In search of new forms of life amidst a civilization in collapse. Hard-hitting analysis, discussion, and interviews on grassroots revolt and autonomous social movements across so-called North America from an anarchist perspective.
Steve Ongerth on the Bombing of Judi Bari and Redwood Summer
Jul 22, 2024
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) organizer and historian Steve Ongerth, author of Redwood Uprising: From One Big Union to Earth First! and the Bombing of Judi Bari, about the Earth First! and IWW organizer Judi Bari, who in May of 1990, was almost assassinated in Oakland, CA. Many believe that Bari and another Earth First! organizer, Darryl Cherney, were directly targeted for their organizing in defense of redwood forests in northern California, work that included building alliances with timber workers.
Just before 11:55 AM a bomb in Bari’s car exploded, nearly killing her and injuring Cherney. Within minutes the FBI and Oakland Police arrived on the scene and arrested both of them as they were being transported to Highland Hospital. The authorities called them dangerous terrorists and accused the pair of knowingly transporting the bomb for use in some undetermined act of environmental sabotage when it had accidentally detonated. The media spun the event as the arrest of two potentially violent terrorists.
Bari and Cherney were not only Earth First!ers, they were dues paying members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)…Indeed, even some of the timber workers whom the media claimed were the sworn enemies of Earth First! were also members of the IWW and covertly working with Bari and Cherney. There were even a handful of timber workers who had openly declared their alliance with Earth First! and their support of Redwood Summer.
Following the bombing, the FBI and Oakland Police went to desperate lengths to try and “prove” the bombing victims were guilty, even to the point of providing false leads and manufacturing evidence.
During our discussion we speak with Steve about who Judi Bari was, how the IWW and Earth First! began to interact and influence each other in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Redwood Summer campaign that Bari was deeply involved in, the bombing of Bari and Cherney, and Bari’s organizing work that fought to bring together both timber workers and environmentalists.
All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news!
Living and Fighting
On June 29th, angry crowds rallied and occupied a city hall building in Utica, New York, after police shot and killed Nyah Mway, a 13 year-old boy and refugee originally born in Myanmar and a member of the Karen ethnic community. In a horrific scene reminiscent of Oscar Grant’s grisly execution in Oakland, California in 2009, which kicked off a wave of riots, police could be seen on video stopping Mway in a residential neighborhood, leading to a foot chase. In a video recorded by a community member, three white police officers can be seen chasing Mway down and punching him after which, he collapses. As Mway lied on the ground, one of the police officers chasing him fired a shot into Mway, as horrified community members looked on. In a later press conference, police claimed that the murder was justified due to Mway being found with a “replica GLOCK pellet gun.”
Workers at CounterPulse in the bay area, an art and community space organized a march on the boss announcing their union drive with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Members of the union in the Pacific Northwest also honored the “Wobblies who were lynched or imprisoned following the American Legion’s attack on the IWW hall in…Centralia,” Washington on November 11th, 1919. The Tacoma IWW wrote, “Finally, after two years of effort, the IWW Centralia Monument Committee won the fight to have our 2.5-ton granite and bronze monument in the city park in the heart of Centralia.”
We committed this act as a simple reminder that you will be met with resistance at every step along the path to fullfill the contract to build Cop Campus. You have assests spread throughout the Bay Area, if you value them, you’ll drop the contract. This can be the end, or just the beginning. The choice is yours.
Actions in solidarity with Palestine continue across so-called North America. In Atlanta, people took to the streets outside of the Presidential debates to denounce the spectacle of two right-wing parties jostling over who was the most draconian monster.
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, four Brooklyn museum executives and board members’ residences were targeted by artists and cultural workers in retaliation against their brutal attack on Palestinians and pro-Palestine protesters on Friday May 31, and their shameless complicity in genocide. Red paint obstructed their doorways, banners and messages were left to remind them that: BLOOD IS ON THEIR HANDS.
Students at California State University Los Angeles, “…occupied, barricaded, and looted the admin building to protest the administration ignoring them. They [used] flipped vehicles…as barricades outside of the admin building where students were occupying. They dispersed before the pigs could arrest anyone…”
Meanwhile in so-called Canada, solidarity protest encampments, building occupations, and riots have popped off in Toronto and Montreal. In Montreal, people organized a solidarity encampment for several months and on June 6th, a campus administration building was also occupied, leading to clashes between riot police and defenders of the occupation.
Hundreds of police officers were then mobilized to secure the area around the building and allow the police officers inside to intervene and arrest the 13 students trapped inside.
The aggressiveness of the police and their ridiculous effort to arrest a handful of students quickly heated things up. The students on the ground began to prepare for a police dispersal operation. While a small line held the west of the area, the forces converged to the east to hold a line against the massing riot police. Aided by more experienced activists, the students then began to stand in collective defense formations. Shortly afterwards, the police attempted a first charge into the lines. Surprisingly, despite pepper spray, gas, shields and truncheons, the lines held firm. While the bulk of the force seemed to be made up of activists new to street confrontations, the lines withstood a police charge and managed to push back the riot line…Whatever prompted the people gathered there to stand firm, their actions were more than commendable.
As night fell and tension began to mount again, the students abandoned the campus and took to the surrounding streets. The forces of the student intifada learned the language of the riot, bank windows were smashed…every available object to form barricades was used to block access to police vehicles as the students took control of the streets for a few hours.
Activists have occupied the Cambridge Democracy Center in order to combat and resist the unilateral decision made by its NGO owners to shutter the space, implicitly in response to community opposition to their permitting Zionist organizations to use it as an organizing space. The DC has been a fixture of movement and political organizing in the city and its loss would be a crucial blow to the progressive ecosystem.
Yesterday morning, courageous militants did just that. They escalated the struggle, seizing control of the building and declaring it the People’s Democracy Center, calling on all of us to stand with them and keep the space alive for future generations of organizers and artists who might call it home. It is our responsibility to answer their call and stand with our comrades.
June 20th All cages were opened, all breeding cards were scattered or destroyed, and perimeter fences were leveled at Schmuecker Fox Farm in Luzerne, Iowa. Anyone can do this, and the summer has just begun…
Upcoming Events
July 2nd – 9th: Hudson Valley, Earth First! Gathering. More info here.
July 12th – 14th: Dual Power Gathering. Pacific Northwest. More info here.
July 25th: Benefit for Antifascist Prisoners. Bremerton, WA. More info here.
August 31st: Halifax Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 7th: Sacramento Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 7th – 8th: Montreal Anarchist Tech Conference. More info here.
September 20th – 22nd: NYC Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 21st – 22nd: Victoria Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 28th: Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 28th – 29th: Seattle Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
October 6th: Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
October 18th – 20th: Northeast Health Autonomy Convergence. More info here.
November 26th – 28th: Indigenous anarchist convergence. Occupied so-called Phoenix, AZ. More info here.
Shane Burley and Ben Lorber on “Safety Through Solidarity” and Community Mobilization in the Current Terrain
Jul 04, 2024
In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we again speak with antifascist researchers Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, authors of the new book, Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Anti-Semitism. We discuss how the established order has attacked both the the current anti-war movement in solidarity with Palestine, which includes many anti-Zionist Jews, as anti-Semitic, while continuing to push anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, as the Republican party makes concrete alliances with actual neo-Nazis.
Finally, we touch on the need for continued antifascist mobilization and education, pushing back against conspiracy theories, and the current terrain of rising authoritarianism. With a growing number of anti-Zionist Jews coming under attack by both the State and pro-Zionist forces, as white nationalists continue to make inroads into the MAGA movement and Republican party, having a clear understanding and analysis of anti-Semitism is needed now more than ever.
More Info: Shane Burley on the It’s Going Down podcast here, here, here, here, and here. Ben Lorber on the It’s Going Down podcast here.
More Voices From the Growing Anti-War Movement in Solidarity with Palestine
Jun 13, 2024
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with folks across the so-called United States about the ongoing movement in solidarity with Palestine continuing to expand across college campuses.
First, we speak with someone in Austin, Texas, who discusses the explosive protests at UT Austin which were repressed by a phalanx of police. We talk about how anti-authoritarians intervened in the struggle, pushed back against repression and counter-insurgency, and are continuing their organizing in solidarity with Palestine.
Next, we talk with someone on the picket lines at University of California Santa Cruz, one of the campuses hit by a recent strike by tens of thousands of student-workers in solidarity with students facing police repression. We talk about the strike, its role in the growing struggle, and how it spread across various campuses. Since this interview took place, a California judge has ruled in favor of UC bureaucrats, granting a restraining order against the strike as “threats of wildcat strikes by rank-and-file workers forced the UAW to expand the strike.”
Lastly we speak with Mohamed Abdou, author of Anarchism and Islam, and until recently, a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Abdou speaks at length about the role of faculty in the struggle and being targeted under recent hearings aimed at snuffing out pro-Palestinian organizing on campus and being labeled “anti-Semitic” and “pro-Hamas” by right-wing outlets and pro-war grifters.
Andrew Lee on Displacement, Rising Rents, and Social War
May 27, 2024
During our discussion, we speak with Lee about how elites, capitalists, and city bureaucrats are banking on gentrification and how people are pushing back against displacement. We also discuss the crisis of rising rents, how gentrification is tied to a push to better police the poor and communities of color, growing attacks on the houseless, and the tenant union movement.
