Podcasts about anarchist studies

In this essay, Graham McGeoch speaks about his research of Orthodox Christian influences on Anarchism in Latin America. A fuller version of the research was published in the edited volume, Orthodoxy and Anarchism: Contemporary Perspectives (ed Davor Dzalto, Rowman & Littlefield, 2024). Dr Graham McGeoch teaches Theology & Religious Studies at Faculdade Unida de Vitoria, Brazil and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. His most recent publications include, Russian Émigré Theology and Latin American Liberation Theology (Volos, 2023), World Christianity and Ecological Theologies (eds. Raimundo Baretto, Graham McGeoch & Wanderley Pereira da Rosa, Fortress Press, 2024), Theology After Gaza (eds Mitri Raheb & Graham McGeoch, Cascade, 2025). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

En este episodio, mi invitada es Alf Bojórquez, novelista y ensayista yucateca. Su primera novela, Pepitas de calabaza (2023) salió en la editorial Fondo Blanco. Se segundo libro, No existe dique capaz de contener al océano furioso. Potencia, alegría y anarquismo, apareció hace unos meses. Fue ganadora del premio Moving Narratives (2024) de Prince Claus Fund y el British Council. Ha hecho giras en América Latina, Europa, Estados Unidos, Marruecos y Filipinas haciendo lecturas de su obra y dando talleres sobre narrativa, arte y teoría crítica. Tiene un programa de radio sobre lo mismo que se puede escuchar gratis en cualquier aplicación de podcasts: Un sueño largo, ancho y hondo. Ha colaborado con varios colectivos y organizaciones abajo y a la izquierda.Notas del Episodio* La traduccion de Joyful Militancy a Militancia Alegre* Diferencias en el radicalismo rigido entre norte y sur* Recuperando la miltancia y el contexto contemporaneo en militancia alegre* Tejiendo a la Organización Revolucionaria* La perdida de propiedad comunal en Mexico y la llegada del turismo* Las redes sociales como una arma del imperio* La imagen y la gestion, el usuario y el premio* Contraturismo como peregrinajeTarea* Pagina profesional - Instagram* Un sueño largo, ancho y hondo - Instagram* No existe dique capaz de contener al océano furioso - Volcana - Polilla - Utopicas - Traficantes de Suenos - Novedades don Gregorio (OAX)* Militancia alegre: Tejer Resistencias, florecer en tiempos toxicas* Pepitas de calabazaTranscripcion en espanol (English Below)Chris: [00:00:00] Bienvenida al podcast El Fin del Turismo, Alf. Un placer hablar contigo hoy. Alf: Ajá. Chris: Este me gustaría empezar preguntándote donde te encuentras hoy y cómo se ve el mundo a través de tus ojos? Alf: Este hoy me encuentro en mi cocina. Desde ahí trabajo yo. En la ciudad de México, en una colonia se llama Iztaccihuatl. Cómo se ve el mundo? Pues mira, yo no tengo una vista tan mala. Este no es un edificio grande, pero tengo una vista linda, no? O sea, no me tapa la vista otro edificio ni nada. Se ven muchas plantas. Y bueno, supongo que sabes que yo soy de provincia. Entonces yo siempre he sentido que aquí donde yo vivo es como una, un poquito provincia en la capital, porque no hay edificios tan grandes.Este y bueno, desde aquí se ve, se me olvida que estoy en CDMX ahora, sabes a Chris: Gracias. Pues eres entre otras cosas, autora de varios [00:01:00] textos entre ellos Pepitas de Calabaza y el muy reciente No Existe Dique Capaz de Contener al Océano Furioso. También coordinaste la traducción al español del texto en inglés de Militancia Alegre:Deje Resistencias Florecer en Tiempos T óxicos. (o Joyful Militancy) A esa traducción le siguió un podcast complementario con Pamela Carmona titulado Alegría Emergente: Deshaciendo el Radicalismo Rígido. Entonces, para empezar, me gustaría preguntarte cómo conociste, el libro Joyful Militancy y qué te llevó a traducirlo. Alf: Yo conocí ese libro. Lo cuento un poquito en el prólogo, pero yo conocí ese libro, en Estados Unidos, porque yo tenía una banda. Yo toqué en una banda de hardcore punk muchos, muchos años, la batería. Y entonces así accedí a Estados Unidos y estando [00:02:00] en el underground americano, que fue una parte importante de mi de mi de mi vida, estando en en California en concreto.Me encontré ese libro como en una cafetería y yo me enamoré. Entonces lo traje y primero lo leí en inglés con alguna gente y muy lentamente empecé a trabajar con ese libro, traducir. Eso es una historia más larga que está ahí bien en el prólogo, pero bueno, llevo años como militando ese libro. También hubieron una serie de coincidencias de gente muy amable como Tumba a la Casa, como los autores canadienses, los derechos nos los regalaron. Se metió la gente de Traficantes de Sueno.O sea, en realidad hay un montón de gente. Es como una red de redes, ese libro y una serie de casualidades y favores y gestos agradables de mucha gente que logró que eso saliera como salió, la verdad. O sea, yo pienso mi irrepetible, esa esa serie de factores. Ajá. Chris: Ah chingón. Muy bien, Bueno, pues ese libro originalmente [00:03:00] se publicaron en 2016. A leer, reeler y traducir ese texto, tengo curiosidad por saber que crees que ha cambiado de este entonces, o qué diferencias principales has visto entre el radicalismo rígido descrito en el libro de la anglosfera o America norte, Anglosajona y la hispanesfera o Latinoamérica? Alf: Este? Pues muchas cosas que decir, no. La parte que confirmé yo fui trabajando ese libro, eh? Porque digamos que yo, todavía este año presenté ese libro. O sea, y le fue muy bien en Costa Rica. Fue la última. A mí se me acabaron los ejemplares. Y digamos, terminé mi labor con con Militancia en Costa Rica hace dos, tres meses.No es tanto, no? O sea todavía después de la del programa de radio con Pamela, se hizo en Costa Rica de presentación y le fue muy bien, eh? Y se [00:04:00] reimprimió ese sí. Ese libro fue un éxito de muchas maneras, no? Y fíjate a mí. Una cosa que con por me pasaban los años, no me gustó, es que yo siento que tiene un lado como muy liberal, osea, hay un lado donde es demasiado suave, no? O sea, al criticar lo rígido, siento que se pasa de flexible, por decir así. Entonces, y eso pasa un poco como con ciertos radicalismos del norte, que tienen que ver con la retórica de la amistad de la ternura como tan enfocados en el cuidado.Y así, yo siento que sin querer como por llevarle la contraria al opuesto, como el machismo lo rígido, bla, bla, bla, caen en una cosa un poco... o sea yo siendo que ese el libro o por lo menos mi lectura de ese libro, ya estas alturas, si lo siendo demasiado suave, porque yo creo que la parte negativa de militar y de organizarse, pues es importante, no, eh?Es importante de hablar, no? Entonces, cierto que en el libro, se pasa de buena onda, por [00:05:00] decirlo asi. Creo que por eso es un éxito porque hay lado "pop" en ese libro, un lado suavecito, dulcecito, que se mastica bien. Y está bien para los activismo, pero hay una parte en mi que dice bueno, pero hay que hablar del resentimiento, hay que hablar del odio.Hay que hablar de la importancia de romper entre nosotras, de pelearnos entre nosotros, sin caer en el castigo y la culpa y la persecución. Pero yo sí, creo que la ruptura o la negatividad en general ese el libro no lo logra del todo. Habría que ir a otros lados y pienso que de un año para acá, desde que se recrudeció el genocida ahora, pues justo toca repensar el antiimperialismo, toca repensar cosas que no pueden ser tan flexibles, no? O sea, pues están matando, están cayendo bombas y no se trata de vamos a ver si nos cae el 20 o no, o cuando nos cae el 20.Pues hay un imperio gestionando un genocidio que se recrudeció muy fuerte el último año. Y eso implica, se endurece, se endurece. O sea, ha cambiado el panorama político. Y hay [00:06:00] procesos donde podemos ser muy flexibles y pacientes, pero hay procesos donde no, donde hay que responder porque la bomba te ca en la cabeza, o sea, y ya está.Entonces me recuerdo un poco como en los del paso de los 60s a los 70s, o el paso hacia los 20, no? O sea, históricamente esto ha pasado. Se acaba el hipismo y y llega la guerrilla. Se acaba el anarquismo y empieza el partido comunista. O sea, hay momentos donde la historia te come y se vuelve un poquito más pues no te voy a decir duro, pero pero sí, incluso en el norte, los anarquistas que venían de escribir ese libro como muy ticunistas se están volviendo más de izquierda, más revolucionario, más