proud Boys attempted to harass and disrupt No Kings demonstrations across the U.S., but were largely unsuccessful in having any meaningful impact other than getting laughed at and dragged online.
00:25:40
Speaker
In Springfield, Missouri, a group of Patriot Front white supremacists were also driven from a local pride celebration after they attempted to harass locals. Free Palestine. As the genocide, forced starvation, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Gaza continues, a new wave of student-led occupations, protests, and hunger strikes have kicked off in the U.S. At UCLA, students marked the one year since student occupiers bravely fought off far-right Zionists attempting to tear apart their protest encampment with a film showing of the documentary The Encampments and were attacked by riot police.
00:26:13
Speaker
Also in California, students at Stanford and across the California state university system launched a hunger strike in solidarity with Palestinians. In Philadelphia, students at Swarthmore College set up a protest encampment to continue to demand divestment from Israel and for the university to fight attacks on international students targeted by Trump.
00:26:30
Speaker
In Baltimore, there was a violent police crackdown on a student encampment in solidarity with Palestine, leading to two students at Johns Hopkins University being injured.

University of Washington Occupation

00:26:40
Speaker
At Columbia University in New York, students occupied a library on campus, leading to clashes with police and arrests of 80 people.
00:26:48
Speaker
And at Brooklyn College, the and NYPD moved to attack student demonstrators who also set up an encampment, arresting several students. Finally, at the University of Washington UW, students launched an occupation and defended it with barricades, demanding that the university divest from weapons maker Boeing.
00:27:05
Speaker
As a report on CrimeThink wrote, quote, The University of Washington has been collaborating with Boeing for over a century. The University of Washington plans to use this building to deepen their relationship with Boeing, establishing a closer partnership to further the development of war technologies.
00:27:22
Speaker
Both the university and Boeing aim to benefit from this by sharing access to research facilities, establishing an AI educational institute for developing military technology, and securing Boeing's influence of the engineering curriculum, which functions as a pipeline channeling UW engineering students into Boeing internships and contracts.
00:27:41
Speaker
These contracts promise financial compensation, yet often result in labor abuses and unsafe products. As students and community members of the University of Washington We condemn this relationship and the intended use of the building.
00:27:53
Speaker
This is why we sought to reclaim the building and repurpose it as a much-needed community space. A report on Puget Sound Anarchists wrote, quote, At approximately 5 p.m., students and their accomplices descended on the newly constructed Interdisciplinary Engineering Building, or IEB.
00:28:13
Speaker
This building was funded by Boeing with the agreement that UW would create a pipeline of students to assist with Boeing's warmongering endeavors. Barricades were constructed outside the building as doors were sealed from the inside.
00:28:24
Speaker
preparationar Preparations were also made for the event the occupation of Shaban al-Dalu Hall, the engineering building, became a long-term project. More and more supporters began to arrive as the day went on, and public call to join the action was released.
00:28:38
Speaker
A feeling of unity spread throughout the crowd as a diversity of tactics was upheld and respected. Barricade builders were offered support and supplies and community members cooked meals. A rebellious joy filled our hearts as speeches and chants filled the air.
00:28:53
Speaker
Posters praising the Palestinian resistance were plastered on every wall and window available. Almost immediately, the area was swarming with cameras as reporters and fascist grifters heard about the action.
00:29:03
Speaker
These were quickly blocked with umbrellas to protect the identities of the crowd. As the sun began to set, the energy of the crowd shifted as it became clear that the police would attempt to remove the students in the coming hours.
00:29:15
Speaker
Many tactics for defending the building were considered with the bulk of the students electing to move into the street to block the police advance. Large barricades were built in every adjacent street to stop or delay the police regardless of their approach.
00:29:28
Speaker
As the multi-agency police force began to materialize, an officer from each agency approached the crowd in a failed attempt to facilitate our surrender. This exchange was captured in a now viral video of black clad and shield wielding militants, forcing them down the hill and back to their lines while chanting, move back, mocking a common police dispersal tactics.
00:29:49
Speaker
From this point on, every hostile actor was forced out of the area, including private security and individual agitators, including one man who repeatedly threatened to murder the students. However, the occupation received much support from passersby and motorists.
00:30:04
Speaker
At around 10 p.m., a completely unintelligible dispersal order was given over a malfunctioning LRAD. In response, a massive fire was started at one of the barricades. This fire forced the police to entirely reroute their advance, delaying them severely.
00:30:19
Speaker
This delay gave more than enough time for many within the group to disperse, as staying at the barricades would only result in arrest and injury. The fire was slow to extinguish and effectively crippled the police advance.
00:30:31
Speaker
Over the next one to two hours, a highly militarized group of SPD, WSP, and UWPD broke into the building and cut students from their lockdowns, causing even further damage as doors were broken down and windows had to be broken to access the students.
00:30:46
Speaker
At the time of writing, 32 students were violently arrested inside the building, causing concussions and damage to limbs and joints, with at least one arrest of the group outside. Shaban al-Dalou Hall and the surrounding area was occupied for a total of almost seven hours, and police response time was incredibly sluggish, allowing for a significant amount of direct action to take place, resulting in at least $1 million dollars in damage, according to the university, a frankly embarrassed show of force by SPD, WSP, and UWPD.
00:31:17
Speaker
end quote Again from the report on Crimethink. Quote, Predictably, the corporate media slandered the protesters, decrying them as violent, though three protesters were hospitalized as a consequence of police violence during the arrests, and many more were severely bruised, whereas the protesters did not injure any anyone.
00:31:35
Speaker
It appears that out of the over $1 million dollars in damages that the university claims to have assessed, much of it was inflicted by police officers as they removed protesters. Dispelling any illusions of a progressive university,
00:31:49
Speaker
The University of Washington leadership spread a similar message, condemning the burning of the dumpsters as violent. Those who control our institutions, clearly, care more about the burning of trash than the burning of the bodies of their own Palestinian students.
00:32:03
Speaker
Yes, we are in a moment of extreme repression. The consequences of action can be significant. Nonetheless, we believe that the consequences of inaction will be greater. Liberal petitions to political leaders will not save us, nor will an apolitical retreat from struggle.
00:32:18
Speaker
That will leave us weaker for next time, and leave most of us increasingly less safe right now. Revolt and uprising were possible and effective during the first Trump regime. They are tools worth applying today.
00:32:30
Speaker
Resist however you can and must. Mutual aid is a form of resistance. It can entail defense, protecting our communities from ice, or alleviating the consequences of the financial crisis wrought by the fascist and neoliberal coalition.

Forms of Resistance and Upcoming Events

00:32:43
Speaker
Direct action is a form of resistance. It can undermine the violent apparatus of the state. Occupation, understood as a decolonial practice, is resistance. Palestine demands resistance, and so does your community.
00:32:56
Speaker
You can read the full report on crimethink.com. And now for upcoming events. On June 21st, there's a Don't Despair Organize presentation from the Black Rose Anarchist Federation in Sacramento, California.
00:33:09
Speaker
You can find more info at blackrosefed.org. On September 6th, there's the Halifax Anarchist Book Fair in Halifax, Nova Scotia. More info at northshore.info.
00:33:21
Speaker
On September 27th and 28th, another Carolina Anarchist Book Fair will take place in Asheville, North Carolina. More info is available at a-c-a-b-o-o-k-f-a-i-r.noblogs.org.
00:33:35
Speaker
On October 11th, the Sacramento Anarchist Book Fair will take place in Sacramento, California. You can find more information on that at the Instagram handle SacramentoAnarchistBookFair. On October 18th, the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair will take place in Oakland, California.
00:33:51
Speaker
The Instagram page for that is the Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair. And on October 18th and nineteenth the Seattle Anarchist Book Fair will take place in Seattle, Washington. More info on that is available at Seattle Anarchist Book Fair on Instagram.
00:34:07
Speaker
That's going to do it for us. Enjoy the interviews and we'll see you soon. Be sure to follow us on Blue Sky, Macedon and Instagram. Thanks, as always, for listening.