Cities around the world are in the midst of a profound transformation as the wealthy price out the remnants of the urban working class, especially people of color. Displacement is neither accidental or inevitable. It happens because a whole range of people and institutions profit handsomely. Defying Displacement, focused on the US but informed by global examples, investigates gentrification from the perspective of the people fighting it, members of communities whose survival is threatened by some of the most powerful institutions on the planet. Andrew Lee names the names and identifies the actual state and corporate forces that work together to enrich a very specific group of people: property developers and real estate investors who make a killing, politicians who watch their tax bases grow, banks that write profitable loans for new businesses and mortgages for new homeowners. Meanwhile, business districts are planned, tax abatements unveiled, redevelopment schemes dreamed up, corporate and university campuses expanded, and ordinary people are driven from their homes.
The city has long served as the stage for political life and popular revolt. As mass displacement alters the composition of gentrifying cities, the avenues available for social change become unsettled as well, forcing us to reimagine our strategies for building a better world. Around the world communities are pushing the struggle against forced displacement in new directions, shutting down developments and evictions and bringing cities to a halt, fighting militarized police and the most powerful companies in the world. Activists and residents in struggle—dozens of whom are interviewed by Lee to inform his work—are charting the way forward to affordable and sustainable cities run by the people who inhabit them.
During our discussion, our guest breaks down how the UCLA encampment grew in the face on continued harassment and attacks from far-Right pro-Israel counter-protesters. These attacks escalated on April 30th, when a group of Zionists attacked barricades erected around the outside of the encampment, in full view of security and police, who left the area and watched the attack. As people defended themselves from violent counter-demonstrators, clashes escalated, lasting into the early morning. The next day, police then used the attack as a context for carrying out a violent raid of the encampment, shooting and injuring students and community members with projectile weapons.
[An] examination of more than 100 videos from clashes at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that violence ebbed and flowed for nearly five hours, mostly with little or no police intervention. The violence had been instigated by dozens of [far-Right Zionists] who are seen in videos counterprotesting the encampment.
The videos showed counterprotesters attacking students in the pro-Palestinian encampment for several hours, including beating them with sticks, using chemical sprays and launching fireworks as weapons. As of Friday, no arrests had been made in connection with the attack.
The melee began when a group of counterprotesters started tearing away metal barriers that had been in place to cordon off pro-Palestinian protesters. Hours earlier, U.C.L.A. officials had declared the encampment illegal.
Security personnel hired by the university are seen in yellow vests standing to the side throughout the incident. A university spokesperson declined to comment on the security staff’s response.
Police shoot off riot shotguns at UCLA encampment.
Los Angeles Times higher education journalist Teresa Watanabe reported that members of the pro-Israel mob used explicitly genocidal language as they ripped down encampment barriers, yelling, “Second Nakba!” — a reference to the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in 1948.
“For over seven hours, Zionist aggressors hurled gas canisters, sprayed pepper spray, and threw fireworks and bricks into our encampment,” organizers said. “They broke our barriers repeatedly, clearly in an attempt to kill our community.”
“Law enforcement simply stood at the edge of the lawn and refused to budge as we screamed for their help,” the statement continued. “The only means of protection we had was each other. We keep each other safe.”
The Daily Bruin, which had student reporters on the scene, reported that “security and UCPD both retreated as pro-Israel counter-protesters and other groups attacked protesters in the encampment.”
As we cover on the podcast, the far-Right Zionist and police violence on full display at UCLA exposes the false claims by the Biden administration and campus leaders across the country; growing police repression of campus demonstrations is aimed at crushing the anti-war movement which threatens US military interests, not to “protect students” or ensure their “safety.”
The successful mass defense of the UCLA encampment from the far-Right is a turning point for the movement. As one person posted on social media following the clashes, “Everyone at UCLA should feel incredibly proud of themselves. Fighting the cops is where all our movements will have to go, and they’re correct to do it and brave to face it.” Another account added, “There were thousands of people at UCLA who didn’t back down and battled to defend the camp. We will never forget what that night was like. So many people came out in solidarity.” Throughout our discussion, we talk about the dynamics on the ground, the various forces at play, and where the movement might go next.
Music: No$hu, “The Bonk Song”
“We Are Not Afraid of You”: Voices from Inside the Growing Anti-War Movement Sweeping US Campuses
Apr 26, 2024
First, we speak with someone at Columbia University in New York. We discuss how the Right and the campus administration is attempting to attack protesters as ‘anti-Semitic,’ even as anti-Zionist Jewish students are playing a key role in the organizing alongside many other students from a variety of backgrounds.
Next, we speak with grassroots journalist Vishal P. Singh, who reports on the violent police attack on protesters at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. We also discuss how the far-Right is responding to the growing movement.
This Is America #196: Houston Food not Bombs Fights City Hall, Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union, National Guard on New York Subway
Apr 19, 2024
Welcome, to This Is America, April 18th, 2024.
In this episode, first we present an interview with a member of Houston Food Not Bombs, who speaks about how the group has been pushing back on attempts by the city to shut down their mutual aid program through ongoing ticketing and police harassment.
We then turn towards New York City, and discuss how Democrats have greased the wheels through fear campaigns over crime and migrants, to bring in the National Guard onto the city’s subway system.
Via @slam.matu
We then speak to members of the Montreal Autonomous Tenants’ Union, who discuss their organizing efforts and fighting back against landlords, rising rents, and gentrification. Note, this interview is quite old, be sure to check out and follow the group on Instagram here for current updates.
Finally, we discuss the unfolding legal circus around Trump and why we shouldn’t be surprised when rich and powerful people – don’t go to jail.
But first, here’s some upcoming events!
Upcoming Events
April 19th – 21st: Chicago Anarchist Skillshare. More info here.
April 20th: Free Em All Ball. Benefit for political prisoners. Huntington Park, CA. More info here.
April 26th – 29th: Northeast Bash Back Convergence. Philly, PA. More info here.
April 27th: Rattling the Cages: Political Prisoners, Mass Incarceration and Abolition. Virtual event. More info here.
May 4th: First Ever Kitsap Anarchist Bookfair. Bremerton, WA. More info here.
May 4th: First Annual Upstate Anarchist Bookfair, Binghamton, NY. More info here.
May 18th: Free Tall Can. Benefit for antifascist political prisoners. San Bernadino, CA. More info here.
May 23rd – 29th: Lost Sierra Action Camp. Plumas National Forest, California. More info here.
May 24th – 26th: Constellation: An Anarchist Festival in Montreal. More info here.
June 28th – 30th: Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair. Asheville, NC. More info here.
July 2nd – 9th: Hudson Valley, Earth First! Gathering. More info here.
July 12th – 14th: Dual Power Gathering. Pacific Northwest. More info here.
November 26th – 28th: Indigenous anarchist convergence. Occupied so-called Phoenix, AZ. More info here.
The IWW, the Red Scare, and Lessons on Resisting Repression Today
Mar 28, 2024
The history of the Red Scare is a dire warning about the ability of the democratic State to smash by any means necessary radical working-class organizing from below, utilizing a wide range of repressive tactics. Just as today, the state is ready to criminalize ideology and participation in social movements in an effort to safeguard its interests.
This Is America #195: Friends of Aaron Bushnell Speak, Deep Dive on Situation in Haiti
Mar 21, 2024
Welcome, to This Is America, March 21st, 2024.
In this episode, first we speak with several anarchists and mutual aid organizers in so-called San Antonio, Texas about their late friend, Aaron Bushnell. On February 25th of this year, Bushnell, an anarchist originally from the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts. engaged in what he described as an “extreme act of protest,” when he set him self on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, in protest of the US government’s ongoing support of the state of Israel and its campaign of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. We speak about their friend and how they came to know Bushnell as he lived and worked in the area alongside them. We talk about Aaron’s upbringing in a Christian sect and how it influenced him later in life and how he came to embrace anarchism. We also speak about how his friends have dealt with the aftermath of his death and attacks on Aaron from neoliberal and far-Right media.
We then speak with an anarchist currently living in Montreal on the situation in Haiti and about the recent wave of resistance in the region. We also unpack the long history of rebellion, colonialism, and US intervention on the island, and how these realities continue to influence political and social life in the territory in the 21st century.
Upcoming Events
April 19th – 21st: Chicago Anarchist Skillshare. More info here.
April 26th – 29th: Northeast Bash Back Convergence. More info here.
May 4th: First Ever Kitsap Anarchist Bookfair. Bremerton, WA. More info here.
May 4th, 2024: First Annual Upstate Anarchist Bookfair, Binghamton, NY. More info here.
June 28th – 30th: Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair. Asheville, NC. More info here.
July 2nd – 9th: Hudson Valley, Earth First! Gathering. More info here.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Write about what’s going down in your area! Contribute here.
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts! While you’re at us, give us a good review and rating!
We then talk to folks in Austin, Texas about the upcoming Smash By Smash West counter-summit. Finally, we speak with long-time anarchist media maker Franklin Lopez, who has now completed a new book for kids. We speak about anarchist media and the need for more engaging content geared at young people and parents alike.
All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news.
Living and Fighting
Photos from vigils in memory of Aaron Bushnell across the US. SOURCE: Facebook / Various
Across the world, people held vigils in memory of anarchist Aaron Bushnell, the 25 year-old active duty member of the Air Force who in late February, set himself on fire in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC in what he called “an extreme protest” against the US’s continued support of the war and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine. In Portland, as Alissa Azar reported, in “a moving act of solidarity…Veterans [burned] their uniforms at a vigil for Aaron Bushnell, hosted by Veterans Against War.”