leninistas mucho. Y yo creo que eso tiene que ver, bueno, una especie el leninismo, pues moderno o buena onda.El tipo zapatismo en versión anglo, pero yo creo que eso tiene que ver con las condiciones actuales. Yo creo que antes de la pandemia, después de la pandemia, son dos planetas, tanto por el reconocimiento de genocidia, como porque lo que se [00:07:00] hizo toda la década que para mí acaba en pandemia. Pues tenía un lado muy chido, pero también a un lado muy de todo es válido.La insurrección ya está aquí. Y pues ahora decimos no, pues no está aquí. No estamos parando a Estados Unidos este el imperio, no lo estamos parando. En otros momentos de la historia, si se la podido o poner ciertos límites al imperialismo." No del todo, pero se han ganado algunas luchas.Entonces, bueno, ese libro creo que fue de su época. O sea, 2016 y ese anarquismo de la amistad y de hay que conectar y fluir y todo ese lado que para un poco hippie. Creo que es muy de su momento, de la década pasada, pero yo creo que esa época, ya no es la nuestra, por las por las condiciones. O sea, porque estamos reaccionando y respondiendo y organizándonos frente a otros problemas.Chris: Claro, claro. Y si podrias actualizarlo en tus propios palabras, cuáles serían los temas más importantes [00:08:00] para cambiar o reemplazar? Alf: O sea, mira te voy a contar de otro libro, pero también es del norte.Entonces, pues no me encanta darle tanto entre ellos, pero un libro que, por ejemplo, le respondería fuerte de ese libro, sería este que me regalaban los de Traficantes, ahora que trabaje con ellos en en Madrid, que se llama Hacia Una Nueva Guerra Civil Mundial, de Lazzarato, no?Entonces digo, lo que pasa es que él es un leninista, no? Entonces, le pega duro, le pega duro. O sea, pero esto ha pasado siempre, pero hay varias banda que está respondiendo, no? O sea, por ejemplo, en el caso de este libro que te a acaba de mencionar Lazzarato.Pues él dice que los últimos 50 años, incluido militancia, que estaría al final de 50 años, lo político como tal no se habló? Entonces, si le aplicas Lazzarato a Militancia Alegre, efectivamente, nunca se habla de que a ver, o sea, el gobierno estadounidense control el mundo y va ganando. O sea, y hubieron luchas en los 60s, 70s, que lograron más o menos parar [00:09:00] ese imperialismo, los liberaciones nacionales, por ejemplo.Las luchas de empezamos por Vietnam, Malher y Cuba y acabando con otras. Si más o menos se le pudo parar a ese imperialismo de ese momento? Pero por ejemplo, Militancia en ni un solo momento habla de política en un sentido duro, no? O sea anti-Trump, por ejemplo, anti-global como global north o norte y global. O sea, en el sentido que gobiernan en el mundo, no?Y eso no se habla no? O sea, en ningún momento se dice bueno, nosotras, como norte, tenemos una deuda con el sur, no solo económica, sino política, no? O sea, en cuanto a no permitir la autonomía de los sur. Y palestina y Líbano es el, pues es el caso más extremo, no? Aunque aquí es lo mismo, no? O sea, la lucha la guerra contra los zapatistas es el mismo genocidio, con la misma bala. O sea el mismo inversionista, las mismas ganancias. Es el mismo genocidio. Entonces, pero no hablar de eso, no hablar de lo meramente político, [00:10:00] no? O sea de como Morena trabaja para el gobierno gringo y mata a los zapatistas y los centroamericanos. Al no hablar de este tipo de cosas como duramente políticas.O sea, como Trump controla a la milicia mexicana, la la la. Pues sí que es un libro hippie, no? O sea, en el sentido de que, ahí los leninistas tienen un punto. En este caso, Lazzarato pero mucha otra banda, al contestarle a la banda anárquica. Si muy chida la amistad y muy chida la... Lets tune in.O sea, está bien, pero tú estás parada en un mundo que de beneficia de destruir este mundo donde tú y yo estamos parada, no? Entonces, de muchas maneras: lo real, lo simbólico en lo económico. El turismo, para mí solo es un capítulo de esa serie de industrias de muerte. Entonces no, al no hablarlo.Yo pienso que es un libro que omite el lugar de enunciación principal, que es el imperio si habla del imperio, pero yo siento que si le faltó lo político político. Osea, como el norte domina y controla [00:11:00] al sur, el gobierno del norte en concreto. Al no hablar eso pues si hizo darle un libro que pues no sé cómo va a envejecer. O sea, digo, bueno, a ver cómo le va, porque porque sí que sirve para lo que sirvió Tiqqun y esas cosas en su momento que era contestarle a la izquierda vertical, por decir así. Pero ese momento, por lo menos en el norte, ya pasó, no? Y ellos esos mismos ya regresaron a la verticalidad.O sea, los que atacaron al leninismo, estamos en esta otra. Entonces chistosasto porque ellos tienen sus propios ciclos y nosotras tenemos otros ciclos de lucha, no? Y otras genealogías y otras retóricas. O sea, es muy diferente. Ahí la traducción. Por eso milita tanto ese libro porque, había que defender nuestro propio contexto, no?Y decir bueno, es la genealogia de ellos, la nuestra tiene otras conceptos. O sea, ha ganado guerras y revoluciones. Hay muchos triunfos en nuestra historia del sur. De hecho, en la del norte hay más derrotas y en cambio, [00:12:00] las liberaciones nacionales, pues prácticamente todas triunfaron, si las piensas, contra el imperialismo. Claro que ya no está de moda hablar de eso porque de colonial ya está en otra... ya se fue a otro lado. No? La mayoría de de anticolonial ya no está viniendo su genealogía en las luchas de liberación nacional y o la violencia?Ya la violencia pasó de moda y justo este libro tiene algo de eso? Como de no hay que hablar de cómo en México tuvimos que tirar balazos para recuperarlo un poco que tenemos. No! Hay que hablar de la amistad del amor, la ternura. Esa parte es la que yo pienso que ya no le habla mucho a nuestro tiempo y a ver qué va a pasar después, a ver qué va a pasar después.No, aunque tienes utilidad, no? O sea, mucha gente que está en el activismo vive con mucho, cariño de ese libro y está bien. O sea, Creo que está bien. Yo creo que le falta la parte política y negativa, pero bueno, no lo pudimos pedir todo a un solo libro. No. Eso es lo que hicieron los europeos con nosotros, traer la biblia y [00:13:00] matarnos pretexto de un solo libro. Entonces yo creo que no hay que caer. Eso es, es colonial quererle pedir todo a un solo libro. Si ese libro dio lo que tuvo que dar en su contexto y ese contexto para mí pasó este listo. O sea, fue una herramienta útil que respondió y ya este lo que sigue. Chris: Pues sí, este recuerdo que hubo una, una nota de pie en en el libro, de Silvia Federici y la tengo.La cita aquí decía que"lo que más importa es descubrir y recreer la memoria colectiva de las luchas pasadas. En los Estados Unidos, hay un intento sistemático de destruir esta memoria. Y ahora esto se está extendiendo por todo el mundo. Revivir la memoria de las luchas del pasado nos hace sentir ser parte de algo más grande que nuestras vidas individuales y de esta manera de un nuevo sentido a lo que estamos haciendo y nos da coraje, porque nos hace tener menos miedo en lo que [00:14:00] nos puede pasar individualmente." Y siento que hay algo allá como también la, no sé si está impulsado desde arriba o si es solo una falta de memoria, pero sí, siento que es, es muy fuerte que hay una falta de linaje, en la política en el día de hoy, en los momentos sociales contemporáneos. Pero pues, quería preguntarte un poco de tus experiencias también con el turismo. Me gustaría preguntarle de qué tipo de reacciones recibiste, recibieron cómo resultado del podcast y si esas conversaciones cambiaron sus ideas sobre los temas tratados.Alf: Este una parte había que preguntárselo directo a Pame porque yo creo que ella lo vivió a su forma también. Pero bueno, pues fue muy chido. Primero que nada, lo lo bonito. Ese programa varias cosas. Primero, ese programa fue apoyado por el instituto de estudios anarquistas americano, y eso [00:15:00] fue lindo, tener el apoyo. O sea, no precarizarnos tanto. Y tampoco tener que pedirle dinero a gente de mierda para hacer co chidas no, eso siempre se siente bien. Como no traicionar el contenido, o sea que vaya mucho la forma con el fondo, no. Entonces, de entrada, eso fue muy alegre. De segunda gran alegría, yo siempre trabajo a puerta cerrada.Yo soy un poco celosa de mi trabajo. Entonces, pues a abrir la puerta