The Stateless Conference and Community Efforts

00:34:27
Speaker
I'm Webster, and I'm calling from The Warren, which is a social space that just opened in Evansville, Indiana, part of a worker co-op, but autonomous spaces cooperative. And the space is in partnership with the Prison Abolition Group Focus Initiative, which is headed out of Indianapolis, indian Indiana.
00:34:44
Speaker
Awesome. Well, thank you for taking the time to speak with us. Tell us a little bit about what you just mentioned. and Break all that down for us, the the Warren and how it's connected to other autonomous spaces and projects.
00:34:55
Speaker
Locally, a effort to acquire a social space, you know just ah like a place that people um within the anarchist scene here and then also more broadly um coming from different traditions and backgrounds can come together can experiment with what it's like to socialize and work on projects together.
00:35:12
Speaker
We started an effort to find and produce a space like that about six years ago, and it's gone through a lot of different changes and different configurations.
00:35:22
Speaker
And I think part of that experience was really one of the impetus for putting on the conference. thinking in terms of just what it looks like for people to be willing to experiment and be willing to interact with political configurations that are constantly changing and never quite what you ideally want them to be.
00:35:41
Speaker
So we formed a worker cooperative, and that leases perpetually a portion of the building from the nonprofit ah focus initiative that does a lot of prisoner support and reentry work, political education, family support through Indianapolis primarily.
00:35:57
Speaker
Gotcha. And tell us a little bit about the conference. so What was it and what happened? ah The conference was statelessness. And it came about in part because of the relationships that some of us have through different projects with the local Haitian community.
00:36:10
Speaker
But then also in reading a book by jane Gordon, which is Statelessness and Contemporary Slavery. In Jane's book, she suggests that statelessness as a condition is multifaceted and is also not uncommon. And thinking through how common some of the interactions we have with stateless people are, it made us want to pursue, you know, a weekend long of conversations about those different forms um and the way that those different situations can inform, you know, for anarchists especially,
00:36:44
Speaker
ways that we kind of miss conceptualizing the difficulties and the, know, like something like not pure forms that these very long traditions can help us identify and relate to.
00:36:56
Speaker
Well, let's talk a little bit about, ah you said building relations with the local Haitian community. There's obviously been so much discussion around demonizing Haitian people both before and after the election. i think there's an open question now if Trump will go after Haitian people more so.
00:37:12
Speaker
or revoke like TPS status or whatever. Talk a little bit about that. What's what's that been like, building those relationships as this you know racist madness is playing out? Yeah. you know One thing that I think is important, at least with my experience with working with the Haitians in Evansville, is that it came about through pursuing the projects we were already doing.
00:37:32
Speaker
So some of us in town for over a decade have worked on collective housing. And it was through just doing that the way we already were that we ran into Haitians who were also working on each other's houses and trying to produce a mutual aid form of housing. So we just linked up with them and broadened the way we were doing our project to incorporate, facilitating more of their collectively owned houses.
00:37:58
Speaker
And so, yeah, you know over that time, one of the things I've really appreciated is just that in their own cultural traditions, they have ways of doing a lot of the same ethical pursuits that we do. So, for example, in one of the houses that we helped residents buy, they got behind on their payments.
00:38:15
Speaker
And the way that they were able to catch up is they have a traditional collective fund they call a SOL, S-O-L. And so they let us know if we were able to give them more time, their turn at the collective pot was going to come around and they'd be able to catch up that way.
00:38:32
Speaker
And that's not anything we need to to help them facilitate or structure. you know It's just something that they've done for a long time in their culture. and There's a lot of examples. like that or that but very inspiring coming from their own traditions Gotcha. yeah that's really interesting. You mentioned just collective, cooperative housing. Talk a little more more about that, like what led you to pursue that, obviously, besides, you know, America being...
00:38:53
Speaker
you know, in the housing crisis. It's interesting. now i was just listening to NPR and they were talking about how churches in an effort to retain people. This is just one example. But, you know, this one church was building essentially low income housing on their property.
00:39:09
Speaker
ah Talk a little more about that. ah Yeah, there are. um Examples of churches doing that in Evansville and actually kind of extensively, Memorial Baptist Church has a project like that on the south side of town, which is where people fleeing slavery historically have congregated and the the large like black population there on that side of town.
00:39:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think that primarily it's just figuring out how to stabilize cheaper housing. You know a lot of the projects that at least I'm able to participate in, I'm able to participate in because I haven't had to tie myself to a mortgage or rent for probably at least 10 years, which frees up a lot of funds and a lot of time.
00:39:46
Speaker
ah hate you. um Just kidding. That's amazing. Yeah, that's amazing. I understand. um But I think that one of the things that comes with that in our situation is we've been able to pursue that because of an old

Lorenzo Irvin's Contribution and Global Solidarity

00:40:02
Speaker
housing stock. I found a paper from Indiana University written in 1914 that was advocating demolishing our neighborhood but because it said it was like too old and poor and run down.
00:40:13
Speaker
But a lot of that same housing is still there. And so part of the way we've done housing is that you also have to fix up your house. You know, it's almost like a DIY habitat style. So like with the Haitians, for example, you know, they bought a house and then for a year or two, you know, we were going there together and just putting it into a shape and learning how to do things together to be able to make it livable.
00:40:36
Speaker
And then, you know after two years, they never had to pay for it again. So they also were able to free up time and pursue opening it to other people in their community. well It's not uncommon for them to house, you know, two or three families at a time.
00:40:49
Speaker
let's Let's kind of turn back to the conference again. you had Lorenzo Irvin come out, longtime anarchist, author, organizer. Talk a little bit about the content that was there and the speakers. looked like a pretty amazing lineup.
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think that a lot of overlap and intersection happened. And Lorenzo, I think, is really key for framing things. And I was excited for him to be the first speaker Because I think that you not to idealize statelessness, you know, it comes with a lot of conflict and tribulation.
00:41:18
Speaker
And I think that Jane Gordon does a real good job of making sure that that's understood in her book. And Lorenzo's story, you know, being in a situation where he was charged with attempted murder on a white supremacist, organizing with the Black Panthers and then needing to flee the country through hijacking an airplane and then trying to find refuge on and different socialist experiments around the world that all of these things really just lended themselves to different things that, you know, the ah struggle and violence that people have to deal with, the racism, the confronting the realities of these different, you know, socialist experiments around the world. All of this really allowed for a wide introduction to themes of the
00:42:02
Speaker
of the conference. I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about, mean, obviously we're in this new moment. People are experimenting, thinking about what's happening.
00:42:15
Speaker
it feels like we're trying to wrap our heads around the new administration, but also just the continuation of the reality of capitalism now? I mean, you know, just the fact that you're we're talking about sort of just, it seems like a key aspect of this time is that things have gotten worse just materially themselves than they have, you know, even like four years ago, you know, when the George Floyd rebellion kicked off.
00:42:42
Speaker
So I'm curious, you know, coming out of the conference, do you have any extrapolations or or big thoughts about sort of like where we're at and what that means? I don't know about big thoughts. I think that,
00:42:53
Speaker
It was a real opportunity with some of the people from these different cultures being together. And then also folks, one of white American anarchists who have participated in these different like cultural struggles, being able to see that Things being materially worse is in large part a kind of material condition that is being that is like normalized already around a lot of the world and in cultures. But it is being something that like the American culture has to contend with in a way that it hasn't before.
00:43:26
Speaker
So there were Kurdish people here, two people, you know, the documentary that Matt Peterson brought about the Palestinian situation and how it is mirrored a lot and shares a lot of things in common with the indigenous population in the United States, that some of these, you know,
00:43:44
Speaker
struggles are struggles that people have dealt with for centuries. And so being able to not feel like we have to take on, you know, we being certain parts of the American population that haven't had to contend with that, that there are ways and peoples that we can look to and interact with to learn not only how to deal with that struggle ourselves, but how to be in struggle with them. And that may be one of the reasons that some of the way we're experiencing the deprivation now is because we haven't taken seriously being in like a common struggle with, with these different people.
00:44:21
Speaker
you have any more thoughts on sort of like the the moment right now in terms of just like the, what's developed so far under Trump and, and is it more of a question of just thinking kind of pulling back and actually thinking more about what we've been doing in general, not just sort of like the,
00:44:39
Speaker
the latest kind of flashy stuff, I guess that makes any sense. Yeah, I mean, I have been thinking about that. And in terms of the statelessness, the things that have come up in the conference and the studies leading up to it.
00:44:51
Speaker
Yeah, you know, Lorenzo being, i think, in his almost like mid 80s now, it's just like an opportunity to interact with different comrades through different projects who are around that age bracket.
00:45:02
Speaker
You know, when I got into anti-authoritarian organizing, it was very uncommon to run into more than like one person over 30. And so I think that, you know seeing a lot of ah older people publicly active, that there's something that we've missed.
00:45:20
Speaker
You know, I'm in my mid 40s now. Something that we've missed over these years about how to interact with these different age groups comes from some sort of lack of. intergenerational spaces, like physical spaces and also spaces of struggle. But it's never too late for us to you know take that on and take it on in a humble way where we we don't know what all that entails.
00:45:42
Speaker
And so that was actually one of the conversations that came. Out of the conference was how to make more space within our struggles, but then also take on a explicit project about how to integrate the needs of our elderly comrades. I think that that can only help us relate to people outside of the political identities that we share and understand what their concerns are and and how to actually materially help them with those.
00:46:06
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's interesting. That's interesting tension because I feel like for so long, people have had a discussion of like, we need a multi-generational movement. And then all of a sudden, when you have people that are multi-generational in one setting, you're like, well, actually, you know what does it look like to to to age in in movement and to have spaces that you know have elders, that have young people that having families, kids, you know, and I think, yeah, that's a, that's an interesting discussion to have. But I think once you do that, you open up the space for so many more people to get involved.
00:46:41
Speaker
Yeah. You know, the, one of the presentations on trans panic, I'd say that the the way that that was largely framed was kind of around understanding how the right has turned towards criminalizing and villainizing, know, queer experiences by looking through a timeline of how the capitalist economy tried to adjust itself through different crises it was having by trying to turn back towards the normative hetero family. And so, you know, like thinking through that framework and then seeing something like, you know one of the presenters bringing their kid
00:47:19
Speaker
And then the Haitian community bringing you know their group of children all hanging out together. you know There's these things, these different relationships that exceed the bounds of political identity and allow us to interact with each other.
00:47:33
Speaker
in ways that confuse and complicate, you know, who we are, who we are together. And yeah, I appreciate that, you know, and just for a weekend conference, know, that's ah a low stakes way to to have those interactions and to be able to walk away with like things to contemplate about those experiences together.
00:47:49
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I mean, just to, know, tie, you know, pull this thread a little more, know, I know that like in certain churches even in things like the intentional communities movement, back to the land and stuff like