A call in the Pacific Northwest has also been made for a mobilization against the upcoming “Aerospace and Defense Supplier Summit at the Seattle Convention Center.” According to the call posted to Puget Sound Anarchists:
On March 12th to 14th Seattle will host the 2024 Aerospace and Defense Supplier Summit at the Seattle Convention Center. This conference will bring together suppliers and subcontractors from around the world, including Boeing, to network and show off products that will be used to build weapons that will murder people in wars of colonial expansion in Palestine and around the world.
Vigils were also held across the US in memory of Nex Benedict, an Indigenous non-binary student who died after being attacked in a bathroom at a school in a district that had been targeted by gender fascists. In Los Angeles, California, people took to the streets to mourn the violent murder of Nex and also call for an end to attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.
Crowd rallies outside of St. Cloud prison in Springvalle, Alabama. SOURCE: Instagram
As we reported on in our recent In Contempt column, various groups have been rallying in solidarity with the call from the Free Alabama Movement for strike and protest action. One person wrote on Instagram, stating:
Today, we protested again for the fourth week in a row in solidarity with the Free Alabama Movement’s 90-day prison shutdown. In honor of the international day of action for Rafah, the Young Palestinians of Birmingham (@yp.bham) joined us in solidarity where we united in chants about Palestine, Alabama, Congo, and more.
Incarcerated people in America are forced to produce a wide range of products and services, including the bombs and weapons that are killing Palestinians and other innocent people all over the world. When incarcerated people refuse the forced labor, they are subjected to beatings and solitary confinement.
Currently, incarcerated people in the U.S. do all the work to maintain the jails and are forced to work to make profits for the state and for companies like Raytheon. The same companies profiting from the occupation and genocide in Palestine are the same companies profiting from the exploitation and genocide of incarcerated people here.
As long as the ADOC and companies like Raytheon can use prison labor they will and as long as they can profit from genocide they will. Prison work stoppages shut down the entire economic system and get directly into companies’ pockets.
Cargill Tenants Union rallies in support of rent strike in Putnam, CT. SOURCE: Cargill Tenants Union Instagram
A rent strike organized by the Cargill Tenants Union in Putnam, Connecticut has continued into February and March, as tenants face threats of eviction as they continue to demand that landlord address health and safety concerns over lead, mold and beyond. Most recently, the rent strike has pushed the attorney general of Connecticut to launch an official inquiry. From a recent statement from the CTU:
Our rent strike and tenant union organizing has been building pressure to remediate this mill for our members. This is a major development directly resulting from attention on our rent strike. We still face retaliatory evictions, but the tide is turning in our favor. Organizing gets the goods.
Rally with hardcore band playing in support of Jack in so-called Atlanta, Georgia. SOURCE: Unicorn Riot
In the Pacific Northwest, action continued against a proposed Cop City in Lacey, WA. A communique posted to Puget Sound Anarchists wrote:
In the earliest hours of Saturday morning, a small crew spiked various trees in the woods that are currently being logged, a well-known eco-defense practice to prevent or at least delay the logging of these precious trees. We need forests, not cops. Hours later, a separate crew dropped a banner that read Stop Lacey Cop Complex #stopallcopcities at the Olympia/Lacey pedestrian bridge over Pacific Avenue that will hopefully bring more awareness to the project…
Food Not Bombs have been operating in Houston, Texas since 1994 and after nearly three decades in 2023, they started getting tickets for serving free meals outside of the city’s Central Library. So far they’ve received 96 tickets which made them file a lawsuit against the city authorities who claim that their meal service was a constitutionally protected protest.
Graffiti and broken windows at Army recruiting station in Chicago, IL. SOURCE: Chicago Anti-Report.
In Chicago, a communique posted to Chicago Anti-Report claimed credit for breaking out windows and covering an army recruitment center in paint and anti-war graffiti slogans. According to the communique:
One week ago, Aaron Bushnell self-immolated outside the zionist embassy in so-called Washington DC. He follows an unnamed self-immolation outside the zionist embassy in so-called Atlanta. In addition, in 2023, a man self-immolated in Kinshasa, DRC in protest of the genocide in Congo over capitalist green and resource extraction of cobalt and copper for the world’s technology.
As such, comrades took the following actions against the recruitment center for the 33,000+ Palestinian martyrs since October 7, for Aaron Bushnell, and for all those struggling against the US imperialist machine:
Painted Avenge Aaron, Gaza will Haunt You, and Free Gaza across the military machine recruitment center windows
Smashed windows of the main army recruitment office
Covered surveillance cameras with spray paint
Poured red paint on windows of the Marines recruitment office
Forest defenders shut down construction for the Mountain Valley Pipeline. SOURCE: Appalachians Against Pipelines
Upcoming Events
March 8th – 16th: Smash By Smash West. Austin, TX. Counter-summit. More info here.
March 9th: Houston, TX. Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
March 10th: Solidarity Fundraiser for Jeremy White. Los Angeles, CA. 1st Street Billiards. 7 PM. More info here.
March 15th: Rally and speak out against police brutality. Olympia, WA. More info here.
April 26th – 29th: Northeast Bash Back Convergence. Philadelphia, PA. More info here.
June 28th – 30th: Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair. Asheville, NC. More info here.
July 2nd – 9th: Hudson Valley, Earth First! Gathering. More info here.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Write about what’s going down in your area! Contribute here.
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts! While you’re at us, give us a good review and rating!
How Antifascist Moms Are Pushing Back Against the far-Right and Anti-LGBTQ+ Bigots in SoCal
Feb 23, 2024
In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with members of Safe Redlands Schools (SRS), a group of antifascist moms who have come together to push back against far-Right and fascist groups attempting to advance an authoritarian agenda in the Southern California area, specifically in local school districts.
During our discussion, we talk about how these groups, which include far-Right street gangs like the Proud Boys, grew out of far-Right conspiracy theories and reaction to COVID-19 lockdowns, pivoting quickly to opposing “Critical Race Theory” and embracing a politics of gender fascism. As far-Right militants set their sites on the schools boards as a new terrain of confrontation, violence erupted at various meetings, with parents and their children often caught in the middle between politicians, out of town grifters, and their followers in violent far-Right organizations.
Members of SRS map out how they have built a network of concerned parents across their region, the wide variety of organizing that they engage in within their communities against the far-Right, and why they made the important decision to openly label themselves as “anti-fascist.”
This Is America #193: Report from the Border on Far-Right Convoy and Beyond
Feb 18, 2024
Welcome, to This Is America, February 17th, 2024.
On this episode, first we speak with independent journalist Alissa Azar about their recent trip to the border, the unfolding crisis between Republican governors and president Biden, the far-Right convoy who came out to support the GOP, and the refugees and asylum seekers caught in the middle. Support Azar on Patreon here.
Building Solidarity with Asylum Seekers in Sacramento
Feb 09, 2024
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with someone involved in Nor Cal Resist, a group based out of Sacramento, California organizing around mutual aid, community solidarity, and building movement infrastructure. During our discussion, we talk about how the group has begun to organize and work with asylum seekers, mainly from Venezuela, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine, and the struggles that they have faced along way and the economic and imperial forces which pushed them to carry out such dangerous journeys. We talk about how Republican governors have shipped asylum seekers into “blue cities” including Sacramento, and how mutual aid groups like Nor Cal Resist has mobilized to provide support and direct aid in the face of increasing racist conspiracy theories and State repression.
The recent rise in refugees attempting to enter the U.S. — reaching a high point of 2.5 million by 2023 — is a result of displacing factors in which U.S. government policy has played a role.
For instance, the largest percentage (53 percent) of migrants attempting to enter the U.S. since 2020 have come from Venezuela — where the U.S. government has maintained a suffocating regime of economic sanctions since 2014.
There has also been an increase in state repression and restrictive changes in policy that have reduced how many migrants attain refugee status after entering the country. For instance, while there is a recent increase in people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border — a process rooted in long-standing U.S. policy — Trump largely dismantled the practice, instead automatically expelling migrants at the border. Biden continued Trump’s policy until May 2023, deporting even more than Trump.
While 2.3 million migrants and refugees have been temporarily “paroled” into the U.S. under Biden, nearly 4 million have been denied entry or deported. Most paroled individuals are in active removal proceedings, and only a small percentage are likely to attain refugee status as Biden has capped asylum cases at 125,000 per year. So no, migrants are not “the problem.” And the U.S. has sufficient resources to settle migrants and refugees — if that were a priority.
The real threat at the border is the far right, which has fueled a civil war-like showdown between the federal government and the Texas state government by weaponizing anti-immigration politics.
As both corporate political parties push to manufacture a crisis at the border over asylum seekers and refugees, social movements must work to show that the capitalist system which is attacking workers and the poor across the world is our common enemy, along with the racists and white supremacists attempting to divide us.
We end by mapping out the lessons learned from the work that went into supporting those targeted on J20 and especially the ways this can inform the struggle against RICO charges and beyond in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Fight For Others, Like You Would Fight For Your Own Freedom”: Eric King on Building a Fighting Abolitionist Movement
Jan 17, 2024
In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we present an interview with former anarchist political prisoner Eric King along with Josh from the Certain Days calendar collective. During our interview, we speak with Eric about the impact and importance of prisoner support during his nearly 10 years of incarceration and his thoughts about building large-scale prisoner support and a robust abolitionist movement.
We also touch upon the horrors of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it spread inside the prison walls, and the racial dynamics that played out between prisoners and guards during the rise of Trumpism.