y trabajar con no solo dos, vieron un podcast que éramos cuatro, cinco. Eso es rarísimo. Yo nunca había hecho eso. Yo no suelo hacer eso. Si, trabajo con gente, pero no con el micrófono, normalmente no, eh?Siempre trabaj o con grupos y movimientos y cosas, pero digamos que a puerta cerrada por decir así o o coyunturas específicas. Entonces, primero la congruencia que yo siento que tuvo ese programa, como alinearnos en un anarquismo internacionalista, que yo creo que hay que recuperar.El internacionalismo en general, eh? Y creo que a [00:16:00] veces la lucha contra el turismo sin querer se vuelve muy nacionalista y no distingue entre migrante y turista esas cosas, como en un México, es mejor que todo lo demás. Un poco raro, pero bueno, antes de perderme, yo creo que ahí hubo un gesto internacionalista lindo.O sea, entre anarquistas del norte con los del sur primero y segundo, pues, abrir el micro porque que yo no es algo que suelo o solía hacer hasta hace hasta este año, por decir, o sea, yo llevo en un monólogo de locutora varios años porque mi parte social la hago cuerpo a cuerpo, por decir así. Y ya te podría platicar muchas cosas.Pero a mí me emociono muchísimo el programa con Tejiendo a la Organización Revolucionaria, eh? La verdad me encantó. O sea, a mí ellos me parece que hacen un trabajo importante. Y me parece que nuestro tiempo se está pensando desde los revolucionarios también. No necesariamente como la decada pasada la insurreccional y el todo se vale.Este, yo creo que está [00:17:00] cambiando un poco esos enfoques y justo ellos que llevan más de 20 años y son como 50 personas organizadas desde abajo con mucha claridad y mucha fuerza. Pues hicimos un puente muy chido, no entre en anarquismo y otras partes de la izquierda radical, que normalmente no nos damos la mano y no platica.O sea, no es común ni es fácil. Y cuando se da, suele ser tenso. Y no hubo para mí nada de tensión, al revés. Hubo una complementación muy chida contorno. Es el último capítulo de Emergente. Bueno, o sea, y siento que conecta con Militancia Alegre. O sea, llamarla en militancia y no "activismo alegre" era una provocación de los autores.Y yo creo que movimiento es como ?, entre muchos otros que se mencionan justos son militantes, no activistas, no? O sea que el activista tiene genealogía muy del norte y muy de los noventas para acá. Y yo creo que ellos como que leídos por "los cool" que Militancia Alegre sigue siendo el libro más cool, como que no suelen voltear, la gente cool, no suele voltear a ver a ese tipo de militancias como Thor. [00:18:00] Todos estuvieron muy chidos, pero yo le tengo especial cariño, a ese último, porque sí, pienso que hay que pensar alianzas insólitas, como todas las izquierdas radicales, tratar de articular. Y para mí, eso lo más cercano fue contorno. Y yo lo sigo reescuchando. Y hay cosas que me dejar pensando, por ejemplo, lo que dicen de los sectores de la clase trabajadora, que hay un sector indígena, entonces se pelean entre ellos y como son sectorizados, en fin a mí, hay varias cosas que ellos me hacen pensar. Me hacen pensar mucho. Y su chamba es muy chida. Solo que, como no es la más cool y como nice. No tiene este super diseño ni nada. Pues mucha gente no les presta atención. Entonces yo, para mí, fue importante darles el micro a ellos y más bien me faltaron programas con ellos, la verdad.Entonces, para mí, eso fue muy lindo, con el pretexto del libro, porque la verdad, casi ni hablamos o muy poquito. Ya haber podido entrevistar, por ejemplo, a Raquel Gutiérrez. De poder pues yo hubiera [00:19:00] entrevistado a John Holloway. O sea, yo me hubiera seguido. Lo que pasa es que la chamba entrevistadora es muy distinta a la que yo hago como locutora, o sea, es otro camino. Y pues, el recurso. Pues no lo hay. Claro. Claro. Porque esa lo pudimos hasta pagar un poquitito de dinero a la gente que entrevistamos. Pudimos autocobrar un poquitito. Pagarle a la diseñadora. Fue muy distinto a todo lo que yo hago. No este ese ese programa.Insisto por el apoyo internacionalista que poco o mucho, pues fue muy lindo tener, porque normalmente no se puede pagar entrevistas y cosas, que es chistoso tanto tanto de lucha de clases, con compas que pu pues obviamente les cuesta venir para acá. Chris: Ya no, pues es muy difícil, pero sí, fue un episodio muy bonito. Y lo voy a poner en el sitio web d El Fin de Turismo cuando lanzamos este podcast y también por los que quieren saber, es el último episodio de Alegría Emergente. Pues, hablando de tus obras Alf [00:20:00] en Pepitas de Calabaza, exploras algunos temas periférico de turismo, desde la Merida en la que creciste, los chiqui loteros o aquellos que dividen grandes lotes en lotes pequeños para venderlos a un precio normalmente superior, a veces a extranjeros. Es uno de esos temas.Cómo influyó tu tiempo en Merida en tu comprensión del turismo? Alf: Primero, extender un poco la la invitación a la lectura de mi trabajo. Este el tema de la propiedad y del turismo y del colonialismo, básicamente atraviesa toda toda mi obra, pero medida en concreto que que te interesa con Pepitas también es algo que menciono en el libro nuevo.Él No Existe Dique Capaz de Contar y hablo específicamente de cómo el turismo, la industria del turismo ha ido como arrebatándonos a quienes venimos de las clases populares. Crecimos abajo y demás, sobre todo el placer, el ocio. Olvídate de la [00:21:00] tierra. Si el acceso al agua, una serie de cosas, no.Entonces ahí se trabaja un poco más elabor adamente pero efectivamente desde Pepitas. Pues a mí, es un tema que me, central en mi trabajo. El tema del colonialismo, porque para mí, hablar de turismo se hablar de colonialismo actual, colonialismo interno externo, pero es el colorismo vigente. O sea, es un desplazamiento, parte de un proceso de desplazamiento em.Entonces, en Pepitas, pues efectivamente eso es un protagonista, que digamos es el burgués nacional, por decirlo como muy teóricamente el chiquilotero, le decimos regionalmente, que es el es el terrateniente. No es Carlos Slim. O sea, no es el más rico, el lo rico, pero es, digamos, el terrateniente de mediano alcance que puede comprar tierra y fragmentarla y venderla, especular con la tierra, al final. Pero en el sur resiste, el año pasado, para para subir el tono a lo político otra vez... El el año pasado en el sur [00:22:00] resiste, nos decía el Congreso Nacional Indígena, que la mitad de la tierra en México es propiedad social, no? Y esto lo platicaba presentando no Existe Dique con Yasnaya Aguilar porque Oaxaca es un caso distinto y da mucha envidia.Tiene una tercera forma de tierra que en la tierra comunal, pero no vamos entrar a las legalidades. El sureste de México, como representa a Paco y hablo en mi segundo libro también este de ah, el turismo ha entrado porque legalmente, desde el 92 se cambió la constitución y se ha roto la propiedad ejidal y ha entrado la propiedad privada, no?Entonces, para llevarlo lo meramente político, luchar en contra del turismo hoy en México sería exigir que no se pueda vender, como en Oaxaca existe la propiedad comunal, no en ninguna otra parte del país hasta donde yo sé, que no se pueda legalmente vender esa tierra. Entonces, para no abstraer, o sea para ir a concreto, el turismo avanza, por el primermundista, coludido con [00:23:00] con con el tercermundista de la clase alta, en este caso, Paco, para romper la la propiedad social y meter la propiedad individual o privada, no? Si hubiera un mecanismo que la revolución mexicana nos heredó, ese mecanismo legal no podría existir el turismo en México, por lo menos no legalmente. Entonces, como desde el 92, se terminó de caer lo que nos quedaba de revolucion mexicana y que se peleó a balazos. Hay que recuperar esa negativa. En el 92 se cambia, es perdemos eso que habíamos ganado la revolución. Y entonces el turismo ya explotan. Y eso es muy notorio para gente que somos del sur.O sea, si yo te cuento cómo fui a Tulum por primera vez, y cuando volví a Tulum 10 o 20 anos después, o cómo fui a Zipolite por primera vez. Y eso es el resultado. O sea, te puedo escribir 30 libros, pero todo eso es result resultado específicamente una partecita de la constitución que menciona en mi segundo libre, legal, que permitió destruirlo lo que ganamos en la revolución mexicana, [00:24:00] que es la propiedad colectiva, en algunos casos propiedad indígena en otros