Role of Immigrants and Antifa International

00:48:02
Speaker
that. it was a real It's a real problem, people aging out and just not being able to be involved anymore or you know they pass away.
00:48:12
Speaker
And this sort of a drain on kind of like social currents and stuff like that. So the ability to actually retain people and to have movement elders involved and for them to pass down lessons and stories and everything else is really important. you know I think a lot of us you know that are a similar age have also experienced that coming into autonomous politics and like having previous generations that inspired us not being there has been difficult.
00:48:41
Speaker
So I think the ability for people that have gone through different cycles of struggle to to still be around and to even just pass on, like, here's what it was like, here's what we you know, went through. Not to say that, the you know, previous generations have all the answers, but at least they have, you know, so something to share, you know, this is it is important.
00:49:02
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think that they, you know, my experience, at least ah some things that you experience is kind of a traumatic shock when you don't have people who have already experienced that to be able to prepare you for it by saying, yeah, this is going to happen.
00:49:19
Speaker
You know, this is going to happen and I survived it and I'm still here with you still in the struggle. But that like really reorients a lot of the risks that people have to take on. For sure.
00:49:30
Speaker
Well, going forward, you know, places like Evansville, you know, people have been doing projects there for a long time. I mean, obviously, we've been talking about stuff that has this long timeline on it. do Where do you see this going forward in the next period? What are you excited about?
00:49:47
Speaker
I'm excited about understanding Evansville in terms of a place that is shaped by people moving through it and coming from other places. You know, not a place like any place, you know, that doesn't just have a singular tradition, a singular like progressive history, but one that is like messy and complicated. And I'm excited about know welcoming, understanding those complications through Evansville.
00:50:12
Speaker
the different immigrants who are helping shape this space, and helping shape the struggles here. And inviting us then to figure out how to participate in things back in Haiti, in Kurdistan. You know, the Palestinian presence here has been really inspiring. Some of the largest like street mobilizations and consistent organizing around issues has come from the Palestinian community. You know, I'm inspired by that and honored to be able to participate in whatever way I can.
00:51:01
Speaker
My name is Walter, he him pronouns, and I am part of the Antifa International Social Media Collective. Awesome. You mentioned this project has been around for a long time. How did it get started and what is its goal?
00:51:15
Speaker
I'm not sure how it got started, but in 2014, was interacting with some other anti-fascists over social media in different countries. And we thought it would be a really good idea to try and coordinate efforts to spread news about anti-fascist actions and movements in our different parts of the world.
00:51:33
Speaker
And then also sort of promote the tenets of anti-fascism through that. And finally, do what we can over social media to support anti-fascist crews. So we sort of coordinated our efforts and formed this collective in 2014, starting on Tumblr.
00:51:47
Speaker
I think now we're up to eight or nine different social media platforms. And our memberships, we've got ah a handful of members. But we're in eight different countries around the world. So it's it's been really good in terms of like depth and scope for what we can cover.
00:52:01
Speaker
Awesome. And I think most people probably are aware of you or have seen the the work that you all have done, which has been amazing over the years, largely and think in connection to ah supporting prisoners.
00:52:14
Speaker
Well, so there's that's actually two different ah projects. so The first thing we did about a year after we got up and running is we noticed increasingly that anti-fascist crews in different parts of the world, their members would get into some kind of trouble because of the work they were doing resisting fascism.
00:52:31
Speaker
And then they would be scrambling to get the resources together to you know get themselves out of that problem And when you're a small local group, it can be really hard to fundraise and get the resources together.
00:52:42
Speaker
So we thought it would be a really smart idea to have a standing emergency fund set up to support anti-fascists when they ran into trouble as a result of their anti-fascist work. A couple of us had been involved in the Anti-Racist Action Network a long time ago, and that network had a defense fund set up for their members.
00:53:02
Speaker
So we sort of modeled the International Anti-Fascist Defense Fund on that. and basically So that's kind of how we got it started in 2015, when I think we helped maybe eight anti-fascists that year.
00:53:14
Speaker
It's funny looking back at that now that we're up to probably reaching 800 anti-fascists that we've helped since then. Yeah. Do you want to talk a little bit about maybe some highlights over the years? I mean, I i know you all have just have done a lot and there's a kind of a wide variety of of groups and people that you've helped. I mean, whether that's people that are facing, you know, very you know, long term incarceration or people that are basically just needing a couple bucks so they can kind of go through the motions of court cases and stuff like that. And also, you know, there's people in some countries that are facing severe, you know, harsh repression. I'm thinking of people in like sort of the the Russian controlled areas, you know.
00:53:57
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah. And we've actually provided as much support as we can to people in in Russia, especially around the what was the case? There was a case where FSB jacked up a bunch of anti-fascists and created a fictitious terrorist group that they said they all belonged to.
00:54:12
Speaker
we've done a lot work around that. Yeah, i I mean, it's hard to look back at like 10 years and and think of some things. I mean, there's been some highlights. we've we've A couple years ago, i don't know if you're familiar with Dan Baker's case?
00:54:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Yes, Dan Baker, for those who don't know, was a YPG sniper who came back to America after fighting Daesh in Rojava. And shortly after the January 6th failed insurrection in D.C., he sent out an alert to anti-fascists in Florida because he was concerned that a similar thing would happen at the Florida legislature.
00:54:47
Speaker
And then, long story short, the FBI railroaded him and jacked him up and said that he was he was trying to organize a terrorist attack. on the Floyd legislature. and He wound up doing some jail time on that.
00:55:00
Speaker
We helped pay for legal defense, which unfortunately was unsuccessful. But near the end of his sentence, he was really being abused by prison administration. And we organized a writing campaign to the prison administrators, telling them to back off on our on Dan. And we thank That resulted in his early release because i don't think the prison administration ever encountered something like a thousand letters coming from all over the world in support of a prisoner before.
00:55:26
Speaker
And I think they thought it wasn't worth the trouble and they let him go early. So we're happy about that. We've done a lot of work around the Alex Stokes case in upstate New York. Internationally, we did a lot of work supporting Kita, who is probably the most famous anti-fascist prisoner in Belarus.
00:55:43
Speaker
It just goes on and on We've done stuff with Daryl Lamont Jenkins and One People's Project. We've done a lot of stuff supporting anti-fascists the UK and Greece and Germany.
00:55:55
Speaker
Jock Pell Freeman from Australia, who's in jail in Bulgaria. We did a lot of work around him. So it's quite extensive. I mean, when you when you look back, we're talking nearly 800 people and from 26 different countries.
00:56:07
Speaker
Wow, that's incredible. A thousand letters for Dan Baker. I was not aware of that. Yeah, it was amazing. Yeah. Let's, I actually wanted to, since you brought him up, let's talk about Alex's case because that is just.
00:56:21
Speaker
Heinous, heinous, heinous. 20 years for, so I mean, especially, I mean, just the slap in the face of watching Trump pardon these people, which I mean, again, I'm not, I'm not cheerleading the, uh, the prison system, but I mean, it it just again shows like how much it can be weaponized by the state. But I mean, again, for him to get 20 years for,
00:56:42
Speaker
standing up in defense of somebody against these far right people. and i just you know, and to and from what I understand, for him to get essentially one of the longest sentences connected to January 6th is also, again, just a, you know, statement to just how much this can be weaponized against people, depending on, you know, judges and cases and everything. But talk a little bit about where Alex is at right now.
00:57:10
Speaker
So we haven't had a lot of contact with Alex or his lawyer recently. But so just just to I want to start off by for saying Alex is salt of the earth. Excellent person. like he's He's the kind of guy, if if you're lucky and live in a city with you'll live to say with someone like him who's around sort of the activist left scene and is just willing to put in the work and do the right thing all the time and can be relied on and counted on, he's a great, great person, a great human being. And all his friends and all his words will attest to that.
00:57:40
Speaker
So naturally, after the January 6th failed insurrection, when the โ€“ I call them the Piss Boys, but you know who I'm talking about there โ€“ decided to cause trouble in Albany, New York, where Alex is from, he went to the event to make sure people were safe. And when the Piss Boys started attacking people with clubs โ€“ and And tasers, Dan went into action and stopped them from beating someone to death.
00:58:04
Speaker
Unfortunately, two piss boys got stabbed. Dan got jacked up on those charges. We helped pay for his legal defense, which was unfortunately unsuccessful, and he got slammed with a 20-year prison sentence, which is really surprising if no one actually suffered permanent injury or died.
00:58:22
Speaker
And he was acting entirely in self-defense. If you watch, there's a great video on YouTube that shows like a frame-by-frame takedown of what happened. It was clear that he was coming to the defense of people who were being assaulted by armed fascists.
00:58:35
Speaker
So, Gans had ah an appeal a few weeks, maybe a few months ago, of his of his sentence. Unfortunately, that was unsuccessful. Now we're mounting a second appeal, which I think is called the Judicial Review, and we're covering the costs of that as well, and we hope that it's successful.
00:58:53
Speaker
And I don't know if Alex can hear this, but Alex, if you do get to hear this, keep your head up. You're not forgotten. So just in the case of Alex, like, let's let's talk about a little bit about this, because I know there's been one appeal that's been us unsuccessful, like him being in New York. Isn't there a way to pressure folks there and to, you know, point out just how bullshit this is that someone and is being targeted with this amount of time?
00:59:21
Speaker
I mean, I feel like we're screaming into the wind here. Like, I'm not i'm not a legal authority, especially in the state of New York. And I think we've really made a strong case demonstrating what bullshit this is. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter who we tell. We have to make three judges agree um in the appeal process. And so far, we've been unsuccessful with that.
00:59:41
Speaker
Gotcha. Well, definitely, it's great that people like you are are working on this. And hopefully, you know, people can continue to support Alex. And, know, he'll be He'll be out soon. for sure.
00:59:53
Speaker
What other cases are are going on right now that you are working on? I mean, there's not a lot that I can really talk about publicly right now. So how the defense fund works is when we find out about a situation or an anti-fascist contact says for help, we have a little crew of about 1,600 anti-fascists who've been invited to participate in the decision-making process of how the defense fund is used.