Eric and Josh argue that anti-repression organizing and support for political prisoners cannot remain sidelined within social movements, but must be something that we center within the wider abolitionist struggle.
This Is America #192: Seattle Mutual Aid Hub & Garden Attacked; Week of Action Against MVP; Forest Defense in California
Jan 14, 2024
Welcome, to This Is America, January 13th, 2024.
In this episode, as we get back into the grove of a new year, we bring you a variety of voices from across the so-called United States.
From Seattle, we speak with one person about the recent destruction of the Black Lives Matter memorial garden by the police. We discuss how the garden and various mutual aid programs grew out of the 2020 rebellion, and how its destruction is linked with increasing calls by city officials to attack the houseless and poor.
Finally, we present an interview with Eleanor Goldfield about their new film, To the Trees, about ongoing forest defense in so-called Northern California. We talk about making the film, various forest defense campaigns, and creating radical content in an age of corporate social media.
On this special episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we feature an audio recording from a presentation in the bay area this summer on July 18th by the Black Rose Anarchist Federation / Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation’s Bay Area local and AK Press hosted historian Troy Araiza Kokinis to discuss his new book Anarchist Popular Power: Dissident Labor and Armed Struggle in Uruguay, 1956-76.
Anarchist Popular Power is the first-ever full-length English-language history of the Anarchist Federation of Uruguay. As Araiza Kokinis explains, the FAU organized students and workers to directly confront international and domestic capitalists, far-Right violence, and state repression amidst rising IMF-mandated austerity and declining living standards during the 1960s and 1970s. Pushed underground and into exile by governmental ban and a decade of US-backed military dictatorship, the organization has spread its model for revolutionary change around the world since it resurfaced in the mid-1980s.
The FAU‘s innovative engagement with, disciplined commitment to, and steadfast confidence in everyday people’s capacities to control their shop floors, classrooms, neighborhoods, and lives offers important lessons for revolutionaries today. If you are inspired to adapt these and other lessons for the so-called United States, reach out to Black Rose / Rosa Negra at blackrosefed.org.
Due to some technical issues during the event, the following combines portions of live audio with recreations of the author’s talk. We hope you enjoy the conversation!
This Is America #191: Shane Burley on the Weaponization of Anti-Semitism, Resistance to War Heats Up
Dec 11, 2023
Welcome, to This Is America, December 9th, 2023.
On this episode, first we speak with antifascist journalist, author, and researcher Shane Burley along with Xeno, an anarchist and anti-Zionist Jew about the weaponization of anti-Semitism by groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the far-Right, amidst the growing movement to end apartheid in occupied Palestine.
We then switch to our discussion where we tackle the political implications for a growing break between those rejecting Washington’s war plans and the Democratic Party and beyond.
All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news!
Defend the Atlanta Forest
In mid-November, hundreds converged in so-called Atlanta, Georgia to participate in actions to “Block Cop City,” leading to clashes with the police and causing construction at the counter-insurgency training facility to come to a halt. Check out a report back on IGDhere.
As two of us hauled buckets full of rotting fish-vicera and compost-sludge, another quickly undid the two hex screws holding the access panels in place. We then dumped the 25 pounds of reeking slurry into both of the theater’s air handling units, in the compartments where clean air usually reenters the building; bypassing the layers of filtration and purification. Nearby, three police cars sat idle, completely useless and oblivious.
According to a post to the counter-info site Scenes from the Atlanta Forest, at the time of this writing, at least 5 different contractors have backed out of the project to build the Cop City complex since the campaign began several years ago.
Trials for those facing RICO charges in the unfolding struggle against the Cop City project are scheduled to begin soon. Be sure to follow the Atlanta Community Press Collective and Defend the Atlanta Forest on social media for updates.
According to a communique posted to Indybay, anarchists carried out railroad stoppages in “Pittsburgh, Oakland, Niles, Bahia, and Lodi” California. From the communique:
We did this in solidarity with the ongoing resistance to genocide being waged against Palestinians by the so called state of Israel…As anarchists we refuse to beg the masters of war for a ceasefire. We took it upon ourselves to sabotage the ability of so-called Israel to commit genocide, by sabotaging the flow of capital in the US, and thus the machinery for war abroad.
Blockades of railroads, roads, and bridges also took place across Montreal along with a blockade in front of Lockheed Martin.
Finally in a big win for direct action, Palestine Action reports that, “After two months of sustained pressure, Elbit’s main recruiters dropped the Israeli weapons makers as a client!”
More Action and News
In Davis, California, antifascists organized a rally on campus of over 100 people, which disrupted a far-Right, anti-LGBTQ+ event organized by Turning Point USA.
In Florida, the #Tampa5, students facing charges stemming from police attacks on protesters denouncing Ron DeSantis’ attacks on education, recently had their charges dropped.
Finally, dozens of foxes were liberated from a fur farm in so-called Ohio. According to a communique:
Every fox that now has a chance for life in Ohio would have been brutally killed for their fur in the next 30 days. The Animal Liberation Front and other anonymous activists utilize economic sabotage in addition to the direct liberation of animals from conditions of abuse and imprisonment in order to halt needless animal suffering. By making it more expensive to trade in the lives of innocent, sentient beings, they maintain the atrocities against our brothers and sisters are likely to occur in smaller numbers; their goal is to abolish the exploitation, imprisonment, torture and killing of all innocent, non-human animals.
Last year, approximately 25,000 to 40,000 mink were released from other fur farms in Ohio and the perpetrators left spray-painted graffiti saying, “ALF” and “We’ll be back.” The total number of fur farms in America has dwindled from more than 300 in the 1990s to less than 60 today, as the fur industry continues its steady decline into oblivion.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Write about what’s going down in your area! Contribute here.
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts! While you’re at us, give us a good review and rating!
Counter-Insurgency, Israel, and Settler-Colonialism: Making Sense of the State’s Strategy
Dec 01, 2023
In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with Adi Callai of the Rev and Reve channel about the unfolding genocide playing out in the occupied Palestinian territories. Callai speaks about the context of the uprising that exploded on October 7th, the Israeli state’s use of technology, drones, and beyond, the combating visions of counter-insurgency between states, and the role of Western governments in backing the ongoing bloodshed.
A Front-line Report from the West Bank of Occupied Palestine
Nov 12, 2023
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, IGD contributor Scott Campbell speaks with a Palestinian comrade based in Ramallah, which is located in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. The West Bank, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. For a deeper dive on the history of the occupation of Palestine by the state of Israel and how it is propped up by the US government, go here.
The interview covers the current unfolding situation on the ground in the various parts of Palestine, the role of the Palestinian Authority during Israel’s current war on Gaza, the place (or lack thereof) of anarchism in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, how international solidarity can best manifest itself, and much more.
We also speak with hosts of the Final Straw podcast about the recent Asheville Anarchist Bookfair, organizing anarchist and autonomous events in the current terrain with COVID-19 still a looming threat, how to make gatherings accessible and engaging to as many people as possible, and much more.
November 5th: Sacramento Anarchist Bookfair and Rock Against Racism benefit show. Sacramento, CA. More info here.
November 11th: Bay Area Anarchist Study Group conference. Oakland, CA. More info here.
November 11th: Food Not Bombs Benefit Show in Bremerton, WA. More info here.
November 11th – 12th: Boston Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
November 18th: Anarchist Skill Share. Philadelphia, PA. More info here.
November 18th: Pushing Down the Walls. Benefit for political prisoners. Rowland Heights, CA. More info here.
December 2nd: Anarchist Bookfair in Lawrence, KS. More info here.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Write about what’s going down in your area! Contribute here.
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts! While you’re at us, give us a good review and rating!
Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Wednesdays at 11 AM PST. 94.1 FM in Marin County, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, 88.1 FM in Fresno, 97.5 FM in Santa Cruz, 94.3 FM in Monterey, at 5pm on 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, and Saturday, 7pm on 96.9 FM in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
Netanyahu, the Global far-Right, and Building Solidarity with Palestine: In Conversation with Scott Campbell
Oct 21, 2023
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we host a discussion with IGD contributor Scott Campbell, as we cover the current situation on the ground in Palestine, the Netanyahu government in Israel and its links to the global far-Right, the role of the US in the conflict, and what possible avenues social movements could take in the fight against apartheid and occupation.
Over the course of our talk, we touch on the connections between settler-colonial regimes around the world, how we can use history as a tool to inform our struggles, and how we might go about building our capacity to act in solidarity.
In many ways, the book takes off from our previous discussion on anarchist history, and talks about how anarchism became a mass movement in the late 1800s, faced repression from the State, and worked to participate in social movements and struggles that reflected its anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist principles.
During our discussion we talk about how the historical anarchist movement approached questions of organization, action, reform, movement building, distributing ideas, State socialism, trade unions, and beyond. Note, the scope of this historical overview is limited, and we encourage readers to check out Non-Western Anarchisms: Rethinking the Global Context.
A Trans Activist Is Now Charged With Assault After Defending Children from Neo-Nazis in a “Stand Your Ground” State
Oct 06, 2023
On today’s episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with Leif, a trans activist in Northern Ohio who is currently facing assault charges after defending children and their parents from violent neo-Nazis and Proud Boys in Wadsworth, Ohio in March of this year.