casos, simplemente propiedad social de las clases populares.Y esto lo he trado mucha gente y me fui enterando estando con la gente en territorio, por ejemplo, con la asamblea de defensores de territorio Maya Muuch Xiinbal, ellos en la práctica, me enseñaron toda esta serie de mecanismos y defensas caminando con los pueblos, estando ahí. O sea, porque hay que estar ahí a veces para entender la magnitud.O sea, si tú lo piensas, el los muchos pueblos indígenas y clases populares son dueñas de hectáreas, el 40% del país, está en sus manos a nivel de propiedad legal, pero la propiedad privada va ganando, no, no. Y para mí, el turismo solo es un pedacito de ese proyecto colonizador actual, que va, va quitándonos, lo poquito que ganamos en la revolución mexicana. Bueno, ganamos varias cosas: la educación pública, salud pública, todo eso lo van privatizando. Pero es muy loco tierra y territorio, porque es muy específico. O sea 40 percent versus [00:25:00] 60 percent, un artículo de constitución, no hay que perdernos, osea. Ahí está. Pero mira el ombligo del pedo. Ajá. Chris: Mm, gracias. Me gustaría proponer algunos algunas preguntas, algunas provocaciones. Quizás respeto de cómo el turismo y más bien, más recientemente, las entrecomillas invasiones de turistas, nómadas digitales a México desde la pandemia y otras partes también. O sea, no es solo México, pero obviamente hay otros lugares.Y pues, hay ciertas cosas que ha surgido en otros episodios de podcast, respeto de el radicalismo rígido, y como lo veo a veces culturas de descartabilidad, que siento que es algo fundamental y también como desconocido en cómo funciona, pues la modernidad, la colonia, toda ese trayectoria [00:26:00] de mierda. Pero lo vemos mucho. Siento, siento yo en los redes sociales. Entonces, me gustaría preguntarte, qué piensas sobre los efectos de las redes sociales en los contextos de las luchas contemporáneas, pero también bajo de este contexto de turismo, de las invasiones en México. Entonces mi pregunta es, cómo crees que las redes sociales contribuyen al radicalismo rígido?Alf: Eh? Pues mira, yo creo que no solo contribuyen radicalismo rígido, o sea, respondiendo muy rápidamente. Yo creo que el algoritmo está diseñado y eso lo sabe la mayoría, espero, supongo este para generar estos echo-chambers que le llaman. Entonces, yo creo que lo mínimo, o sea, lo más x es que genere radicalismo rígido yo creo que en realidad la [00:27:00] ultraderecha está ganando en el mundo por las redes sociales. Y esto no lo digo yo. Esto está demostradisimo. O sea, Milei, Trump y todo el fascismo en el poder que desgraciadamente es, yo calculo la mitad del planeta, Bukele, etcétera, Bolsonaro, tienen mucho que ver con lo que aquí sería Chumel Torres, con lo que aquí sería Eduardo Verastegui. Tiene todo que ver, no?Y yo creo que eso, el pensamiento crítico, como le nos queremos llamar a este el otro lado antifascista sea, no hemos tomado suficientemente en serio eso como un enemigo, no? Porque volviendo la negatividad, el resentimiento, pues hay ese es un nuevo enemigo. Para mí, hay que destruirlo este.Acomodé lugar, o sea, como tenga que hacer. Entonces, esto lo hablaba también con Benja, la pareja de Yasnaya, el día de mi presentación en Volcana. O sea, qué pasa que mucha izquierda, mucho pensamiento crítico y todo, no quiere hacer pop. Entonces la derecha sí que está haciendo [00:28:00] pop y por eso ganó Trump, y por eso está Milei en el poder, porque hacen un un tipo de redes sociales poperas. No tienen miedo a reducir el pensamiento, a provocar. No tienen miedo porque tienen el poder, obviamente, controlan el mundo. En concreto, Trump, no? Entonces, nosotras desde el miedo y desde un un clasicismo extraño, un machismo raro, como que decimos el "pop" está mal porque reduce. Ser influencer está mal porque hace de lo abstracto. Lo reduce. Lo simplifica. Y ese es un problema. Es un problema grande que tiene que para mí tiene que ver con el problema de la es escolarización. Pero para contestarte, y yo creo que las redes sociales sostienen al fascismo actual, más que cualquier otra cosa, yo creo que más que ninguna otra cosa. Y por eso nos gobiernan celebridades y estamos en una fase nueva de la política como espectáculo. Y no estábamos ahí, volvemos a militancia como un libro que ya no responde a esta época, yo no siento que Obama era eso.Yo no [00:29:00] siento que el PRIismo y el PANismo era eso. Estamos en otro momento, entonces, como siempre la izquierda o como lo quieras llamar, el pensamiento, el antifascismo general, que a mi me da igual los conceptos, como siempre estamos lentas, lentas en reaccionar. Porque? Pues porque nos asusta. Las redes sociales, yo pienso que nos están bombardeando, emocionalmente con el genocidio. Yo creo que la manera en que están manejando la imagen del genocidio está tronando la salud mental, terminando de tronar, si no, es que ya la había tronado de buena parte de de de quienes estamos contra de Trump y Milei, por decir el amor que yo espero que seamos más o de la mitad de la tierra otra vez, este me gusta creer. Entonces eso, yo creo que estamos lentas porque quieren ellos porque nos han tronado la la salud mental. Y eso hace que nos aletargamos en responder con la fuerza con la que ellos, o sea nos faltan influencers un poco más rudos, para decirlo como es, o sea un poco más tan fuertes y provocadores como ellos.Yo [00:30:00] siento que los influencers de este lado hacen un trabajo importante, pero muy suave. O sea, está muy abajito. Muy bien portado. Cuando tú escuchas a Bukele, tú escuchas hablar a Milei o Trump y son los provocadores, realmente. Este, no le tienen miedo a decir pendejadas. Y la izquierda, sí. Sí, le tienen miedo a cagarla. Cuando no se dan cuenta que lo que están haciendo ellos es provocar para mover, no? O sea, la gente sabe que es una exageración. Los votantes de Milei de Bukele y de Trump saben que dicen mucha, es un borracho, que está diciendo pendejadas, pero van y votan. Chris: Claro. Alf: La izquierda no está logrando subir el tono. Al revés. O sea, entre más, baja en el fondo y más banderitas de palestina, como que más bien portadas, somos. Y entonces, ah, "pues vamos a hablar de la cultura de palestina, que es muy importante. Es muy bonita. Pero yo te apuesto que se hubieran influencers diciendo vamos a tirarles bombas y vamos a matar sería más fuerte, no? O sea, le daría [00:31:00] miedo a ellos como ha pasar, si ha pasado la historia en los 70. Esto sí que pasó. Si le dábamos miedo a ellos. Ya no le damos miedo. Y yo creo que eso tiene todo que ver con como el imperialismo hoy, es un algoritmo. Antes era otra cosa, y es un imperialismo de la mente y de las emociones.Y es meramente como manejan la imagen. Osea, da igual lo que nos muestren, sino la manera en que se utiliza el discurso de Trump y la manera en que se utiliza la imagen del genocidio, no el genocidio. Eso a ellos no les importa, sino el uso, nos truenan, nos truenan todo el tiempo.Entonces no logramos articular. No logramos reconocernos. Empezamos a competir, nos peleamos y es porque ellos van ganando. Han habido otros momentos de la historia donde este lado de veras le daba miedo sin idealizarlo porque también puede ser muy machista. Este le daba miedo a Trump y a los Trumps. O sea, se [00:32:00] cagaban de me decían no, no.Entonces, bueno, van a matar, no? Y entonces, había algo positivo ahí. Había algo positivo ahí y eso se perdió, nuestra propia capacidad de dar miedo y defendernos. Se ha ido perdiendo. O sea, y es muy material, porque matan defensores del territorio cada semana, así como palestinos y libaneses con la misma pistola, la misma arma. Cada semana los matan. Entonces, pues, claro que da miedo de subir el tono. No porque siento que te van a matar. Hay un fantasma. Entonces, yo creo que las redes sociales se tienen toda la culpa y que están gestionadas maravillosas, perfectas, las redes sociales y y el internet porque permitió que el imperialismo, se vuelva.O sea que lo cargues a todos lados, que desees el fascismo. Y eso está en las pantallitas y en el celular. Lo manejaron muy bien. El que lo explica más bastante bien es, Adam Curtis, en Can't Get You Outta My Head. Y creo que eso hay que tomarlo [00:33:00] todavía más enserio, porque la gente nada más dice "ah, pinche Chumel Torres". No, wey. O sea, es el cáncer de esta sociedad. O sea, no se explicar. Es un verdadero enemigo