Support for Anti-Fascist Prisoners

01:00:21
Speaker
Basically, anyone who who donates at least $20 to the defense fund gets an invite to launch this crew. So right now we have two cases... I don't want to get into too much because I don't have ah permission from the people who made the request.
01:00:33
Speaker
One is in the U.S. One is in Finland, actually. And the decisions crew is discussing those cases. And if we can't come to consensus after a week's worth of discussion, we're just going to go to a majority vote and decide what to do with those two.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I encourage people. you know, I think projects like this, I know the Anarchist Black Cross also has a similar sort of ah program. They have the ABC war chest, but you know, they get donations that come in and they send that out to folks that are incarcerated. So they get money for commissary stamps, writing materials, books, all that stuff.
01:01:08
Speaker
But um yeah, this is ah if you're looking for a project to donate to every month or year, or just, you know, a one-off, this is definitely something I would encourage you to support because will have a real impact.
01:01:23
Speaker
Much appreciated. Thanks so much. i don't know if you want to talk a little bit more about like, you know, why people should donate and like where it'll go to or. Well, so yeah. So i'm yeah, happy to do that.
01:01:33
Speaker
So our defense fund is set up and our mission is that is to help people who run into an emergency situation or run into trouble as a direct result of their work as anti-fascists. So that very often means legal defense and legal aid support We've had a very good success rate with that, aside from the cases we talked about ah previously.
01:01:53
Speaker
We've had many cases where anti-fascists beat charges simply because they're able to hire a competent lawyer. So that's a big thing. But we've also helped with medical bills. We've helped do emergency relocations of anti-fascists are being threatened in their homes.
01:02:08
Speaker
We've helped replace property, repair damages. So it really runs the gamut for for the defense fund. And then we have a second project that sort of emerged from the defense fund.
01:02:19
Speaker
It's around July 25th, which is the International Day of Solidarity with at anti-fascist prisoners. Because once you're in prison, it's not really an emergency situation anymore, but people still want to support anti-fascist prisoners, which, of course, you know we're we're down with.
01:02:37
Speaker
So we started a separate fund to support anti-fascist prisoners, and every July 25th, We take the money that we've raised throughout that year and we divide them up amongst the anti-fascist prisoners we're aware of that we have ah contact information for or for their supporters or families.
01:02:54
Speaker
Yeah, what do you see the work looking like, you know, right now? i mean no You know what's weird is I really thought with the state of things in now, I really thought,
01:03:06
Speaker
2025 will blow up and we'd see a lot more emergency requests from people. But so far, not so much. I think people are kind of like a little trepidatious, a little worried about what's happened and sort of keeping their powder dry and figure out how best to react to the events as they unfold.
01:03:25
Speaker
But I imagine that's going to pick up pretty quickly in the coming months, especially around the summertime. Summer is always very hot. People are out on the streets and doing stuff. and then But on the other hand, with the prisoner support list, I think we're already seeing this growing and growing and growing.
01:03:41
Speaker
ah not just Not just in the U.S., but around the world as well. So I think right now we have something like 40 anti-fascist prisoners on our list. So... Yeah.
01:03:52
Speaker
You know, i wanted to turn now and talk a little bit about, you know, we brought up Russia and that whole experience. I mean, that's been in the news. Talk a little bit about some of the international cases in that work as well, because I think those are really important to highlight.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Do you want to talk little bit?
01:04:12
Speaker
young guard which is ah as a socialist any fascist network in france right now the french government has a law that allows them to force groups to its luwis dissolve is how they call it so they can force groups to shut down if they deem that those those groups are too extreme or too radical So we're looking to provide, hopefully provide well legal support with you Young Guard on that.
01:04:40
Speaker
ah About a year or two ago, a similar thing happened to another group in Bordeaux, France, where they tried dissolve them, ah Offensive Antifascist Bordeaux. And we were able to help them fight successfully fight that that action.
01:04:55
Speaker
So there's that. Russia, of course, is a disaster. Belarus is still really bad. There's still a lot of antifascists locked up in Belarus. Yeah, so a lot's going on all over the world right now.
01:05:08
Speaker
Unfortunately, we don't have ah really good contacts in Latin and South America or some of some Asian countries, and we're hoping to expand our capacity to reach out to people there and get a better handle what's going on. But in terms of sort of Europe and North America...
01:05:24
Speaker
like it's it's popping pop it's popping off all over the place. Yeah, i mean, I just think the thing you mentioned about, ah you know, the Russian state manufacturing like a terrorist group, you know, we've seen this, you know, not to the same degree, of course, but, you know, in 2020, DHS agents were interviewing people trying to find the leader of capital A, capital N, capital, you know, Antifa. Right.
01:05:48
Speaker
So I think that that's something That I'm interested in your take on, like, are we seeing that in other countries as well, sort of the weaponization of terrorism charges and sort of like in the US, we've seen like a push towards like manufacturing Antifa into this boogeyman that is...
01:06:07
Speaker
this big organization that has a top-down leadership structure as opposed to a political stance that people take in opposition to the far right? Yeah, well, a great example of that would be what's happening in Europe right now around Hungary and also Germany and France and elsewhere.
01:06:24
Speaker
What happened there in Hungary every year, there's a march of ah a fascist march through Budapest. And neo-Nazis from all over Europe come to participate in that.
01:06:36
Speaker
ah About two years ago, a network of anti-fascists worked together to shut down that event and, you know, really make the the Nazis regret showing up there. They were successful, but there has been an international collaboration between law enforcement agencies throughout the EU to arrest these people, deport them to Hungary.
01:06:56
Speaker
And imprison them there. So there's been a lot going around about that. It's hard to keep track of what's going on. I think right now, one woman is in prison in Hungary.
01:07:08
Speaker
Another ah person was just released from Hungary back to Germany, but his trial is not complete in Hungary, and he's going to have to go back to that potentially. So there's been a lot going on with those things.
01:07:20
Speaker
I think 18 anti-fascists in from four or five different countries have been hunted down basically by by law enforcement in Europe over this. What do you think some of the lessons are from from these other countries for us here?
01:07:36
Speaker
i think I think the big lesson is we we have to stick together. We have to show solidarity with each other. It's a lot of heart to go out in the street and confront fascists. It takes a lot of heart to stand up for what's right.
01:07:47
Speaker
And when people do that, we need to show that solidarity isn't just a slogan or an empty, meaningless word on the left that we throw around to make ourselves feel better. And one of the best ways to do that is to support other anti-fascists when they are in trouble.
01:08:02
Speaker
Whether that means giving them a place to stay or whether that means taking in to make sure that they they can hire competent lawyers what or whether that means just writing them a letter when they're in prison, which is like gold if you're in prison. I'm sure a lot of people who have been in prison can attest to that.
01:08:18
Speaker
There's always something you can do to support other anti-fascists who are in trouble. And doing that is probably as important as confronting fascism itself. Yeah, you know, the other thing I want to point out is that every year there is a day of solidarity with anti-fascist prisoners. ah Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
01:08:36
Speaker
Absolutely. So we've sort my crew, Anti-Fascist International, has sort of taken over coordinating that as much as we can. We've got a website up called Support Anti-Fog Prisoners on WordPress.
01:08:46
Speaker
We keep a current list of anti-fascist prisoners that we're aware of there. If anyone knows of any that's missing on that list, please get in touch with us and we'll update that. we raise We have a fund set up to send support money to anti-fascist prisoners every July 25th with that.
01:09:02
Speaker
And we just encourage people on July 25th to do something to mark the day, to let people locked up because they were fighting fascism. No, they're not forgotten. You remember them. Whether that's holding a letter-writing event or dropping a banner or holding a concert or some sort of show or kicking some funds into this to our support fund, something you can there's something you can do to support anti-fascist prisoners, and it's it's important to do that.
01:09:29
Speaker
Anything else you want to talk about? No, I think that pretty much covers it. I hope everyone's staying safe out there. And I really want to thank you, and it's going down, for all the stuff you guys have done over the years. You've been instrumental to us for, like, finding out about cases and things that we we need to support. So please keep doing what you're doing. Awesome. Yeah, I also want to encourage you all have store as well, right, that has some pretty awesome swag. People want to check that out. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, ah you know, because it turns out George Soros does not fund Antifa, which is my disappointment.
01:10:00
Speaker
We have to sell T-shirts and stuff. So if you if you look for us online, you'll find a whole bunch of shirts that we put out. And the the proceeds either go directly to the ah the Anti-Fascist Defense Fund or they'll go to a specific anti-fascist crew that the shirts were designed by.
01:10:14
Speaker
Well, yeah, stay tuned and encourage people to check out our show notes for ways to follow the group. And yeah, lots of stuff coming up and... Really, I encourage people, if you can, kick a few bucks their way, and this is a project to follow and support because it's very well needed and, as you point out, doing some amazing work.
01:10:34
Speaker
Thanks so much. Thank you.
01:10:56
Speaker
Your freedom at any hour To be an anarchist prisoner Means more can set this time More intense security, communications more deprived Not because the crime was greater Not because of our violent nature Consulants much more severe
01:11:24
Speaker
Okay, we are here recording.