In March of 2023 a family-friendly drag show in Wadsworth OH was threatened by anti-LGBT protesters including Proud Boys, Patriot Front, and Neo-Nazis. Show organizers asked for volunteers to help protect the show and its attendees. Leif was one of many people from Central Ohio who answered this call for volunteers. On the day of the show, attendees and supporters were outnumbered nearly 2-1 by anti-LBGT demonstrators from all over Ohio. While escorting families out of the event, Leif was assaulted by anti-LGBT protesters who hit him in the head with a megaphone. Police stood by and allowed this to happen. Leif feared for his life and the lives of the people he escorted – including children and a person with a service animal – and he took swift action to end the attack. FOR THIS JUSTIFIED ACT OF DEFENSE HE IS BEING CHARGED WITH THREE COUNTS OF ASSAULT!
Do trans people have the same self-defense rights as everyone else? The law throughout the whole US allows a person to use force in defense of human life. Ohio is a ‘stand your ground’ state. This means a person has no “duty to retreat” and may use force in self-defense or defense of others, if they feel their life is in danger. The police and the state of Ohio have chosen to prosecute a trans man with criminal charges instead of the transphobes who assaulted him. We are going to fight back using any and all legal means necessary.
Inside the Fascist Lurch: Amanda Moore on Going Undercover Within MAGA
Sep 15, 2023
In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with journalist and investigator Amanda Moore, about spending over a year undercover within the broader MAGA movement and the outright fascist and white supremacist currents and activists she found firmly embedded within it. During our discussion we speak on the role of conspiracy theories within the movement, the lead up to January 6th in Washington DC, entryism into the GOP by white nationalists, and the inability of the neoliberal media to hold the Republican party to account for its lurch towards outright fascism.
I attended more than a dozen extremist and conspiracy events and went to ostensibly mainstream Republican conferences, including the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, the annual gathering of Republican activists, politicians, and hopefuls, and Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit, and witnessed a radical youth movement trying to take over the GOP. Like a parasitic pilot fish, a robust fascist community follows the big Republican events into every town. They host shadow parties, receptions, and speeches as they work to recruit new members. The conservative establishment benefits from the presence of these farther-right gatherings; the extremists are often younger, well-dressed, and social-media savvy. While the more mainstream GOP organizations occasionally ban the most overt racists from a featured event, their attempts often feel half-hearted, and there are always other extremists who step up and fill the role as intermediaries between the white nationalists and normie conservatives.
Some of the neo-Nazis and fascists I met undercover in 2020 are working as congressional campaign staffers and helping to form congressional caucuses. They are meeting with leaders of far-right political parties in Italy and Hungary. They are leaders in their local Young Republican organizations. They have access to elected GOP officials at the national and local level.
Despite this growing influence, few of them or their true beliefs are known to the public. Some have worked hard to scrub themselves from the Internet or to curate their online personas; others operate in the shadows, so that people do not even know to look for them. But they network with each other, calling in favors and introductions. They’ve created a social maze that’s almost impossible to trace—unless you are invited to become one of them.
As segments of the far-Right reposition themselves in a post-J6 world, we discuss how these forces will continue to evolve as the 2024 election looms and Trump’s future role in the movement remains in doubt.
William C Anderson In Conversation with JoNina and Lorenzo Ervin at Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair
Sep 02, 2023
In this special episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we present an audio recording from the recent Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair in so-called Asheville, North Carolina in August, 2023. The recording features a conversation with author and activist, William C Anderson and JoNina and Lorenzo Ervin, two longtime anarchist organizers who have been directly involved in the historic civil rights movement and proceeding Black liberation struggles.
A discussion of using dual power to engage in widespread sabotage against the corporate state in order to fight fascism. JoNina and Lorenzo are two anarchist ex-Black Panthers. Between them they have 70 years of political activity spanning lives that have included everything from teaching at a revolutionary community school to hijacking a plane and taking it to Cuba. Both are now involved in the Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers.
GDC Members on Non-Profit Recuperation and Grassroots Organizing in the Midwest
Aug 26, 2023
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with two members of the General Defense Committee (GDC) in Michigan, about their recent conference, organizing in the midwest in the post-George Floyd landscape, and pushing back against recuperation from non-profits.
In the shadow of the George Floyd Rebellion, the pandemic, and the rise of the far right, we ask: What does anti-capitalist resistance look like today? What is the current terrain we are organizing on? What are our strategic priorities and challenges?
Photos from the Midwest Anti-Capitalist Conference via Michigan GDC
This Is America #189: Rent Strike Grows in Eugene, Midwest Dual Power Conference, Trump Faces Indictment
Aug 15, 2023
Welcome, to This Is America, August 15th, 2023.
In this episode, we speak with two organizers of the Midwest Dual Power Gathering, taking place in Chicago next week. We then speak with Candice King, a resident of Eugene, Oregon who is currently on rent strike, along with a local anarchist who is helping organize eviction defense. We talk about how the rent strike is growing and the community that has been fostered around the defense of Candice’s home in the face of a recent failed police eviction.
A struggle between a property management company and tenants who have stopped paying rent to try to get the landlord to sell the property heated up Friday morning as protestors held a demonstration inside the company’s office. https://t.co/4MN15nawof
We then turn towards are discussion, where we unpack the most recent Trump indictment, what it means, and what is says about the lengths in which the Republican party pushed for an authoritarian takeover of the State in 2020.
All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news!
Living and Fighting
The struggle against Cop City in so-called Atlanta, Georgia continues, with the city government attempting to throw a wrench into attempts by voters to get a referendum on the facility on an upcoming ballot. In court, the city of Atlanta has attempted to claim the “referendum [is] “invalid” and a “futile” effort,” but a recent ruling has allowed the collection of signatures to go forward, as activists now boast to having collective over 80,000.
Struggles against other similar projects are also spreading. In Michigan people wrapped up a week of action and educational events against the expansion of the Camp Grayling military base. In the bay area, people also mobilized to demand the halt to the construction of “a $42,000,000 mega complex and gun range in the heart of the City of San Pablo, directly behind a children’s library. The Mega complex “Cop Campus” will train officers in urban warfare, repression and murder. We are in a economical crisis and before community needs are even being met, an immense amount of money is being wasted into a completely unnecessary cop playground.”
Doom to the pipeline!! Footage from yesterday's walk ons, which stopped Mountain Valley Pipeline construction in Montgomery County, Virginia for multiple hours. 👏👏👏 #NoMVP#NoPipelinespic.twitter.com/6sKmtxSgtV
— Appalachians Against Pipelines (@stopthemvp) August 10, 2023
In Portland, fast food workers with the Burgerville Workers Union, part of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), walked out on strike at one store in late July after contract talks with the company broke down. In response to the strike, corporate attempted to send in scab workers as strike actions and protests continue. Meanwhile in Berkeley, wobblies are rallying at a recently unionized store by the IWW against the firing of one union member. For more info and how to participate in a call-in campaign in support, go here.
Workers and union supporters are out here turning around replacement workers and talking to the community!
Show support to our defense fund! We're just getting started. Corporate went after our members? We're not taking this laying down. HR wants a fight, you got one. pic.twitter.com/XY8zgBCvUj
— Burgerville Workers Union 🍔 (@BVWU_IWW) July 29, 2023
After seven days of trial, a 12-person Multnomah County (Portland) jury found no fault against [tw0] activists…in a lawsuit that was filed three years ago by conservative provocateur Andy Ngo. Ngo sought over $300,000 for a variety of alleged incidents involving many people between 2019 and 2021.
The lawsuit was filed in 2020 by Ngo, in an attempt to weaponize the legal system against the right-wing boogeyman of what he has labeled “antifa” (short for “anti-fascist”). Ngo lumps together into his version of “antifa,” a wide range of social justice advocates, even including people from the moderate “Wall of Moms” – in an apparent attempt to gain access to personal information about those he perceives to be leftist activists and to make personal profit from patreon and other social media platforms. To use a term he often uses, he committed “lawfare.” His original complaint named individual people for “assault,” “battery,” and “intentional infliction of emotional distress,” as well as alleging an Oregon civil racketeering (RICO) claim against Rose City Antifa.
Two weeks before the trial, a Multnomah County Circuit Judge ruled that Rose City Antifa could not be sued because it is not a discrete legal entity, and dismissed the state RICO claims.
In Alabama, prisons across the state went into lockdown as national guard troops, SWAT teams, and a host of law enforcement descended upon William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility “after an incarcerated individual took a guard hostage in the middle of the night.” According to the Alabama Political Reporter:
The individual suspected of taking the correctional officer hostage is Derrol Shaw. According to a source, Shaw got into an altercation with the guard and took a gun and the officer’s vest. However, it is against ADOC policy for officers to have guns at the facility, but it is unclear at the moment how or why the officer had the weapon…Shaw posted twovideos on Facebook Live of himself while wearing the officer’s vest…
Shaw expressed in his Facebook Live videos that he is just “fed up” with the conditions inside the prison citing the constant chaos, violence and deaths, even of his own friends. Shaw also said that ADOC is upholding white supremacy and that the prison system is just “modern-day slavery.”
As highlighted in our recent In Contempt column, several new political prisoners need support! Long time community activists in Pittsburgh Peppy and Krystal are facing federal charges over alleged participation in a demonstration against transphobia. Donate to help out with legal fees here. You can also write to Peppy at:
Butler County Prison c/o Brian DiPippa #42322 PO Box 9156 Seminole, FL 33775-9156
Indigenous land defender Victor is in need of support after being arrested in Atlanta during a music festival in support of the Stop Cop City movement. Victor, has now been transferred to ICE custody, and a support site has been set up for him here. Write to Victor at:
Victor Puertas 095610252 6B 215B P.O. Box 248 Lumpkin, GA 31815
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts! While you’re at us, give us a good review and rating!
Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Wednesdays at 11 AM PST. 94.1 FM in Marin County, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, 88.1 FM in Fresno, 97.5 FM in Santa Cruz, 94.3 FM in Monterey, at 5pm on 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, and Saturday, 7pm on 96.9 FM in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
Finally, we discuss the unfolding ecological situation and its implications in the ongoing fight against repression and Cop City in Atlanta, Georgia. All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news!
Living and Fighting
Y'all, if you weren't already convinced of the effectiveness of direct action yet, then check it out straight from the horse's mouth!
Protesters in NYC marched from Union Square to Delancey-Essex today in solidarity with Atlanta's #StopCopCity movement & to demand freedom for the #CopCity protesters & justice for Tortuguita. NYPD cops on foot, on scooters, & in NYPD vehicles surveilled & repressed the march. pic.twitter.com/APyDlX6n8D
In other big news, the District Attorney of Dekalb County has “announced that after a formal review of the evidence, her office is withdrawing from the prosecution of 42 cases against individuals opposed to the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center” which includes “[t]he 42 cases including [the] 29 counts of domestic terrorism charges stemming from arrests in December 2022 and March of this year.” Also, Atlas Technical Consultants has officially severed their ties with the Cop City project after officials told protesters in Minnesota during a recent home demonstration that they were pulling out of the project due to Stop Cop City activists being “fucking nightmares.”
Last Saturday, multiple Peet’s workers took a stand at our first rally to share our personal experiences of mistreatment in the workplace and why we are united in this fight for safety, livable wages, accessible benefits & more. PLU is proud to make space for stories like these. pic.twitter.com/9uD6z4e3vW
— Peet’s Labor Union (@peetslaborunion) June 25, 2023
Members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) continue to organize in the bay area. Recently, the anti-capitalist labor union has started a new campaign of union drives at Peet’s coffee locations in Oakland and Berkeley while also organizing pickets and rallies. Follow them on social media here.
Protests broke out during a panel discussion featuring US Senator Joe Manchin over his involvement in fast-tracking the Mountain Valley pipeline project.pic.twitter.com/BsfkXoJ0fb
Resistance to the Mountain Valley Pipeline remains ongoing as the project continues to face legal challenges in the courts and may soon even head to the supreme court. Protests again picked up after Senator Joe Manchin attempted to ram the project through the courts, but recent lawsuits have been ongoing. A communique posted to Scenes from the Atlanta Forest also claimed credit for sabotage actions against various worksites involved in the pipeline’s construction. The communique read:
On the fourth of july, 20 machines across 6 sites of the construction of the mountain valley pipeline were sabotaged, using a variety of means to render them inoperable. Machines are often left unguarded, and when they’re not, the security are just prats. It was easy and fun. We gave a big cheer when these machines were seen being hauled off the mountains back to the industrial hellscapes they come from.
I have loved these mountains my whole life, and truly am a part of the forests. Mountain Valley Pipeline has been fought ferociously by locals every step of the last 5 years, but we need help. People have locked themselves to equipment and had their bodies maimed by police. People have precariously lived in treetops for years (literally, 2 and a half years at yellow finch). But MVP, supported by Joe Manchin and the full power of the US government does not care about the trees, the deer, the woodducks, the candy darters, or any one of us. Lockdowns and treesits are not enough anymore. I am inviting the full power and creativity of the movement to do whatever it takes to stop these fuckers from killing us all. Doom to the pipeline!
The “largest private landlord in the City of Milwaukee, and his company Berrada Property Management (BPM), brought a defamation case against the Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union” recently, over statements made in the local media and online. Help out the Milwaukee Autonomous Tenants Union by going here.
Strikes in Hollywood by writers and actors continue as another strike by UPS workers also looms. This week, union UPS workers held “warm-up” rallies demanding improvements to working conditions in the face of a massive heat-wave.
In so-called Michigan, a week of action is kicking off to fight against “National Guard expansion…defend the forest and decolonize the land…” Follow Stop Camp Grayling on Instagram to stay up on the movement and see how you can help.
Upcoming Events
July 25th: International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners. 6 PM, gather Irving Park. 7: 25 PM, leave for community bike ride. Portland, OR. More info here.
August 11th – 13th: Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair. Asheville, NC. More info here.
August 12th: Los Angeles Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
August 17th – 20th: Midwest Dual Power Gathering. Chicago, IL. More info here.
August 26th – 27th: Seattle Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 2nd: Halifax Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 8th – 11th: Bash Back! convergence. Chicago, IL. More info here.
September 11th: Running Down the Walls, Philadelphia, PA. More info here.
September 30th: Hamilton Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
October 1st: Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. Oakland, CA. More info here.
October 21st: Pushing Down the Walls, benefit for political prisoners. Los Angeles, CA. More info here.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts! While you’re at us, give us a good review and rating!
Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Wednesdays at 11 AM PST. 94.1 FM in Marin County, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, 88.1 FM in Fresno, 97.5 FM in Santa Cruz, 94.3 FM in Monterey, at 5pm on 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, and Saturday, 7pm on 96.9 FM in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
On today’s episode, we start off with a discussion on recent protests in New York City, following the vigilante murder of Jordan Neely on a subway train last month. We talk about how the murder of Neely comes amidst growing calls to attack poor and houseless people, especially from Democratic leaders of large cities, like Eric Adams in New York. We then offer up an anarchist analysis of the unfolding electoral terrain as more Republicans enter into the 2024 race and Democrats embrace a right-ward shift around immigration and “crime.”
All this and more, but first, let’s get to the news!
— Defend the Atlanta Forest (@defendATLforest) April 20, 2023
In the wake of the raid, on June 5th, over a thousand people rallied at Atlanta city hall, calling for the city council to vote against funding the project. As this episode was being recorded, over 100 people had already spoken out against the project, many calling on the public to continue to resist regardless of how the council votes, as protesters rallied outside with banners and food, chanting, “If you build it, we will burn it.”
Only ~50 of the 357 people signed up for public comment have spoken so far w/ the promise that more can sign up at the end of that 357.
We are prepared to stay all night & be here tomorrow.
— Defend the Atlanta Forest (@defendATLforest) June 5, 2023
Our first audio presentation includes a selection of several public statements from speakers opposed to the project, including a statement from those targeted in the recent raid against the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. At the time of this recording, it remains unclear as to what will happen with regards to the vote around Cop City or how long the comments against it will continue (activists are currently calling on people to stay overnight), but be sure to check back on IGD for more updates.
Upcoming Events
June 8th: June 11th letter-writing to anarchist prisoners. Charlottesville, VA. More info here.
June 9th: Puget Sound Prisoner Support Benefit Show and Radical Zine Fair, Bremerton, WA. More info here.
June 11th: Portland, OR. June 11th letter-writing to anarchist prisoners. Wilshire Park, 3 PM. More info here.
June 11th: Eugene, OR. June 11th letter-writing to anarchist prisoners. Monroe Park, 5 PM. More info here.
June 11th: Houston, TX. June 11th day of solidarity with long-term anarchsit prisoners. More info here.
June 11th: Cincinnati, OH. June 11th day of solidarity long-term anarchist prisoners. 4573 Hamilton Ave. More info here.
June 11th: Minneapolis, MN. Film-screening and letter writing. More info here.
June 11th: New Orleans, LA. Film-screening and letter writing. More info here.
June 11th: Philadelphia, PA. Bike ride and letter-writing. More info here.
June 11th: Queens, NYC. June 11th day of solidarity with long-term anarchist prisoners. 1 PM, 585 Woodward Ave. More info here.
June 24th – 25th: Autonomous Tenant Union Network West Coast Regional Meetup. More info here.
July 1st – 9th: Earth First! Gathering. Location TBA. More info here.
July 18th: Book Launch: Anarchist Popular Power – Dissident Labor and Armed Struggle in Uruguay 1956-76. Oakland, CA. More info here.
August 11th – 13th: Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair. Asheville, NC. More info here.
August 12th: Los Angeles Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
August 26th – 27th: Seattle Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
September 8th – 11th: Bash Back! convergence. Chicago, IL. More info here.
October 21st: Pushing Down the Walls, benefit for political prisoners. Los Angeles, CA. More info here.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts! While you’re at us, give us a good review and rating!
Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Wednesdays at 11 AM PST. 94.1 FM in Marin County, Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, 88.1 FM in Fresno, 97.5 FM in Santa Cruz, 94.3 FM in Monterey, at 5pm on 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, and Saturday, 7pm on 96.9 FM in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
“States of Incarceration”: Abolition, Revolt, and Organization
May 22, 2023
In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we present a recording from a recent speaking tour of the Pacific Northwest featuring authors Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti, who discuss their new book, States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform, and America’s Punishment System. From the book’s description:
Inspired by the George Floyd Rebellion, States of Incarceration examines the ongoing reconfiguration of mass incarceration as crucial for understanding how race, class, and punishment shape America today. The rise of mass incarceration has coincided with massive disinvestment in working-class communities, particularly communities of color, and a commitment to criminalize poverty, addiction, and interpersonal violence. As Jarrod Shanahan and Zhandarka Kurti argue, the present is a moment of transition and potential reform of incarceration and, by extension, the American justice system. States of Incarceration provides insights into the rise of mass incarceration and its recent history while focusing on the needs of campaigners struggling with the issues of police and prison abolition, as well as the challenges that lie ahead. It is essential reading for anyone concerned with these questions.