y "ah x solo es un panista ahí raro." Lo que quiero decir es que no le damos la seriedad, como que no estamos leyendo el imperio en su nueva fase y cómo se maneja. Chris: Pero entonces, tú crees que las maneras que podemos socovar el algoritmo es de, quitarnos de la pantalla? O sea, pero cómo está también el algoritmo no solo internalizándose según yo en los movimientos, pero en las mentalidades de la gente y dentro de los movimientos?Alf: Claro que yo no tengo una respuesta, pero a mí se me ocurre que esto ya se intentado muchas veces como crear nuestros propios tecnologías. Lo que pasa es que nunca van a ser igual de atractivas y poderosas, como clase de quienes controlan la tierra, porque pues por algo [00:34:00] las controlan y van ganando no? Porque tienen todos los recursos y toda la inteligencia puesta ahíEntonces, si los movimientos ya les pueden tener redes sociales, pero pero sus posts no tienen ningún alcance y eso está gestionado desde arriba. Entonces este es un problema más profundo que tiene que ver con el problema de la imagen y su gestión. O sea, al controlar el algoritmo, el imperio, lo que está controlando son las imágenes y las narrativas. Las gestionan, a eso me refiero con imperialismo. O sea, vemos lo que el imperio quiere que veamos y se acabó. O sea, es una nueva fase porque no necesariamente tienes al gringo gobernando a tu país como lo fue antes de la revoluciones nacionales, por ejemplo, pero tienes el celular que sólo te va a mostrar lo que le conviene al gobierno gringo o mayoritariamente.Entonces quebrar el algoritmo es quebrar el imperio, o sea la verdad, o sea, no es otra cosa que eso . Y eso hace que lo [00:35:00] cool sea cool y lo no cool que suele ser más importante, no se vea y no tenga acceso recursos y no generar imágenes chidas. Y si logras de una imagen, no tiene ningún alcance. O sea, es muy notorio para mi trabajo.O sea, si yo subo mi gatito 500 views, si yo subo el tipo de cosas que estamos platicando 5. Sí, claro. Es super evidente, no el manejo de la imagen y la gestión. Entonces, pues hay que volver. Hay que volver a la auto publicación. Hay que volver a los medios libres como se estuvieron haciendo hasta si varias decadas. O sea, y rehacerlo recuperarlos, repensarlos. La gente que se está yendo a Mastodon en redes sociales. La gente que se está saliendo de los algoritmos, los más feos. Digo, no sé qué tanto lo vamos a lograr. O sea, por eso yo, mi parte política, la vivo más en presencial. O sea, yo voy. Trato de ir ahora que se cumplen 50 años de Lucio cada año, hacer pueblo, estar con el pueblo, ser pueblo. O sea, porque [00:36:00] claro que si yo no voy, nunca me voy a enterar.Y si no camino con, como te conté, la asamblea maya, aunque sea cinco minutos, yo no me entero de que el pedo principal de todo esto es simplemente un artículo de la constitución, no? Entonces, o sea, pon tú que ellos postan en internet. Quién lo escucha? Nadie muy poca gente, pero eso es por quien controla.Que la info no llegue no. Entonces, claro. Entonces a eso voy, o sea, hay un problema con la imagen. O sea, hay un gran problema con la imagen porque también lo que la ultra derecho y el fascismo ha logrado perfectamente bien en nuestra época. Es que la gente prefiere el reconocimiento y el like, el premio no que la reparación real.Y entonces las redes sociales están basadas en un nuevo modelo de contra insurgencia y de pacificación y neutralización política, que es, yo voy, te doy un premio, yo voy y te muestro, yo te doy un like, pero para que ya te calles, no. Y para que no digas las cosas, [00:37:00] estamos decían, es un solo artículo.Si echamos para atrás de artículo, pues vamos a parar buena parte de los capitales colonialistas y turísticos hoy, etc. O sea a lo que voy es que van y te premian, van y te likean para que te vayas pacificando. Y ahí hubo un cambio estrategia que también estamos muy lentas en sí, porque los setentas te mataban, a las clases medias organizadas políticamente. Hoy no. Hoy no es así.Hoy matan a la gente de abajo, a los defensores que viven y habitan las clases populares, el territo y a la clase media la premia pa que te calles. Entonces, cómo te premian haciendo que el algoritmo te vea mucho y hables mucho y produzcas mucho contenido, pero es un contenido. Te repito muy bien portado.Es un contenido suave, que omite las partes políticas que omite temas de imperialismo contra insurgencia, bla, bla, osea. Habla de todo lo demás, formas de vida, ternura radical, [00:38:00] consumo alternativo, sororidad solidaria, todo lo que tú quieras, excepto si no le cortamos la cabeza a Trump, esa condición no para. O sea, no sé si me explico.Menos lo más importante, digo, lo estoy caricaturizando. Cortando la cabeza de Trump no vamos a parar el periodismo, pero me estás entendiendo. Están manejando la censura y estamos ya hablan de tecno tecnofeudalismo. Estamos regalándole un contenido que soporta el imperialismo y no nos damos... estamos tan enajenadas en este momento con el algoritmo que trabajamos para el gratis.No? Y me incluye, o sea mis PDFs, son gratis. Mi radio es gratis. Yo soy una esclava del internet y se acabó, no? Y entonces, en la medida en que no lo sepamos, sentir la negatividad de ese despojo y de cómo todas trabajamos para el imperio. Nos gusta no poco mucho, este pues más nos enajenamos no? O sea, porque yo no cobro por mis ramas de radio.Yo no cobro por el PDF [00:39:00] literal. Me despoja y me precariza en un sentido duro, directo. El pedo es que decirlo es fuerte porque la gente, pues como escucha en tu programa o el mío, y nos va MXN $5. Bien, pues la gente se compra la amiga y dice que padre, el internet me ven. Cuando solo te está viendo la gente que piensa como tú. Y ya nadie más. O sea, ni un solo seguidor más. Gente que ya pensaba como tú, antes de llegar a tu contenido. Entonces, en realidad no estamos logrando hacer propaganda, no? Y yo creo que es super importante, porque porque en la medida siempre trabajamos con los que piensan como nosotras, no estamos empujando el ese 50 percent fascista, al reves, lo respetamos y decimos, bueno, yo trabajo con el 50%. Me quedo en el 40% de la propiedad social y nunca empujo la propiedad privada o el 50% fascista.Y ya ahí te quedas que es muy cómodo también hablar entre nosotras. Pues que nadie te también te madres que nadie te mande [00:40:00] bots. Porque a mí lo que hacen es que me atacan en internet, no? Entonces, cada vez que digo lo que hay que decir, pues me mandan bots y me asustan me, como mucha gente, no, te amenazan.Y todos eso esta perfectamente gestionado, en México desde Peña Nieto, del Peña bots. Se siente muy claramente esas tecnologías. Muchas veces israeles. Se siente muy clarito, no? Y funcionan perfectamente bien, porque pacifican y neutralizan maravillosamente. Ya la gente deja de lo que hay que decir porque tú sientes que... o sea, porque tú sientes lo general, el efecto contrario, las censuras se siente como premiOChris: total. Muchas gracias. Alf. me gustaría provocar un poco ese idea que la algoritmo sólo nos este en suavece. En suaveza, dijiste? En suavece. Ajá. Ajá, porque pues, [00:41:00] también a mí parece que algoritmo está pidiendo, metiendo, reforzando la rabia.Y hace hace poco descubrí, descubrí un libro llamado Discard Studies en inglés, Estudios de Descarte, que intenta formular hipótesis no solo en torno a las historias sociales de la basura y contaminación, pero sino también del exilio y desplazamiento. Y la idea en los estudios del descarte es que todas estas cosas están muy relacionadas entre sí.Las redes sociales creen una plataforma para los también expulsiones sociales en forma de cancelaciones o escrachees, por ejemplo. Alf: Mm-hmm. Chris: Entonces, también que si el el algo ritmo está imponiendo, invitándonos a ser más pacíficos, siento que hay una manera que está imponiendo, impulsando, invitándonos a descartar, tirar, la [00:42:00] gente entre los movimientos sociales, o sea, entre movimientos sociales, también en la manera interpersonal.Y quería preguntarte sobre eso y las consecuencias a las luchas de largo plazo. Alf: Mm-hmm. Mira, yo siento que si se habló particularmente en el segundo capítulo de Alegria Emergente con un invitado que se llama Tomás Calles. Con él, se habló eso. Mira, yo siento que que es bien complicado este tema, porque para mí, el escrache pues que últimamente más sé hoy es el