National Guard Deployment in Los Angeles

01:11:27
Speaker
We're a couple days into ongoing demonstrations in Los Angeles. As we record, this is on um ah Wednesday, ah June 11th. So take that what it is, International Day of Solidarity with Long-Term Anarchist Prisoners. And the National Guard is in Los Angeles, and along with a group of Marines,
01:11:51
Speaker
We're going to be talking about sort of what this means, unpacking a lot of that, sort of trying to divorce it from ah fever dreams of whatever. Also talking about the response to the ongoing demonstrations in Los Angeles across the political spectrum. But I guess to get started, i feel like there's two kind of reactions people have. One is like, you know, this is the fascist Trumpian state.
01:12:20
Speaker
ripping whatever mask it had left on off. You know, this is it. It has arrived. I think the other thing people are saying is like, well, you know, this is a logistical question. They really don't have that much, you know, juice in this situation, I guess. Like they send in National Guard troops who are sleeping on the floor.
01:12:41
Speaker
The Marines don't have actual bullets. They're staging outside the city. I think there's some truth in both of those kind of positions, but I mean, in the big picture, how do we look at this? What's happening?
01:12:56
Speaker
Yeah. So, you know, we were talking about this before we started recording, but I think there's two perspectives we have to always keep in mind when we're looking at this situation from both the perspective of reading government response, but also the perspective of reading our response.
01:13:11
Speaker
The first is the actual material reality of what is happening. So, What started that all of this was an immigration raid and that immigration raid sort of escalated into a neighborhood conflict and ICE got trapped in this neighborhood and ended up fighting their way out. And in the process of fighting their way out, they set off this massive kind of street riot situation.
01:13:36
Speaker
And in response, Trump called in the National Guard now first. Right. So initially calls in the National Guard. Now, what's important about that is. The National Guard is technically under command of a governor.
01:13:51
Speaker
Right. So technically, Gavin Newsom controls the California National Guard. It is possible to federalize the National Guard in certain contexts. Right. So one of those contexts is that you declare state of insurrection.
01:14:05
Speaker
Right. Which is. What this is being confused for. That's not what they did. And I want to make that really clear. They never declared ah state of insurrection under the Insurrection Act. What they did was they instead found a different authority under Title 10 of the U.S. Federal Code.
01:14:23
Speaker
It allows the commander in chief. To in certain circumstances, command the National Guard to protect federal facilities, essentially. Right.
01:14:35
Speaker
That is what they're using now. The last time the National Guard was called in against the wishes of a governor was, I think, 1965 in Alabama when they were desegregating schools.
01:14:47
Speaker
Right. And Lyndon Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard and forced them to desegregate the schools. Right. That was the last time this happened. In 1992, the California National Guard was federalized during the L.A. riots.
01:15:01
Speaker
But that was done with the consent of the governor. Right. And that was done to place the California National Guard under the U.S. s military chain of command. Right. It was a ah formality that they had to sort of go through.
01:15:13
Speaker
Right. This is more like what Johnson did. This is more on the level of the commander in chief declaring that a state no longer has sovereignty over its own essentially militia.
01:15:28
Speaker
Right. that's what the National Guard is meant to functionally be is the quote unquote militia. So that's significant. Right. and And I want to make that really clear. That is significant. It is not Trump declaring a state of insurrection. I think it's important that he didn't do that. Part of it is declare a state of insurrection. You have to declare that you do not have control over an area and that you have to retake the area for the federal government. And that is definitely something which would indicate weakness on their part.
01:15:58
Speaker
So they very specifically didn't declare that. They also very specifically didn't suspend posse comitatus. Instead, what they're doing is they're kind of doing this thing that they always do, which is they find some loose legal justification for a thing they want to do.
01:16:12
Speaker
They do the thing. Then they force the courts to come by and say, well, that justification doesn't work. And then they go find another one. Right. But what they're not doing is they're not going. The country is in a state of insurrection because that would also be a full suspension of the rule of law.
01:16:29
Speaker
Right. And so they haven't declared that kind of state of emergency situation yet. Very specifically, likely for political reasons. Right. They don't want to be seen as having lost. That's the formal reality.
01:16:41
Speaker
Right. And there's about. 2000 National Guard on the street in l L.A. Most of them are sleeping at the federal building. They don't have any orders. They don't really have any gear. They don't really have a lot to do.
01:16:52
Speaker
They've deployed about 300 of them out onto the street. There's apparently 2000 more coming. But again, there's not logistics for them. Right. Then Trump also deployed ah unit of the Marine Corps from 29 Pines, which is around the corner from Los Angeles. It's it's a Marine base. It's really close.
01:17:10
Speaker
and essentially deployed them out to a federal facility at which they're just sitting. And part of the reason is, is that Military operations require a lot of logistics, like feeding and housing 4000 people on a moment's notice is not easy to do. Any of us that have ever done mass mobilization organizing or disaster response or anything can absolutely confirm this, like feeding and housing and helping to like manage the needs of thousands and thousands and thousands of people is really hard.
01:17:42
Speaker
And so you can't just like throw that down on the ground and just do it. But that's exactly what they did. So they showed up. Traditionally in military planning, you decide on a mission.
01:17:53
Speaker
You have a group of lawyers sit around and decide on rules of engagement. From those two conversations, you then build an operational plan. Then you go logistically gather all the equipment you need and start shipping it to the location.
01:18:05
Speaker
Then later you send troops. Right. Then you're sending engineering squads out first to like build housing and cooking facilities and stuff like that. Then you're sending soldiers.
01:18:16
Speaker
Right. They did the whole thing backwards. They sent soldiers first, then decided on ah mission, then decided on rules of engagement, which the Department of Defense just published this morning after troops are already on the ground and then figured out the logistics.
01:18:33
Speaker
And so right now, of those 4000 California National Guard that are either in Los Angeles or on the way, most of them don't have beds. Most of them don't have equipment. Most of them don't have adequate food.
01:18:44
Speaker
Right. So like this isn't a force capable of fighting in any kind of real way right now. Right. but In a week or two, that's a different story. But right now they don't have the capability to really be doing the things that Trump is saying that they're doing.
01:18:59
Speaker
So that that's important to keep in mind. Now, at the same time. They're also, you know, working along with the LAPD and exacting extreme violence on the people of Los Angeles. Right. And that's also important to keep in mind.
01:19:11
Speaker
But it is definitely not a like full blown soldiers on the streets, military occupation. And then there's the second part of this, which is the kind of spectacularization. Right. Trump is engaging in this. He said even before the National Guard got there, we quelled the riots. National Guard quelled the riots the two hours before any guard troops are even in Los Angeles.
01:19:30
Speaker
right He's been talking this big game on social media about crushing the insurrectionists and you know destroying the leftists and like all of this stuff. And he has portrayed this as a we are taking control of the situation kind of moment.
01:19:47
Speaker
I think, on the other hand... A lot of people in our circles have also not necessarily been looking at the situation in the most sober way. And there's a lot of spectacularization going on in radical circles as well.
01:20:00
Speaker
There's a lot of rumors. I spent a good amount of time yesterday trying to explain to people how like ATF and DEA agents, when they get deployed in a situation like that, don't have uniforms. So if you see people without uniforms, that doesn't mean they're military contractors and that doesn't mean that they're undercovers.
01:20:16
Speaker
It just means that they're deputized federal agents. Right. And that we've seen that in a number of situations. And so when we spectacularize these things, we create the reality in a way that Trump is trying to create that a lot of this is about fear.
01:20:31
Speaker
A lot of this is about creating a new normal in which when protests break out, the National Guard just shows up and gets deployed and then everybody just goes home. Right. That's a situation that they're trying to construct.
01:20:44
Speaker
And. when we don't look at the situation in a sober light, when we look at the situation through spectacularization and anxiety and stress, and we're not looking at things like they don't have food, right? They don't have a mission.
01:20:59
Speaker
They're not even on the streets, right? Like when we start to look at things like that, we start to see a very different reality, which is a reality that is much more like what Trump did with the dams in California during the LA fires, right?
01:21:14
Speaker
That what happened in that situation, for those of you that don't remember, is there were dams in northern California that were holding water for reservoirs for cities up in the northern part of the state.
01:21:26
Speaker
And Los Angeles had, quote, run out of water, which isn't actually what happened. It's just that they were trying to put out so many fires that the water pressure dropped, but they, quote, ran out of water. So Trump's deploys the you know

Political Spectacle and Trump's Strategy

01:21:38
Speaker
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers out to this dam to open up the valves of the dam. And they says, we solved the problem. we We put the fires out, bla bla blah, blah, blah.
01:21:47
Speaker
The reality is, is that the water system in Northern California and the water system in Southern California, unless you take very specific steps to connect them together, are different. And so releasing that water in Northern California literally did nothing.
01:22:01
Speaker
But it showed that he did something. And a lot of Trumpism is about this idea that we are in this crisis, that we have to do something and that that something has to happen without any sort of these like limitations of democratic values or, you know, limitations on government power or things like that, that we have to do something now.
01:22:23
Speaker
And a lot of this is about portraying that idea that they're doing something. When in reality, they're not really people. State of California didn't ask for the National Guard to show up. The LAPD was pretty clearly telling people that they, you know, have the situation contained, you know, like they weren't looking for backup.
01:22:43
Speaker
And so there's a spectacularization element to this that we have to be incredibly careful about perpetuating. Right. Another example of this that I always I point to always is the Edward Snowden leaks, right?
01:22:56
Speaker
Edward Snowden dropped gigs of documents out there, and a lot of them were very technical. And not something that a lot of you know people without technical background could really understand what was going on.
01:23:07
Speaker
And so what happened is we fell into this pattern of listening to people that were spectacularizing what was going on. And they were talking about how the and NSA listens to all of our calls and they read all of our emails and blah, blah, blah, blah. but And most of that was based on very faulty technical analysis.
01:23:25
Speaker
But that mentality took over. And for a lot of people that I know, they dropped out of organizing for a year or two afterwards just trying to figure out how to be safe. When the reality was, is that we were worried about them listening to our phone calls.
01:23:40
Speaker
But what we weren't talking about was how few of those they can actually listen to at one time. How hard it is to bank up all that data and then search it. How few analysts they have. Like we weren't looking at the logistical parts of how the NSA works, which was the other part of those leaks.
01:23:56
Speaker
Instead, people spectacularized what they were capable of Right. And so we have to be really, really, really careful in situations like this to be able to say, yes, the National Guard is there.
01:24:09
Speaker
What does that mean? Not the National Guard is there. oh my God, it's military occupation. But the National Guard is there. Logistically, practically, materially on the ground. What does that mean?
01:24:21
Speaker
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is that legally they're only able to guard the federal building, right? Technically, federal facilities, plural. um Now, we learned in 2020 that the definition of what counts as federal is really loose.
01:24:35
Speaker
And we learned that, you know, if you set a parking shed on fire in Cleveland, Ohio, in a parking lot that belongs to the police department. Well, a hundred dollars built that parking shed came from the federal government. So that makes it a federal crime now.
01:24:51
Speaker
Right. Like they they very creatively interpret what federal property means. And so we have to also keep that in mind. Now, the reality is, is that they haven't really left the courthouse area.
01:25:02
Speaker
They've been active in the streets around it. But they haven't really left the immediate courthouse area, sort of like how they operated in Portland in 2020, where they sort of, you know, garrisoned in a location and then defended the location.
01:25:14
Speaker
That's a lot of what's going on right now.