During the discussion, Kurti and Shanahan talk about cycles of revolt and struggle and the questions that they pose: what forms or organization should rebels push to create? Should we struggle for reforms? How do we continue the spirit of revolt after the tear-gas fades? Hopefully this discussion will begin to address these questions and beyond.
Indigenous Resistance in Mexico, Border Militarization, and the End of Title 42
May 13, 2023
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we look at the Mexican state’s targeting of Indigenous resistance movements and communities, specifically the cases of Yaqui political prisoner Fidencio Aldama and politically persecuted Mazatec anarchist Miguel Peralta, and how this relates to the militarization of borders across so-called North America.
Militarization is being seen as a filter to prevent migration coming from the south and headed north toward the United States. AMLO has touted the project as a means to “develop” southern Mexico, or to put it correctly, to exploit the resources of the region and take advantage of the dispossessed populations as cheap labor. This cheap labor includes the extensive migrant population that travels through the Isthmus of Tehuantepec headed north.
Indigenous communities across southern Mexico represent an organized threat to the Mexican state and its various proposed mega-projects. As Avispa Media reported:
It is important to highlight the role of the Armed Forces who, under the pretext of executing the works, have extended their presence in the indigenous territories. At the same time as militarization is advancing, the communities charge that organized crime is also making inroads and, with it, violence through executions, disappearances and other crimes within the native populations.
This clamp-down is also happening at a time when the US is pushing for the militarization of borders across North America through troops on the ground and an expanding network of high-tech surveillance and migrant prisons. As discussed in this episode, with the ending of Title 42, which banned refugees and asylum seekers from entering the US under the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic, the US is now pushing to expand border militarization under so-called Title 8, which will increase the policing of migrants across the Americas, subject them to criminal charges for crossing, and utilized US troops and other aggressive tactics to stop people from entering the US. According to one report:
Under the terms of Title 42 emergency public health rules, which were implemented by the Trump administration at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, 2.4 million migrants seeking to enter the US, many of them asylum seekers, were deported back to their country of origin or to Mexico in violation of their fundamental immigration rights.
Over the past 28 months, the Biden administration has stepped up the expulsions and used Title 42 aggressively, while claiming to be opposed to its repressive rules. Now Biden is replacing the expiring procedure with a no less draconian regime of migrant apprehension and removal.
All those removed under Title 8 will be banned from entering the US for five years, and if they attempt to enter before then, will be subject to criminal prosecution.
As echoed throughout this podcast discussion, the need for autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movements to build up networks and relationships of solidarity and mutual aid is needed now more than ever, in the face of increasing fascist violence, state repression, and border militarization.
Facebook: Libres Ya Email: yalibreselox@riseup.net Twitter: @ya_libres_elox
This Is America #186: May Day; Fight Against Cop City Continues; Cleveland Anarchist Killed in Ukraine
May 04, 2023
Welcome, to This Is America, May 3rd, 2023.
On today’s episode, first we speak with longtime antifascist organizer, Daryle Lamont Jenkins of One People’s Project about Trump’s recent indictment in New York and an analysis of continued far-Right attacks on drag and LGBTQ+ events.
Students at Georgia Tech remember Scout Schultz, killed by GTPD Officer Tyler Beck, and Tortuguita, executed on Jan 18 by unnamed GSP officers. pic.twitter.com/fW4YBjVfGc
— Defend the Atlanta Forest/Stop Cop City (@defendATLforest) April 25, 2023
During the, “Week of Action,” a bulldozer-like machine with a subsequent drilling apparatus was completely decommissioned before it could continue to destroy more of the Weelaunee forest on the South Black Hall plot. The proposed huge-ass sound-stage adjacent to proposed Cop City will also never be built! We are advocates of actions that actually STOP WORK, & work gets STOPPED by directly confronting WORK, our enemies, & earth destroying machines. Let it be remembered that though other gatherings & gardens are also good, these types of activities are only made possible by actions that DISABLE OUR ENEMIES from being able to work & gain territory.
On the night of Wednesday, April 5, we set fire to three excavators owned by Brent Scarbrough Company on a site across from the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta. Brent Scarbrough is the company and individual responsible for clear-cutting the Weelaunee Forest.
We are not done here. Tortuguita lives. Weelaunee lives. Cop City will never be built.
In other news, as Natasha Lennard reported in the Intercept:
Three activists involved in the Defend Atlanta Forest movement are facing charges of felony intimidation of an officer of the state and misdemeanor stalking for placing flyers on mailboxes in a neighborhood in Bartow County, Georgia, about 40 miles from Atlanta. The detainees were held for days in solitary confinement, a lawyer working on the case and a relative of one of the activists told The Intercept.
The flyer, according to the lawyer, named a police officer who lives in the area where the activists were arrested and alleged he was connected to the killing in January of forest defender Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán during a multi-agency raid on the Atlanta Forest protest encampment.
According to their lawyer, Lyra Foster, the activists drove once through the neighborhood and placed flyers on numerous mailboxes without exiting their vehicle or approaching any residents.
If found guilty, they could each face up to 20 years in prison.
“They were not handing out flyers, they were actually extremely careful in trying to avoid doing anything illegal,” Foster told The Intercept. “They posted the flyers on mailboxes, they did not even get out of the van to put flyers on the doors, and did not open the mailboxes because they thought that was potentially illegal.”
In Bowling Green, Ohio and Iowa City, Iowa, anti-abortion clinics were vandalized with pro-choice graffiti.
Looks like last night, for the third time, “crisis pregnancy center” Informed Choices in Iowa City got a redecoration. pic.twitter.com/MppJc7RJWJ
In other news, a 26 year old anarchist from Cleveland, Ohio, Cooper “Harris” Andrews, was recently killed in the Ukraine while fighting against Russian invasion forces. According to a post from the Rhizome House, an anarchist social center in Cleveland:
Cooper was a dear friend to many of us at the RZH and he was a comrade to all of us. Cooper helped to found our project. When it was only a vague idea he saw its need and potential clearly. When we were fickle and on the verge of quitting, he kept us on the hook. When he was busy training and becoming the soldier we are honoring, he set aside funds that would go on to pay the costs of opening our brick and mortar location. The anarchist movement in Cleveland would be nothing without him, and his absence is painful. He is our hero, and his memory is an example of courage, self-sacrifice, and the principles of autonomy, solidarity and internationalism. We love you Cooper.
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Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Wednesdays at 11 AM PST. 94.1 FM in Marin County, Berkeley, Oakland, San and Francisco, 88.1 FM in Fresno, 97.5 FM in Santa Cruz, 94.3 FM in Monterey, at 5pm on 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, and Saturday, 7pm on 96.9 FM in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
El Comedor is currently one of the only places, if not the only place, serving hot meals everyday in Tijuana. Though “the caravan” is out of the news, thousands still pass through Tijuana on their way north hoping to escape violence.
During our discussion, we speak about autonomous, mutual aid, and anarchist projects in Tijuana, Mexico as well as the rapidly militarizing borderlands. Under Biden, the US, and by extension, the Mexican and Canadian borders have continued to crack-down on refugees. In late March, the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) was passed. As Canadian Tire Fire wrote:
[The new agreement] forces migrants to claim asylum in the “first safe country” they reach, [and] until recently applied only to legal border crossings. Until Saturday, migrants could cross into Canada from the US, and vice versa, at irregular points along the border and, if they made it, claim asylum once they arrived without being immediately turned away under the agreement.
The Biden administration has also continued to pressure the Mexican state to act as a police force for Central and South American migrants. Under Title 42, a rule which was originally put into place by Trump advisor Steven Miller, the white nationalist and former friend of Richard Spencer, the United States has barred asylum seekers from entering into the US under the ironic pretense that it will contribute to the spread of COVID-19. While Title 42 is set to expire in a month, Biden’s new plan is now to:
[N]ot [allow refugees] to enter the US to apply for asylum, regardless of the fact that such a right is guaranteed under international law, on the grounds that they should apply for asylum in Mexico instead.
[President] AMLO has deployed the Mexican military to serve as an auxiliary of the US border police, arresting and often brutalizing Central and South American immigrants passing through his country on the way to the United States.
This brutality was recently thrust into the spotlight by the deadly fire in Ciudad Juarez, after guards refused to release detained migrants when a blaze ripped through the facility, killing forty and injuring over twenty. And while hundreds of migrant children remain separated from their families, according to the New York Times, “The Biden administration is considering reviving the practice of detaining migrant families who cross the border illegally — the same policy the president shut down over the past two years because he wanted a more humane immigration system…”
As neoliberalism, US foreign policy, and climate change continues to force millions from their homes in an attempt to cross into the US and Canada, autonomous spaces like El Comedor will be needed more than ever.
This Is America #185: Bash Back Returns; Why Elites Like Trump Don’t Go to Jail
Apr 11, 2023
Welcome, to This Is America, April 10th, 2023.
On this episode, first we speak with someone involved in the upcoming Bash Back! convergence in Chicago, Illinois. We speak about the history of the group and why it is reforming after over 10 years on hiatus and then switch to our discussion, where we tackle why elites like Trump don’t go to jail and what that says about the “justice system” and abolition.
Upcoming Events
April 13th: Resisting Repression: Security, Harm Reduction, and the Threats We Face. Webinar, 8:30 – 10 PM, EST. More info here.
April 22nd: Montreal Book Launch for “We Go Where They Go.” More info here.