escrache que llegar con el género, con abuso sexual. Y a la vez, yo creo que hay que hacerle su genealogía completa el escrache porque el escrache cada vez... o sea, si lo sacamos de género y lo metemos a la política, clase, a raza, y a todo lo demás, este de si tú te das cuenta, todo el tiempo, volviendo al 50 facho y al no facho, el 50% facho ha estrechado al 50% no facho. Todo este es el tema del control de las narrativas y las imagenes. O sea, [00:43:00] si tú ves la imagen, por ejemplo y para mí, es una forma de escracheeo pre nuestra época. Si tú ves como Estados Unidos, creo la imagen de Cuba, es una forma de escrache, no? O sea, como, voy a hablar super mal de esos wey. Voy a decir. Voy a publicar todos los libros y todos los contenidos que hablen mal de Cuba, no?Y para mí, hay un escracheeo ahí, un pre escracheeo, por decir así. Entonces, en términos políticos, que te vuelvo a decir que siento que son los cabezas, nos faltan en toda esta discusión. Siempre ha existido y va a existir formas de manipular y de destruir cuando la gente está haciendo cosas más o menos chidas, pues te van a buscar dónde y ahí te van a chingar, no?Y el gobierno también participa eso con sus bots, no? Y su manejo de la información, de la distribución de la información en concreto. Entonces, yo siento que el escrache hay que verlo como también como parte de la contra insurgencia, no todos los escrachees, porque hay escrachees que, por ejemplo, no se vuelven públicos y se vuelven en procesos, por ejemplo, [00:44:00] de... o sea, no es la denuncia pública el punitivismo como ejercicio de castigo ejemplar público, hay escrachees o denuncias en concreto, que más bien se vuelven en ejercicios de justicia reparativa, puertas cerrada, que han sido efectivos.Y yo me he enterado de varios y me han invitado a varios procesos. Este y con varios movimientos. Yo me he dado cuenta de la justicia ejercía por nosotras mismas. Sí, llevada a cabo reparar cosas concretas con soluciones concretas sin hacer una imagen, sin darle al algoritmo lo que nos quita todo el tiempo - tiempo, energía, sin darle la fotita donde dice "para hacer tu eescrache chido habla..." o sea, simplemente resolver, es lo que muchas cosas en internet no hacen. Hablan pero no acciones, y tú puedes hablar lo que quieres siempre y cuando no actúes. Ese es el gran truco de la red social. No hablemos todo, mientras no cambiemos nada.Este entonces nada. Yo siento que el escrache pues hay que verlo así como, tiene una parte [00:45:00] chida para mí, sobre todo a puerta cerrada, como de procesos que yo llamaría, justicia reparativa, restaurativa, osea que no tienden a la imagen, puede crear una imagen, pero no es su fin su objetivo final, sino reparar daños específicos con soluciones específicas, no caso por caso, sin abstraer a ese, este versus un tipo de escrache liberal, blanqueado, espectacular, chafa, que lo único que ha hecho es contra insurgencia. Cada vez que hay liderazgos. "Ah, es un macho," no? Cada vez que hay movimiento sociales, "ah, trabajan para los rusos, trabajan para los chinos, este, reciben dinero, reciben dinero de tal, este." Ose y el escrache, si es una de las mejores herramientas, porque genera volvemos en el tema de narrativas y imágenes, no que contraponen lo que ha ganado.Osea, yo te voy a dar un fondo a ti como activista para que hables del turismo, todo lo que tú quieras, siempre y cuando no hables de esto y de esto, okey, [00:46:00] entonces tu envía a cobrar y te va a super bien. Y te voy el súper famoso y que chido.Pues esa es la lucha que nos vaya bien materialmente a todas. Pero a ti te censuraron. Te dijeron sólo hablas de, entonces, fíjate, volvimos al tema del escrache. O sea mucha de esa gente eescracheada. Voy a poner uno. Miguel Peralta. El caso de Miguel Peralta, para mí sería un caso de escrache, no este Miguel Peralta hoy está perseguido por el estado mexicano y mucha gente te va a decir que es un machista. Te va a decir muchas cosas, pero no te va a decir la otra parte, no? La parte política de su lucha, contra un gobierno que el gobierna, por no decir Samir Flores como un escrache, por no decir Hortensia Telesforo con un tipo de escrache.O sea, si me estás cachando? O sea, y entonces que pasa que que desde arriba, como controla la narrativa y controlan la imagen y la distribución de la información. Te dicen a ver, yo te voy a pagar por una cosa, pero cállate la otra. Entonces pon la banderita de colores. Y ya CDMX es gay y es trans, [00:47:00] pero nunca vuelves a hablar de clase social.Por favor que el pobre siga siendo pobre. Ella solo habla Alf de trans, no? Si te das cuenta, es como el escrache. O sea, el escrache dice vamos a destruir el liderazgo político de Miguel Peralta poniendo ultra énfasis en su lado machista, que que yo no dudo que haya tenido como muchos líderes y como mucha gente, o sea, yo no estoy diciendo que no, solo estoy diciendo la manera en que se utiliza ese tipo de denuncias es para destruir el lado político. Muchas veces no todas. Mm, pero para poner un solo caso, y hoy, por hoy te estoy hablando de un caso de criminalizacion actual, como podríamos hablar de Samir Flores o Hortensia Telesforo y toda la contrainsurgencia. La contrainsurgencia es un tipo de escrache. Es que eso ya cambió.También te repito, la gente más visible van y le dan premios y le dan atención. A la gente menos visible, la matan o la criminalizan como Miguel. Están a punto de meterlo a la cárcel 50 años si no le prestamos atención [00:48:00] a ese caso, no? Que es lo que quieren, que no le prestamos atención. Entonces a eso voy, o sea, casi que ni importa el crimen, casi que no importa la falta del daño, sino el manejo. Hay como una economía, fíjate, hasta te diría yo, una economía de las quejas y una economía de la imagen que no estamos siendo conscientes. Estamos tan alejanadas, que nos vamos, por lo primero que nos dan "Ah, ese ese wey era un macho." Listo. Todo quedó o ese wey trabajo para china y hasta todo el trabajo que haya hecho, como trabaja para china, o como hablan de, por ejemplo, piensan las narrativas sobre ve Venezuela y Nicaragua y Cuba.O sea, es impresionante. Es escrache, o sea. Quién te va a hablar bien de ese tipo de países? Está difícilisimo Chris: o o al menos decir como, "no sé, no sé"... Alf: o al menos decir, "no sé," pero lo que quiero decir es que el independientemente lo que han hecho Venezuela y los machismos de izquierda, [00:49:00] el manejo de ese error.O sea, supongo, sí, yo creo que comete errores como toda la gente cometemos. El manejo es la parte más como las redes sociales, la distribución de esa información, es la que a mí me preocupa más. O sea, como, solo vamos a hablar de lo mierda, déjate claro, porque a Estados Unidos le conviene, que Miguel Peralta está en la cárcel, que Venezuela solo se una mierda, que China solo se una... que yo no dudo que tiene un lado de mierda, pero es interesante los límites del discurso.No puedes hablar de lo hecho. En el momento en el que dice es algo bueno. Cancelada. A la cárcel. Se acabó el pedo. Entonces a mí eso me llama la atención, porque la gente cree que es un momento de libertad discursiva. El fascismo va ganando, no? O sea, y eso es Trump, pero y eso es el genocidio Palestino y Libanes.Pero pero pero hay un síntoma de eso en que no podemos, no podemos hablar. Yo siento que el [00:50:00] internet es mucho más facho que lo previo. O sea, yo me siento mucho más censurada que lo que yo veo que ha pasado en el siglo 20. Me explico? La verdad. O sea, yo veo los discursos del Che Guevara y digo no, pues en ese tiempo podías hablar.Habla así hoy, balazo en la frente. Así es fácil. No amaneciste. Te desapareceria. Entonces digo, ganamos o perdimos en términos discursivos? No, yo pienso que perdimos porque tu ves la tele el siglo 20 y está hablaba sin que le den un balazo. Hoy, ya no hoy. Samir habló, lo mató Morena. Ya. Listo. O sea, hoy hablaban los Palestinos todos muertos.O sea, entonces yo creo que perdimos con internet. No ganamos, pero yo pienso que el turismo te repito, o sea, y el colonialismo, entonces solo es como una partecita. Sinceramente, yo pienso que es como un pedazo chiquitito, de todo una cosa más grande. Claro que es una industria que ha [00:51:00] ido ganando mucha fuerza, pero para mí se habría un contra turismo y un peregrinaje.Yo siento que hago peregrinaje. Fíjate, qué es lo que destruyó el o el