Portland Protests and National Impact

01:25:16
Speaker
Which, again, I think the Portland comparison is very is one that we should think on, because, yeah in many ways, it's it's a sort of larger scale version of that. And if you remember in 2020, the protests in many ways were winding down in Portland.
01:25:33
Speaker
Because remember, Portland sort of continued on while the rest of the country, I mean, there's obviously still stuff happening, but the intensity sort of had died down. And then what happened was, is that somebody was swept off the streets during one of the demonstrations, put in a put in unmarked van and arrested. And it was like, what happened to this person?
01:25:53
Speaker
And bizarre. Because of the outrage of that happening, also somebody was shot in the head with like a projectile weapon by one of the, I think it was one of the federal forces. Yeah. This led to night after night after night of demonstrations. This got to the point where even the mayor of Portland came out, which was seen as sort of this watershed moment, like, oh, even the mayor is here.
01:26:14
Speaker
And then we had like the the mom block come out. We had dad block, veteran block, all these different blocks of people sort of get involved in the demonstrations and And, you know, by the end, literally George Floyd's family, when Darren Wilson was indicted and sent to prison, said, we want to thank the people of Portland for protesting nonstop. This is what made it possible.
01:26:37
Speaker
So, yeah you know, and again, like you look at the exit polls for support for the BLM protests, you know, investigations into the demonstrations, like basically leading to the defeat of Trump in that election cycle.
01:26:52
Speaker
it's It's funny, again, that people are wringing their hands over these protests in l L.A. so much when in reality, like, this should be something that the left should be celebrating and supporting and getting behind across the board.
01:27:05
Speaker
One thing I do want to return to, yeah so we're also, we've seen tweets from DHS saying that they are helping with emig immigration enforcement in the city. you So we've seen, like, photos of heavily armed National Guard with, like, rifles and stuff.
01:27:21
Speaker
While they're arresting people. So I kind of want to return to your point about like, you know, they don't have logistical capabilities yet. So what happens in a week? Does that mean that they are going to then occupy Los Angeles, because again, like we've seen photos of there's like a little red circle where it's like, this is where the protests are. And then you zoom out and then like, I mean, l LA is massive. It's a massive, yeah, massive. Like they would need what hundreds of thousands of troops if they wanted to.
01:27:51
Speaker
So to use the normal military calculus that is used in sort of counterinsurgency, like low intensity counterinsurgency situations, they assume one troop for every 100 population.
01:28:02
Speaker
And they assume, i think it's like five troops for every insurgent. And so Los Angeles has 10 million people in it. That's a million soldiers.
01:28:14
Speaker
That's one third of the entire standing U.S. Army. So this is another thing, getting to spectacularization, right? You know, before we were recording, we were talking about the state I live in during 2020 and what happened.
01:28:28
Speaker
And in that state, there were five or six cities that really went up. during the uprising and the national guard deployed to all of them. Now the city I'm in went up harder than all the others.
01:28:40
Speaker
And so on day one, what we saw was we saw a small garrison of national guard troops show up and start to control the downtown area, which is where a lot of the initial rioting happened. Right. But there weren't enough to control the city because what they had to do is they had to put down uprisings in other cities to free up enough troops to bring them to the place I live.
01:29:00
Speaker
Right. That's one state. and one National Guard and that's the state's National Guard. They don't have that ability. If we're talking about U.S. military operations, monetarily, logistically, on a pure material level, it takes a lot to move a million troops somewhere.
01:29:20
Speaker
And that's one city. And so I want to be really clear. You know, I've i've written about this extensively in in my own writings. But if we look at the way that policing works,
01:29:31
Speaker
It doesn't actually work by having adequate force to suppress everything directly. Right. That there's not cops standing in every single corner store looking for shoplifters.
01:29:45
Speaker
That what happens is there's cameras in those corner stores. And we assume that the footage is both being recorded and would be given to given to police if somebody stole something. And so we control ourselves.
01:29:58
Speaker
Right. We become our own deterrents. And don't do the thing. Right. But when that breaks down, when the ability of police to respond to an area breaks down because there's too much resistance to their movements, which is what happened with ICE in L.A., when the ability to move forces around an area gets disrupted because you can't move through space, when conflict is constantly shifting and changing character, all of a sudden you become very incapable of responding.
01:30:30
Speaker
To much of anything. So 3.2 million U.S. military personnel. Are not going to have the ability to control the country. Just to put that out there on like a purely logistical, totally sober, cold mathematical level.
01:30:47
Speaker
There is no way that they can occupy all of our cities at once. That is not a possible reality. What they're trying to convince us of is that it is.
01:30:59
Speaker
They are trying to convince us that. If we decide to fight, then this will be all of our realities. But the pure mathematics of it is that that's not possible.
01:31:11
Speaker
And so what we're looking at, i mean, what Los Angeles is really sort of foreshadowing, I think. You know, Robert Evans talks about this idea that this summer we're going to see mass uprisings like in 2020.
01:31:25
Speaker
And I think that there's there is some truth to that, likely. But I think that it there's going to be something fundamentally different. Right. So in 2020, in a lot of places, like including where I live, that fight was very direct.
01:31:38
Speaker
Right. Like we were fighting the local police department over their practices, trying to get them off of our streets. Right. But in a lot of places, it was a little bit more abstract. It was like they were protesting against police violence and things like this. Like it was a symbolic protest.
01:31:52
Speaker
Right. What we're watching right now. is we're watching a situation in which that space for symbolic protest, in which we lodge complaints and somebody listens to it and changes policy.
01:32:05
Speaker
That's not a world that exists at the moment. That they are in power based on the notion that they are going to crush us. So people like Bernie Sanders go out there and say, oh, everyone needs to peacefully protest.
01:32:16
Speaker
What that indicates to me is that Bernie Sanders does not understand literally anything about the situation right now. But the reality is is that whether they declare a state of insurrection or not, what we're doing is we're slowly creeping into a state of emergency situation. what they're trying to do is they're trying to find the legal grounding for that.
01:32:35
Speaker
But we're drifting that direction. But that doesn't mean that that becomes our reality. And so we're dealing with this kind of collision but between, and this is this is common in in the era of Trump.
01:32:48
Speaker
We're dealing with a collision between the material realities on the ground and the threats and spectacularization that occur. That the threats and the spectacularization and and you know radical movements are are you know not not complicit in this has been to freak everybody out that the National Guard is going to show up in your town and occupy your city.
01:33:09
Speaker
But the material reality of that is that that is not possible. And so what this ends up looking like is this ends up looking like a state which is overstretched. We've already seen this.
01:33:20
Speaker
We've already seen this administration claim to be doing things on really large scales. When in reality, they have like four people working on a thing using chat GPT to write something and, you know, barely scratching the surface of something which is like deep and complex.
01:33:36
Speaker
And we're watching the same thing happen here. That they're kind of poo pooing military occupation. They're like, yeah, we could just do this and look at Los Angeles. But the reality is, is that that's not going to look the same everywhere.
01:33:49
Speaker
That's going to look very different in different places, depending on local political dynamics, state political dynamics, what's going on in the country, how many other places are going up at the same time. Like all of this is going to look radically different where we are.
01:34:02
Speaker
And so um unlike 2020. It seems like a lot of these struggles are going to be a lot like what's going on in L.A. right now.

Community Resistance in Los Angeles

01:34:10
Speaker
which is a fight that started over something that happened very immediately in a physical place in an actual neighborhood.
01:34:17
Speaker
And the difference here, and this is a really important difference, When struggle becomes incredibly material like that, what we're watching in Los Angeles is an entire community of people rising up against the federal government right now.
01:34:30
Speaker
Not activists, not people who like know each other because they share the same political identity or something like that. Like these are people who live their lives together. They rely on one another. They work for each other. They're friends and family.
01:34:41
Speaker
Right. That level of connection is much more powerful in a struggle situation. than anything that we could ever put together through like random networks of people. You know, that's what makes we can talk more about this later, but I think that's what makes statements from whether like people like Nancy Pelosi or Gavin Newsom or, you know, idiots on the right, you know, even more stupid saying that like anarchists or whoever or, you know, criminals, you know, foreign invaders flying different flags or whatever.
01:35:11
Speaker
are somehow like tricking everyone else into doing this or like the reason behind the violence, quote unquote, you know, even more silly. Like it's very clear what's happening. like ah you Like you said, communities of people are responding to this. I mean, literally, like you said, like the second day of the protest, which, as you mentioned, took place in Paramount, which is, you know, in Los Angeles.
01:35:35
Speaker
outside of a home Depot. And they basically rolled up to arrest people in this area and the community responded and they basically got boxed in and the LAPD was there, but basically refused to do backup for them.
01:35:49
Speaker
And they got surrounded by the community and then they had to leave while people were pelting them with rocks. And that's what, like you said, that's what kind of triggered them to call in the national guard, which I think that leads us to our next question is like, will the national guard be used essentially as protection to carry out raids because that in itself is very scary. I mean, it's one thing if like they're going to like cosplay as like, you know, occupying entire city, which you said isn't really feasible.
01:36:21
Speaker
Although I think like definitely as we saw in 2020, you know, just having them there like is, is a real deterrent against protest. oh yeah Let's be, let's be real. But I think the idea that like they're going to march in with DHS officers like, you know, into, you know, a slaughterhouse and just arrest hundreds of people that don't have papers is terrifying.
01:36:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. And there's not really a legal justification to use the National Guard that way. But that doesn't mean they won't try.
01:36:56
Speaker
and so. I think we're going to see test of this in Texas very soon. The governor of Texas just mobilized the Texas National Guard voluntarily to protect federal facilities and to help with immigration raids.
01:37:11
Speaker
Now, there's a couple of elements of this that I think are really important to point out, though. First is when you need to roll 50 to 100 people out to an immigration raid, that's logistically very heavy and really hard to hide.
01:37:25
Speaker
And so you're making the response of people in the area a lot more likely because now you're not rolling in with one unmarked car. Now it's a convoy.
01:37:37
Speaker
And that convoy has military vehicles in it. Right. That all of a sudden starts to look a lot like the occupation that people are worried about. And if you look at the polling that's come out in the last few days, the vast, vast majority of Americans, over 70 percent,
01:37:56
Speaker
are fundamentally against the idea of deploying the US Army in a context like this. And so they can deploy the National Guard, but the National Guard is going to have limits. They can try and deploy with the Army, but the Army is not allowed to be used for law enforcement purposes.
01:38:12
Speaker
And so they get stuck in this legal contradiction where they have to either admit that crossing the border without papers isn't actually a crime. It's just a violation. And that therefore the National Guard can't be used at all because what you're trying to do is enforce a violation.
01:38:27
Speaker
Right. So they can say this is a violation and not a crime and they can bring in the National Guard and use them or they can say this is a crime and then not use the National Guard. What they can't say is this is a crime or using the National Guard.
01:38:41
Speaker
There's no basis for that in American law. Right. And so i think we're going to watch a lot. I mean, the court challenge is already happening. And one of the things that that this administration has done a lot of is they've sort of taken an action.
01:38:56
Speaker
Tried to defend it in court, lost, found another justification, tried to defend it in court, lost. And they just keep doing this like they find another argument. They just keep it rolling. Right.
01:39:07
Speaker
But every single time that they lose, it imposes more restrictions. And so. What this ultimately ends up looking like, I don't know, because on a legal level, we've never seen this before. This is not something that there's really precedent in American legal code to really figure out what to do.
01:39:25
Speaker
So I think that the the basic reality here is that we probably are going to see them used in some places. Right. We'll probably see them used in places where it's going to be easy to get ah good clip for Fox News or Kristi Noem can show up in costume and like go on an immigration raid with the National Guard.
01:39:43
Speaker
You know, like they'll do something like that. But that doesn't mean that we're going to see that everywhere. And this is again, I've pointed this out a number of times in this episode, past episodes, things I've been writing. It is deeply important for us to be fundamentally grounded when we are fighting in the space that we're in.