April 28th – 30th: Call for Weekend of Distroing. More info here.
May 25th – 27th: Healthcare Autonomy Conference. Durham, NC. More info here.
May 27th and 28th: Montreal Anarchist Bookfair. More info here.
June 9th: Puget Sound Prisoner Support Benefit Show and Radical Zine Fair, Bremerton, WA. More info here.
July 1st – 9th: Earth First! Gathering. Location TBA. More info here.
August 11th – 13th: Another Carolina Anarchist Bookfair. Asheville, NC. More info here.
September 8th – 11th: Bash Back! convergence. Chicago, IL. More info here.
October 21st: Pushing Down the Walls, benefit for political prisoners. Los Angeles, CA. More info here.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts!
Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Wednesdays at 11 AM PST. 94.1 FM in Marin County, Berkeley, Oakland, San and Francisco, 88.1 FM in Fresno, 97.5 FM in Santa Cruz, 94.3 FM in Monterey, at 5pm on 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, and Saturday, 7pm on 96.9 FM in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
A new podcast out today called “Alphabet Boys” documents how the FBI disrupted racial justice organizing after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, including paying an informant at least $20,000 to infiltrate and spy on activist groups in Denver, Colorado. The informant also encouraged activists to purchase guns and commit violence, echoing the FBI’s use of the COINTELPRO program to sabotage left-wing activist groups in the 1960s.
But as our guest explains, the FBI’s use of informants during the George Floyd protests was only the latest example of government agencies engaging in surveillance, infiltration, and repression of grassroots left-wing movements in the Denver area. This includes surveillance of groups like the American Indian Movement (AIM), infiltration of socialist organizations and community spaces, and the placement of informants even within tenant union organizations.
Repression is a constant mode of activity for the state and the US has engaged in a campaign of counter-insurgency against movements from bellow and communities which threaten the established order since its conception. As A Murder of Crows wrote:
Because of democratic baggage, repression is often understood as simply an anomalous and outrageous violation of rights. What people fail to comprehend is that repression is part of the standard operating procedure of any class society. There are those that rule and those who are ruled, and to maintain this divide, a combination of coercion and accommodation is necessary. To preserve the social structure of our society then, it is necessary to recuperate parts of social movements, and to repress the other parts. Essentially, repression is a strategy for maintaining power by capitalist ruling classes within nation-states. Thus, since it is a long-term strategy, it is always in motion and not some occasional occurrence.
As shown by FBI infiltration of anarchist demonstrations and events and local police infiltration of protest groups, it is easy to see that they were not investigating crimes that had taken place, but rather they were investigating possibilities of concrete resistance, which by necessity, generally break the law. This shows that there are plenty of examples, and certainly many that we may never know about, which demonstrate that repression already exists and is underway. It is not intermittent, and does not always respond to particular violations of the law; it is a long-term strategy of the state to destroy opposition. This strategy, however, has wider implications beyond the bounds of the radical milieu and affects the exploited as a whole.
During our discussion we also talk about attempts by Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists to call out under-covers, how informants attempted to push back on their outing by attacking those exposing them, and the relationship between authoritarian politics and state actors.
Mickey is involved in a direct action at the Denver Police Academy that the police appeared to know about before hand. 8 people are arrested.
September 2nd, 2020
Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists issues a statement urging caution around Mickey Windecker as red flags around him grow.
September 3nd, 2020
Mickey Windecker makes a video in-front of a PKK flag and an ar-15 calling Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists cops and fascists.
September 7th, 2020
Mickey Windecker sends a threatening message to Lloyd Porsche who he falsely believes to be involved with Colorado Springs Anti-Fascists, saying something big is going to happen that might make the news to the anti-fascist group.
September 10th, 2020
Lloyd Porsche’s home is violently raided by Denver Police. The home’s windows were shot out with rubber bullets with a two-year old baby inside. While being interrogated, Lloyd Porsche rats on another radical who is subsequently arrested.
This Is America #184: Eric King Prepares for Release; Interview with Directors of “Elements of Mutual Aid”
Mar 24, 2023
Welcome, to This Is America, March 24th, 2023.
On this episode, we speak with two members of the support crew for anarchist political prisoner, Eric King, who talk about a current fundraiser to help Eric get back on his feet as his release at the end of the year nears. We discuss how Eric has been standing strong following his successful trial and how people can support him as he prepares for life after prison. To donate to Eric King’s post-release fundraiser, go here.
We then speak with the two directors behind, The Elements of Mutual Aid, a “independently produced documentary series profiling a dozen mutual aid-based projects across North America.” According to the project’s website:
This series gathers the voices of community organizers who are tending grassroots alternatives to systems of oppression. In intimate interviews, we discuss the nuanced work of building trust between neighbors, making decisions horizontally, protecting our communities, sharing the responsibility of communal infrastructure, and more.
Currently in production, co-directors Payton McDonald and Leah Ayer will finish filming this summer. Post-production is scheduled for Aug 2023 – Aug 2024 and release is planned for late 2024. A screening tour back through many of the communities featured in the film will follow release.
We then switch to our discussion, where we tackle Biden’s calls to ban Tiktok and also a recent push by politicians for a loosening of laws around child labor.
It’s Going Down
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Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts!
Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Fridays at 12 PM PST (Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno, and Santa Cruz). On Saturday, 7pm, at 96.9 in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
During our discussion, we talk about new revelations surrounding the police murder of forest defender Tortuguita on January 18th, as a new independent autopsy has revealed:
The autopsy conducted of Tortuguita at the request of their family by Dr. Kris Sperry has found that when Tortuguita was shot and killed, their hands were raised in the air. According to the family’s lawyers, “The autopsy further reveals that Manuel was most probably in a seated position, cross-legged when killed.”
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation says they have conducted their own autopsy, however they have yet to reveal the report.
The March 5 mass arrest touched off an unparalleled wave of police repression throughout the following week in downtown Atlanta and Southeast DeKalb County, where the park and proposed Cop City site are located. Police deliberately targeted First Amendment-protected activity by activists, legal observers and journalists — including me.
On March 10, I followed and documented a group of about a dozen activists in downtown Atlanta as they demonstrated at local offices of organizations connected to Cop City or officials empowered to stop the project. The group, led by veteran direct action organizer Lisa Fithian, visited and attempted to get meetings at the offices of Atlanta Beltline, on whose board sits Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens; BoardWalk Consulting, which advises the Atlanta Police Foundation; and the Atlanta Hawks, whose owner, Tony Ressler, donated at least $1 million to the APF.
An extremely disproportionate police presence stalked the traveling protest at each of the stops, with at least two full vans of police and constantly circling APD vehicles hounding the group’s every move. The group then headed to the Peachtree Center, which houses the Atlanta Regional Center where Mvskoke leaders attempted to deliver an eviction notice to Mayor Dickens on March 8. At least five APD officers followed the group into the center. At that point, the group decided to disperse.
Our experience was just a small taste of the heavy-handed repression against First Amendment-protected activity throughout last week. On March 11, police raided the 10-acre property of the Lakewood Environmental Arts Foundation (LEAF), a nonprofit community food-distribution center based out of the owner’s house. The LEAF property had been serving as a welcome center and medic hub during the week of action, and the organization’s property was used as a secondary encampment site for activists who obtained permission.
APD and Homeland Security officers entered the property with AR-15s and detained at least 22 people. They reportedly refused to provide an arrest warrant, saying it was offsite. One person was arrested for an outstanding parking ticket, demonstrating the state’s desperation to snatch up anyone associated with the “Stop Cop City” movement. Officers ruthlessly ransacked infrastructure at the LEAF encampment site, disrupting medic operations.
Earlier in the week, another small group of about 15 people gathered downtown to hand out flyers explaining their opposition to the proposed police training center. Police responded with more than 50 officers and a SWAT team.
We then switch to our discussion, where we look at the recent crash of Silicon Valley Bank, what it means for working-class people, and how Norfolk Southern trains keep derailing across the US.
It’s Going Down
If you value IGD as a revolutionary autonomous media resource in times of crisis, please help us grow the platform!
Subscribe to our podcast, either by following our RSS feed or following IGD wherever you get your podcasts!
Listen to us on the radio! We’re on Pacifica radio stations on Fridays at 12 PM PST (Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Fresno, and Santa Cruz). On Saturday, 7pm, at 96.9 in Seattle. If you have a Pacifica station or community radio station in your area, encourage them to stream our show!
Dungeons and Dugin: How an Alliance of Authoritarians Hopes to Destroy a Politics of Solidarity
Mar 14, 2023
This February, anarchists, antifascists, and people across the Left raised the alarm about the “Rage Against the War Machine” rally, which was organized by the far-Right Mises Caucus of the Libertarian Party and brought together far-Right grifters with pseudo-populist blowhards, influencers, and washed up politicians. Neo-Nazis like Matthew Heimbach, who has long attempted to brand himself as a “socialist,” was also in attendance, and later took part in a small event put on by the disgraced Center for Political Innovation (CPI), a pro-Putin grouping which seeks to build alliances with the far-Right against “the West.” But what brought this island of unwanted toys together in the first place?
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with Rob from The Right Podcast, and unpack the grifters and influencers pushing a “populist” alliance against “wokeness” on the tankie Left and fascist far-Right. This includes a look at Duginism, the Center of Political Innovation (CPI) and its leader, Caleb Maupin, the so-called “MAGA Communism” of grifters like Jackson Hinkle, why the Right is so spun on Putin, and much more.