turismo está reedificando cuando trato de acercarme los movimientos sociales, desde mi clase, o sea, desde mi color piel y todos mis contradicciones. Pues yo sigo a veces caminando, con gente que me ha enseñado cosas que nunca van a salir en el celular.Adrede no sabemos la verdad. Aunque las posten, no me van a llegar. Y entonces yo creo que si hay un contraturismo y un yo pienso que tendríamos que ir a buscar en el tema del peregrinaje o la hospitalidad radical . Por qué? Porque había un tema sagrado, no? O sea, había algo sagrado en el peregrino. No era turismo nada más de placer, aunque tenía a su lado del compartir y ocioso, pero para mí se recuperáramos la capacidad de defendernos, varias cosas que nos han quitado, la capacidad de hablar que yo creo que nos la quitaran a base de premios y views, no a base de castigos, pues habría un [00:52:00] peregrinaje, por el lado político, no?.Por ejemplo, me cuentan que el año que viene va haber en Brasil. No, mucha gente va a estar yendo a Brasil de diferentes latitudes. Y ese para mí, eso es contra turismo y peregrinaje político sagrado. No. Entonces la gente va o el Anticop, vas, o sea, el ir es súper importante porque tiras el suelo de la basura y estás cuerpo a cuerpo con una realidad que que el algoritmo imperialista quiere que no nos llegue, tu salir. Claro. El problema es que te insista. Está tan de moda, "muerte al turismo," que no es fácil hablar de que hay contraturismos muy importantes. Siempre lo han habido no? O sea, cuando los zapatistas dicen vengan, pasan cosas que no pasan.O sea que hay que ir, no. A huevo, hay que ir. Entonces, y eso es un contraturismo. Y el zapatista está super consciente. No viene puro gringo aquí, puros güerito. Cuál es el pedo así se politizan. Sí, yo creo que es más de clase media no tratar de [00:53:00] buscarle la deriva y darle la vuelta a la industria. Mmm. Y simplemente decir merte a todo el turismo. Pues sí, en la teoría suena muy bien, pero en lo práctica va ganando. Chris: Mmm, claro, y así pues me gustaría preguntarte también de ese hospitalidad radical, pero siento que muchos caen intentar a definir lo que es.Pero entonces me gustaría nada más de preguntarte igual de peregrinaje, si quieres, de si has en tus viajes o en casa, o sea en tu colonia barrio, encontrado lo que llamarías tu hospitalidad radical, en el camino.Alf: Mira yo, esto es algo que aprendí. O sea lo que lo que llama hospitalidad radical es algo que yo hice en la práctica toda mi vida y solo después empecé a elaborar. Pues yo me moví toda mi vida y me sigo moviendo principalmente en el underground. Queda de contracultura. Y pero por ejemplo, yo en el punk, en las [00:54:00] patinetas, como en la izquierda radical en general, con todas sus ramas, toda la vida, he ido y han venido.Y mi casa siempre ha sido la casa de mucha gente y es una práctica que no me había sentado a pensar, no?. Ese no quedarse en el hotel, ese tú llevar a la gente a pasear y mostrarle los lugares ocultos de la ciudad, no los lugares como limpios y en inglés. O sea, es algo que en el Punk y en el anarquismo de esas cosas está muy metido, no?Y yo tengo casa en muchos lugares del mundo porque también he dado casa a mucha gente de muchos lugares del mundo, desde muy chavita, desde tours de skate cuando tenía 14 años, llegaba gente de todos lados y se quedaban en mi casa y yo no me daba cuenta de que es algo, que si tú te vas al peregrinaje, la hospitalidad radical o como queremos llamar, a lo previo a los boom's inmobiliarios, turísticos. Pues siempre existió no? Siempre he existido, no? Entonces nada. Para mí es raro hablarlo porque porque para mí, no se cuestiona, no? O sea, yo recibo gente todo el tiempo y me [00:55:00] recibe gente todo el tiempo de de mucho. Últimamente ya se hizo más internacional. Pero antes era más entre pues, las sociedades chiquitas, lo que sea.Entonces yo te podía contar toda mi historia, a partir de ese eje, si tú quieres. Pero pero mi punto es que es una práctica que yo tengo integrada. O sea, no, nunca me la cuestioné. O sea, y yo como mucho lo que queda en la contracultura, lo que queda underground o sea, mucha gente así lo vive este. Y cada vez que a mí me invita, por ejemplo, la última vez que me invitaron a un pueblo, fue Yasnaya, que ya habíamos quedado de ir.Porque el programa lo escuchan los Mixes y todo. Y yo le dije "claro que sí." O sea a mí en el momento en que me digas cuando voy, yo voy. Y para mí hay algo, o sea, tiene que venir de un pueblo como el Mixe, la invitación para que no sea turismo. Para mí, tiene que haber un receptor explícito y una invitación. O sea, es parte de la economía del regalo y esas cosas que, que en los sures siempre hemos hecho y en el abajo siempre hemos hecho consciente o inconscientemente.Creo que ahora hay que empezar [00:56:00] a elaborarla también. Ahora que empezar a teorizarlo y pensarlo porque conforme avanza, la propiedad privada de la colonización, pues se va perdiendo esos comunalismos, porque son prácticas que los pueblos tienen, que las clases populares tienen, que los undergrounds. La gente se mueve todo el tiempo, todo el tiempo.Solo no se mueve de maneras fancy y y cool. O sea, la foto no es la bonita del Instagram. Entonces, por lo tanto, esa práctica que a mí lo interesa es la práctica, no tanto la conceptualización o la imagen. Pues no la logramos reproducir y va ganando el turismo comercial. Por darte otro ejemplo, varios pueblos en el sureste también me hablaban de turismo alternativo. Y, por ejemplo, armaban varias cosas con los pueblos alrededor pidiéndole permiso, volviendo al al 40% de la propiedad social y esa parte la constitución que habría que pedir que nos regresen, le pedían permiso a todos los ejidos. Entonces ibas en bici o pajareando [00:57:00] las cosas que hacen turismo normal, pero hablaban con los dueños de los ejidos con el de la propiedad social que yo y los zapatistas y mucha gente defendemos y le decían bueno, "voy a traer gringos que que como quieren que le hagamos. Pues da tu caguama" o "cuánto les vas a cobrar?" Y para mí es contraturismo, fíjate, y caminando con ellos en esos territorios. Lo aprendes. O sea, escuchando programas de radio y leyendo libros va a estar cabrón. O sea, hay que ir, no este y fíjate que interesante, porque ese 40% de esa propiedad social, pues bien, que podría recibir la lana, que se le da el hotel? No? Porque mucha de esta gente está muy precarizada, entonces no simplemente decir "ah, a la verga, el dinero en el turismo," sino a quien se lo damos y por qué. Cuando fíjate, yo veo en los pueblos ya iniciativas muy chidas de redistribución para este lado. Hay un montón de cooperativas muy chidas que redistribuyen lo opuesto a lo que hay un hotel. Pero volvemos al tema, pues como "no [00:58:00] son cool" y no tienen el diseño más chido y y no son influencers."Pues nadie se entera que que hay prácticas comunalistas que incluyen la movilidad de entre pueblos y entre personas muy chidas. O sea, la verdad. Yo he visto muchas proyectos de cooperativismo contraturístico increíbles. Entonces, bueno, eso. La gente que hace caminantes informativas, como pedagogías de caminantes como contraturísticas. Hay un montón de gente y un montón de cosas, historiadores radicales, ahí que hacen sus sus contradiscursos y llevan a la gente. Osea, yo creo que hay muchas, para mi, hay mucha esperanza ahí. Lo que pasa es que no la conectamos. O sea justo el algoritmo hace que no la alcances a ver y que te quedes, o sea, esa información, pon tu que la postan, no te va a llegar, no? O sea, está diseñado pa que no te llegue. Entonces, pero hay un montón de cosas muy chidas. Yo no vivo esa [00:59:00] distopia triste, que mucha gente vive de "yo valio verga". "Hay que dejar de movernos." Yo no lo vivo. Tampoco hay que ultra movernos. Yo pienso que el nomadismo en la clase media ya es una forma de de despojo también. Hay como no forzado en las clases medias. No abajo. Pero bueno, yo no lo vivo con esta doom ccomo sea. Condena. O sea, como de, ah, todo movimiento está de la verga, que hay gente muy esencialista que tu dice. "Todo turismo es una mierda."Y diría, bueno, pues vives con mucha culpa. Wey está muy bien. Se llama catolicismo. Y y lo conozco muy bien. Hay otras formas. O sea sin tanta culpa, le puedes dar tu lana a gente chida y no va a solucionar el problema, pero vaya que está más chido que dárselo al hotel y al colonialista