Grassroots Organizing Against ICE

01:40:03
Speaker
Right. What is happening where we're at? What does this mean where we are? Right. They can it can even be a situation where in Texas, the governor calls in the National Guard to help with immigration enforcement and then just does that like four or five cities.
01:40:17
Speaker
I think what we have to remember. the United States is really big. There's a lot of people in it and it's a really hard to control space. And so you're not going to see the kind of like Syrian government style wipe out the city's big military occupation.
01:40:35
Speaker
That's not logistically possible. But what we might see is we might see these kind of spectacularization type raids where they bring 50 National Guard in with some ICE agents to go do a thing in Texas.
01:40:46
Speaker
But again, i want us to be very careful to not fall into the spectacularization of that. And we need to recognize that that is if that happens and incidents. That will get challenged in court. That isn't going to happen just like that the next time.
01:41:01
Speaker
And that isn't going to happen like that everywhere. And so what we need to look at is we need to look at what is ICE doing in our areas, right? Like I really like in Los Angeles, the way that people have organized against ICE is really amazing with massive public intelligence networks and rapid response and all of these things. There's a popular assembly in Detroit that is getting something together like this in the city I live in.
01:41:25
Speaker
There's a discussion of getting a popular assembly together to respond to this. Right. And what's happening in those contexts is that there is not just an attempt to like get people together in a room to talk about protests because that's not meaningful.
01:41:39
Speaker
Instead, what's happening in those contexts is people are getting together to figure out how to defend themselves, what logistics they need, how to build them together and how to make decisions collectively. Right. That it is the foundation of the mechanism.
01:41:54
Speaker
that lets us fight locally, right? And so really starting to move into organizing where we're at, not just amongst the people that we know, but organizing where we're at, figuring out ways to get information, figuring out ways to track what federal agents are doing in our area and figuring out ways to respond effectively, right?
01:42:17
Speaker
We're not going to win every confrontation. We're not even going to win most of them. But the reality is, is that every single time we engage in it, We make them have to bring more people next time. We make them have to be more visible next next time.
01:42:29
Speaker
We make them have to be more confrontational next time. Right. We create a situation that's harder for them to operate it. And that means that they operate less. They might operate in more concentration, but they're not going to be doing it as often.
01:42:42
Speaker
And so we need to figure out how they operate so we can figure out how to drive them out. And one of the things that's going on in Los Angeles that's really fascinating to me, why I, you know, emphasize that.
01:42:54
Speaker
This struggle started with a confrontation in a community of people. Is that what's happening now is that that community of people is engaging in area denial. They're forcing ICE out and they're not letting them back in.
01:43:07
Speaker
And that is not a protest, right? That that is a direct act of resistance. That's what our future is going to look like in the US. That's what we're going to have to understand.
01:43:19
Speaker
Not just ISIS in our city. What are they doing? Who are they doing it with? Who are they bringing along? What are they targeting? Right. So one of the things I notice in the city I live in is they don't come into the city very much.
01:43:31
Speaker
But out in the farms outside the city, they raid things all the time, but they do it at certain times when they know no one's watching and they can grab a bunch of workers really quick. Like they're taking these things into account. And that is disrupting their operations.
01:43:43
Speaker
Right. And so what we need to be focusing on is how we do that materially, logistically. Right. Like, I know a lot of people want to go rah-rah on the streets about this now. And by all means, please don't go to PSL demonstrations. But by all means, please.
01:43:58
Speaker
But that's not what's going to stop any of this. What's going to stop this from happening the next time is us being able to defend ourselves as a community of people where we live. Not protests, not signs, not asking, not demanding, but just doing.
01:44:14
Speaker
I want to read this thread from Mike Rothschilds, who's a ah journalist, talks about conspiracy theories in the far right. I just think this is pretty interesting.

Right-Wing Politics and Authoritarian Challenges

01:44:25
Speaker
He says the best outcome for the U.S. right now is if the protests continue to expand and become too big to contain.
01:44:30
Speaker
Trump spends a few more days pretending to be a tough guy and then gets bored. spends the next week picking a fight with Turner Classic movies over their schedule or something. Trump has shown again and again that he loves to talk a big game and make grandiose threats, but when the hammer falls, he doesn't have the juice or the attention span to go full dictator.
01:44:48
Speaker
He wants to be adored more than he wants to consolidate power. He's loving the attention and the chance to play mini Mussolini, but putting a city of four million under martial law, that's too much work and takes too long. He ultimately just doesn't care that much.
01:45:02
Speaker
But that's what's most likely to save us. He's just too lazy to put in the work to be a real dictator. i don't know. Does that square with your analysis? i think I think so. I think the other element of this, though, and maybe the part that's missing, is he doesn't have the support to be a dictator.
01:45:20
Speaker
He doesn't have the military force. He doesn't have the ability to crush a population. He doesn't have overwhelming support. There's not some big national crisis he can leverage.
01:45:32
Speaker
Right. we We have to keep in mind. And again, I've said this on this show a number of times, but it bears repeating. Dictatorship takes a long time. It doesn't just happen overnight.
01:45:43
Speaker
Right. If you look at the rise of Erdogan in Turkey, that took 10 years. Right. Putin in Russia took 10 years. You know, and these are people who are competent, surrounded by people that are competent with a clear sense of mission.
01:46:00
Speaker
And a very large attention span. And also their leaders of places which have a history of authoritarianism. Right. Military dictatorships, party dictatorships.
01:46:12
Speaker
That's not true. And so we're looking at really different circumstances. And even if we were looking at exactly the same ones. Ten years is a long time. And so these things don't happen overnight. Right.
01:46:26
Speaker
You know, I think that that's that's one element of that thread that's really true. These things don't happen overnight. They take a lot of persistence. They take ideological commitment. but Someone like Mussolini was deeply ideologically committed.
01:46:41
Speaker
And also built the fascist movement over the course of 10 years.
01:46:46
Speaker
Right. So there's.
01:46:49
Speaker
These things happen slowly. They happen through processes of normalization and they often happen through us getting ah being willing to evacuate the field of conflict out of fear.
01:47:03
Speaker
That one of the things that is deeply important that you learn if you study the history of the rise of authoritarianism. Is that often that happens because they're able to leverage a sort of social fragmentation.
01:47:15
Speaker
You're able to say, well, you don't have to care about us repressing these people over here. They're not the same as you. They don't have the same interests. And so the more that we can sort of refuse to spectacularization, the more that we can ground our resistance in the situations that we're in, building the logistics of autonomy where we are, and the more that we can sort of look at the situation as it is, the more that what we're going to see is we're going to see the spectacularization elements of this, that he doesn't have the logistical capacity to be a dictator.
01:47:49
Speaker
And as Mike Rothschild says, probably doesn't have the attention span. But I think that there's a bigger question, even if he did, of whether or not that would even be possible. And I would argue that it's not.
01:48:01
Speaker
The United States is huge. It is complex. It is complicated terrain that is deeply mountainous. Many people are armed. Right. it's It's not a space that's easy to control.
01:48:14
Speaker
And the size of the U.S. military is pales in comparison to that. And so, you know, I mean, this is kind of I say this about right wing militias to. Militias have this fantasy.
01:48:29
Speaker
That they're going to end up in some direct confrontation with the U.S. Army in some like one to one frontal war or something like that. But that's a not how wars happen in the modern era and be not how insurgencies happen.
01:48:43
Speaker
That's a fantasy. That's not real. Right. The reality is. is that often what's happening is you're dealing with heavily armed but vastly dispersed forces over really large areas, dealing with incredibly and increasingly restive populations.
01:49:00
Speaker
And we can see what happens when they stick 400,000 troops in Iraq. Not only do they not succeed in doing counterinsurgency, they lose. They lost in Afghanistan too, right? And those were places where they had air cover, drones, satellite surveillance, all this other stuff.
01:49:18
Speaker
Full logistics, military bases, air bases, all of these things. And they couldn't control that space. but The United States is much bigger than both of those places.
01:49:30
Speaker
Much bigger. More than 10 times the size of both of those places. And there's not 10 times the number of troops. There's definitely not 100 times the number of troops. right So like we have to think about these things on a logistical, strategic level.
01:49:46
Speaker
Right. We get our advantages when we fight in the places we know with the communities that we're a part of in the cities that we call home. Right.
01:49:56
Speaker
We lose when we engage on their terrain, when we try and do this through symbolic protests, when we try and convince them, when we try and win the media game or something like that. That's when we lose because we're engaging on terrain we have no advantages on.
01:50:12
Speaker
But when we engage like people are doing in Los Angeles right now, You can see the effect. Right. Even if they drive all the protesters off the streets, ICE is going to have an incredibly hard time operating in large parts of Los Angeles for the foreseeable future.
01:50:28
Speaker
They've started a permanent conflict now. And every single time they go into that community now, from now until the foreseeable you know end of time, they're going to have to fight their way out. Right. That's what's different here.
01:50:40
Speaker
is that they didn't just start a fight with some protesters. They kicked off a struggle against an entire community of people. And that's not one that governments traditionally win. Yeah, there's a beautiful report on the New Republic that's by Melissa Grant. I just want to read from this is quoting Ron Guchez, a community organizer. I believe this is something he said on Democracy Now!
01:51:02
Speaker
He said ah they're talking about what happened on that day where they raided the Home Depot situation. Over eight hours on Saturday, he said, this is Ron Guchez, after a battle with Border Patrol, and it was a battle, he said, because there were people throwing back tear gas, people throwing everything they could to defend themselves and to defend the workers that were being surrounded.
01:51:23
Speaker
The Border Patrol retreated, and the hundreds of workers that were in the factories around them were able to escape, Guchez recounted. They were able to get in their cars and go home, and that was only thanks to the resistance that allowed them to go home that night.
01:51:37
Speaker
If any community was going to fight back without apology, it was this one. just Yep. and Amazing stuff. Absolutely. There's another editorial on Prism from Tina Vasquez, and ah she writes, And like many audacious, power-hungry leaders before him, Trump has vastly underestimated his adversaries.
01:51:58
Speaker
So i just want to I just want to step back. We've been talking about logistics a little bit. I do want to mention you brought up like polling. There's been a couple interesting polls where it's like, you know, 35 support of this, opposed.
01:52:15
Speaker
you know In a couple days, will this be, again, like another Trump fiasco where they're just sort of trying to explain it through conspiracy theories or whatever? It seems to be a little different than that. I mean, this isn't Signalgate. This isn't Elon breaking up a Trump. I mean, this is real flesh and blood.
01:52:35
Speaker
ah bad shit so yeah how how do you think this will play out in the court of public opinion i mean also you've got gavin newsom filing a lawsuit against this so far it seems like the courts have like put it off for a bit what happens with all these other pressures out myself a little bit i do hang out on survivalist forums sometimes right uh as someone who who you know doesn't not identify as a survivalist.
01:53:04
Speaker
But one of the things that's been really interesting in that world over the last few days has been a bit of a narrative shift. The right wing in the U.S. for decades put itself forward as like the people that were going to fight government tyranny, blah, blah, blah, blah. blah But they also hate immigrants. And so when government tyranny is used to kick out immigrants, they're kind of stuck in this paradox.
01:53:28
Speaker
Right. Which is a paradox inherent in their politics. Like a lot of right wing libertarians in the United States are really like, well, I think people should be free, but all society should look like this.
01:53:39
Speaker
Right. Which is just incoherent politics. Right. And so the incoherence of the right wing militia movement's politics have started to come into contrast.
01:53:51
Speaker
And you're starting to see people be like, hey, wait a minute. Isn't this the thing that we just like told a bunch of people that they should be worried about? Didn't we just watch like a thousand Alex Jones videos about this exact thing?
01:54:02
Speaker
Why aren't we doing anything about this? Right. And then you've got other people being like, but we're kicking out the immigrants. Right. There's there's this problem in right wing politics. and And this has existed for a really long time in the United States where you have elements of the right wing.
01:54:18
Speaker
which pay lip service to the norms of democracy, but are really fascists. Right. And this, you know, there's been this tendency in the U.S. as long as the country's existed.
01:54:28
Speaker
But especially since the 1930s, there has been a concerted effort to sort of do fascist things, but do it under the language of democracy.
01:54:40
Speaker
Right. At the same time, the right wing is always complaining about government overreach. They complain about states rights and, you know, personal liberty and blah, blah, blah, blah. blah But the problem is, is that those two politics are mutually exclusionary.
01:54:57
Speaker
They're not able to be reconciled with one another. But they both form the core of right wing politics in America today. Both of them. Right. that You have people like Ron Paul and the religious right in the same political coalition.
01:55:12
Speaker
And that makes no sense. That hasn't made any sense for a really long time. And for decades, they've been able to sort of move past that. They've been able to kind of focus on counterterrorism and immigration and all of these other things.
01:55:27
Speaker
And they've been able to kind of move past that contradiction. But they can't do that anymore. And part of it is that Trumpism is kind of post ideological.
01:55:39
Speaker
It's a lot of factions. that all have the same central interest in authoritarian power. But there are lots of different factions with lots of different needs and priorities and things like this.
01:55:53
Speaker
And so when you build politics around the idea that what you're trying to do is build authoritarianism, but not define what for,
01:56:06
Speaker
What you end up with is you end up with this exact situation where now not all of a sudden are you doing something that people disagree with in your coalition, but you're a tyrant in the process. And so these contradictions of right wing politics in America are really starting to come to a head.
01:56:21
Speaker
mean, you saw it a little bit with Musk and Stephen Miller over H1B visas. Right. You've definitely seen this in different priorities between, say, you know, the oil and gas industry, one in government research grants, but also doge cutting all the government research grants. Right. Like there's there's a lot of these kinds of contradictions, because at the end of the day, the project that is being undertaken here is ideologically incoherent.
01:56:46
Speaker
And so that's fine when things are going well. And that's fine when everyone thinks they're winning. But when all of a sudden he has to make choices between some priorities and other priorities where he needs to choose whether he's going to side with the anti-immigrant coalition or whether he's going to side with the tech bros and their H1P visas.
01:57:09
Speaker
That's the point in which those contradictions become obvious. And so they can paper over those all they want. They can have Musk release statements being like, oh, you know, I really said some things I didn't mean and blah, blah, blah. blah They can do that all they want, but it doesn't overcome the fact that the core of their politics are a series of irresolvable contradictions.
01:57:30
Speaker
And so, again, that all works when everyone's moving in the same direction. But when they're not anymore, when Latinos for Trump lady who, you know,
01:57:42
Speaker
having researched her a little bit, is like a right-wing religious extremist and a conspiracy theorist. This is a person who really wants authoritarian power and also really doesn't want to see her commicate community get attacked.
01:57:55
Speaker
Those two things don't operate side by side in this moment. So either you have authoritarian power and that community gets attacked or you don't have authoritarian power. And when this person realizes this, she quits.
01:58:08
Speaker
And I think we're going to see a lot more of that. That as this administration defines itself as being some things and not other things and having some priorities and not other priorities, you're going to see factions peel off.
01:58:21
Speaker
You know, I mean, one of the biggest factions they have a problem with that they're going to have a problem with over this is the like weird anti-vax like RFK Jr. Tulsi Gabbard types.
01:58:32
Speaker
Because these are people that are also generally conspiracy theorists. These are people who also largely historically are kind of hippies and like don't really want to see like jackbooted troops on the streets and stuff like that.
01:58:46
Speaker
You're to have a really hard time keeping those people in line when all of it, when all they're getting out of this is ah RFK Jr. being a wingnut on TV. But what they're sacrificing is all of their principles about authoritarianism.
01:58:59
Speaker
It's going to be hard to keep those people in line. And so how that plays out is going to be heavily dependent on what ends up happening. And to get to the question of the court challenges, we don't know.
01:59:10
Speaker
i mean, the the initial circuit court decision was to not issue an injunction that they let the National Guard stay. But that isn't a ruling. They just refuse to grant an immediate injunction.
01:59:23
Speaker
But they've set a hearing date. And so what happens at that hearing will play out for the next year or two in the courts. And that will determine the shape of what this looks like in a year or two.
01:59:37
Speaker
And there's going to be plenty of people that are going to sit around and wait for that to see what happens. But I think that there's a basic reality here in which the coalition that they had built to get themselves into power is fragmented.
01:59:49
Speaker
It's falling apart. it's falling apart out of a combination of incoherence and ineptitude. But it is falling apart. Yeah, somebody mentioned we are witnessing the end of the Elon Musk presidency and the rise of the Stephen Miller presidency.
02:00:04
Speaker
Yes, I think that's really accurate, actually. I think that's incredibly accurate. Yeah. And that's scary. But here's the thing. Stephen Miller is also ah person who is fundamentally ideologically motivated.
02:00:18
Speaker
He's not a person who historically has a great grasp on reality. And so he's a conspiracy theorist. He's a fabulous, right? Like he's a person who really kind of plays up rhetoric and things like this. But what he is not is a careful, well-considered operative, right? He's a strategist. He knows how to get himself into power, but he doesn't know what to do with it necessarily.
02:00:43
Speaker
And the things that Stephen Miller wants to do are inflammatory and deeply unpopular. And so as that coalition defines itself, as someone like Stephen Miller rises and other people fall away, you're going to watch how those fissures start to form as a result of that.
02:01:00
Speaker
Not everyone in that coalition is down for this. And that's a really important thing to keep in mind. Right. So I already said earlier, like attention span aside, Trump doesn't have the logistical capacity or support to be a dictator, especially not right now.

Organized Resistance Against Authoritarianism

02:01:14
Speaker
Everything he's doing right now is eroding that further. He's losing support. He's losing logistical capacity. He's getting stuck in all of these long drawn out court fights and legal battles and things like this.
02:01:27
Speaker
They don't have the lawyers to argue in court with. So, you know, we've been saying this for a little while on the show, but Again, to get back to how we started, we have to be very careful to not fall into spectacularization. We have to be very careful not to fall into believing the things he's saying are happening.
02:01:48
Speaker
Right. we have to be really careful not to fall into fear of the threats and things like this. Right. It's really easy to threaten someone on Twitter. It is very hard to do it.
02:01:59
Speaker
And we have to keep that in mind. And so as these things, as these threats come forward, the thing that we the way we have to approach this is we have to say, OK. Well, this is a government declaring war on us.
02:02:13
Speaker
The era of asking them for things is over. If they want to declare war on us, if they want to decide that we are the enemy, then any sort of concept of loyalty that traditionally grounded American protest is gone.
02:02:25
Speaker
It's over. It's finished. Right. That right now they're fighting ah war against us and we are protesting. Right. Our response is not in line with what is happening, that if they're going to fight a material conflict against us on our streets, that's where our response needs to be.
02:02:42
Speaker
Right. Not in public squares with signs. And so we have to be really aware again of how how does this look where we are? What is the material reality where we are?
02:02:54
Speaker
How many agents do they have in the city? What is their force composition look like? How close is the nearest National Guard base? Right. We all need to know this stuff and we need to know this stuff now.
02:03:06
Speaker
Right. That we've moved into a world in which protest is no longer a form that is meaningful. And we have moved into a space in which everything now becomes a question of conflict and crushing dissent.
02:03:22
Speaker
And that's always going to be a fight that plays out on our street. Right. And so what we need to be doing is we need to be building these local coalitions. We need to be getting these assemblies together.
02:03:34
Speaker
We need to be organizing outside of our traditional environments. We need to be going to places where raids are happening. We need to be getting people organized. We need to be getting assemblies going. We need to be building responses.
02:03:45
Speaker
Right. That's what's ultimately going to stop this. It's not going to be complaining about it. It's going to be doing something about it. And if Los Angeles teaches us anything, It's that we finally clearly hit the moment in which at least we know that their intentions are clear, even if they're overblowing the reality.
02:04:05
Speaker
We understand that their intention is to try and crush us. Right. And so we have to be very prepared for that reality. That is not a reality in which the First Amendment matters.
02:04:18
Speaker
That's not a reality in which their traditional limits of police force matter. That's not a reality in which our expectations of what the limitations of the National Guard doing matter. All of this stuff is up for question right now.
02:04:31
Speaker
And so if it's all up for question, we have to be very, very, very, very attentive to what that actually really looks like, where we actually really are, because that's the reality that we're trying to analyze, not the one that they say is occurring.
02:04:50
Speaker
Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Beautiful Idea, news and analysis from the front lines of anarchist and autonomous struggles everywhere. Catch you next time.