y al que rompió la propiedad social.O sea, estás si algo haces, no es mínimo, pero algo haces. Pues eso a mi me ha tocado ver cositas que digo bueno, aquí hay algo no, [01:00:00] aquí hay algo. Pasa que también muchas veces iniciativas como rechazan "lo cool" no quieren ser muy visibles y no quieren ser muy famosas, pues ahí es el problema del comercio justo y el comercio alternativo, que busca, busca hacer un poco invisible a veces.Eso es problemático, no? Porque entonces, como mandamos a la banda con la banda chida, si la banda chida no quiere que le manden banda siempre. O sea, no quiere hacer negocio, no quiere hacer negocio porque se vuelve capitalistas. En fin. Pero ese, ese es otro problema, no el problema del cooperativismo.Chris: Claro. Ya pues, sobrebordando con temas y plática hermosa, Alf, pero si puedo antes de de terminar, me gustaría preguntarte sobre tu nuevo libro. No Existe Dique Capaz de Contener al Océano Furioso. Nos podrías contar un poco de que trata y cómo tus trabajos anteriores han influido en [01:01:00] ese nuevo?Alf: Sí, Chris: has mencionado un poquito, pero Alf: ajá. Este es un libro que que pueden comprar en varias librerías Volcana, en Polilla y ahí donde estás con don Gregorio, pronto queremos tener en Jícara, en Utópicas, en casa Casa Tomada y conmigo en internet, y lo pueden descargar en el PDF. Envíos. Yo hago también a todo el mundo. Pero, bueno, es un libro que básicamente, para decirlo en una frase, es mi experiencia y mi elaboración sobre el anarquismo o la izquierda radical en general. Básicamente. O sea, te cuenta un poco mi historia de vida y como yo lo viví, lo recibí. Y qué es lo que yo he investigado y pensado sobre una práctica? Que en este momento la historia le podría unos ya anarquismo, pero en otro me momento se llama otras formas, pero sí, como antiautoritaria, etcétera. Entonces, el libro es eso. O sea, es un ensayo personal, pero también es un [01:02:00] ensayo político filosófico, no? Entonces van las dos. Te voy narrando mi vida, pero también te voy narrando la historia de estas ideas y cómo las hevisto, en la práctica y practicado hasta dónde he podido.Mmm. Chris: Pues este me voy a asegurar que esos lugares en al menos en Oaxaca y además en línea, van a estar listados en el sitio web del fin de turismo cuando lance el episodio y este, pues en nombre de nuestros oyentes Alf, me gustaría expresarte mi más sincero agradecimiento por tu disposición de acompañarnos hoy, hablar estos temas complejos y garantizar que esta disidencia tenga un lugar en el mundo.Muchísimas gracias. Y cómo podríamos este encontrar tu trabajo en línea? O sea por redes sociales o Alf: Si? Lamentablemente, me encantaría que no, no tuviera que ser por ahí. Pero no, no me [01:03:00] quedó de otra. Si, mi trabajo principalmente yo tengo dos libros afuera que se consiguen las librerías que mencioné. Lo que hago como locutora se encuentra gratis en todos lados, es Un Sueño Largo Ancho y Hondo. Es u arroba @1slaaahh en varias redes sociales. Y nada le ponen ahí en internet y les va a salir gratis y como lo platicaba antes, pues todo va muy junto. Mi parte de ficción y mi parte pedagógica y política va bastante unificada.Es más o menos la misma onda pero si, digamos lo más inmediato es escucharla lo que hago, llevo varios años haciendo, como locutora. Entonces nada más le da un click y ya está. Y les pido ahí que me den likecito que me den el porque hasta ahora no, no hay quien si, o sea, yo no trabajo para una [01:04:00] radio difusora que se encargue en mis redes y que yo nada más llegue a grabar y estaría bien a gusto, pero no, pues yo la autogestiono.Entonces, por ahora, si es necesario, el likecito y el compartir. Chris: Claro. Pues también esos van a estar en el sitio web de fin de turismo cuando lanza el episodio. Entonces, pues muchísimas gracias Alf. Alf: Gracias, Chris.English Transcription.Chris: [00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast The End of Tourism, Alf. Nice to talk to you today.Chris: I'd like to start this off by asking you where you are today and how the world looks through your eyes?Alf: Today I am in my kitchen. I work from there. In Mexico City, in a neighborhood called Iztaccihuatl. How does the world look? Well, look, I don't have a bad view. This is not a big building, but I have a nice view, right? I mean, my view is not blocked by another building or anything. You can see a lot of plants. And well, I guess you know that I am from the provinces. So I have always felt that where I live is like a little bit of a province in the capital, because there are no such big buildings.This one and well, from here you can see it, I forget that I'm in CDMX now, you knowChris: Thank you. Well, you are, among other things, the author of several [00:01:00] texts, including Pepitas de Calabaza and the very recent No Existe Dique Capaz de Contenedor al Océano Furioso. You also coordinated the translation into Spanish of the English text of Militancia Alegre:Let Resistance Bloom in Toxic Times. (or Joyful Militancy) That translation was followed by a companion podcast with Pamela Carmona titled Emerging Joy: Undoing Rigid Radicalism. So, to start, I'd like to ask you how you came across the book Joyful Militancy and what led you to translate it.Alf: I knew that book. I tell you a little bit about it in the prologue, but I knew that book, in the United States, because I had a band. I played drums in a hardcore punk band for many, many years. And so that's how I got to the United States and being [00:02:00] in the American underground, which was an important part of my life, being in California specifically.I found that book in a cafe and I fell in love with it. So I brought it and first I read it in English with some people and very slowly I started to work on that book, translating. That's a longer story that's right there in the prologue, but well, I've been campaigning for that book for years. There were also a series of coincidences with very kind people like Tumba a la Casa, like the Canadian authors, the rights were given to us. The people from Traficantes de Sueno got involved.I mean, there are actually a lot of people. It's like a network of networks, that book and a series of coincidences and favors and nice gestures from many people who made it come out the way it did, really. I mean, I think it's unrepeatable, that series of factors. Aha.Chris: Oh, cool. All right. Well, that book was originally [00:03:00] published in 2016. After reading, re-reading, and tran

In this essay, Jesse Spafford argues that plausible libertarian premises support the classical anarchist conclusion that no one has any moral property rights over land or resources. Drawing on the argument advanced in Chapter 4 of his book Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Moral Tyranny, he contends that neither states nor would-be property owners can impose obligations on others without consent. Jesse Spafford is a Lecturer in philosophy at Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, where he researches moral debates between libertarians, socialists, and anarchists. He is the author of Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Moral Tyranny (available open access on the Cambridge University Press website) and various other papers on anarchism including "Social Anarchism and the Rejection of Private Property" and "An Anarchist Interpretation of Marx's 'Ability to Needs' Principle." A complete list of his research and public-facing work is available on his website. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

This essay is adapted from Jim Donaghey's excellent collection, Fight for a New Normal? Anarchism and Mutual Aid in the Covid-19 Pandemic Crisis . It discusses some of the applications of 'mutual aid' in government agencies and its articulation in nineteenth century anarchist thought to flesh out a grassroots, transformative conception. Ruth Kinna is a member of the Anarchism Research Group at Loughborough University and the author of The Government of No One. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay Keith Jacobs considers the relevance of Colin Ward's work for addressing contemporary housing challenges. It is claimed that Ward's writings on housing offer both a trenchant critique of managerially inspired policies and a set of political interventions that merit consideration. Keith Jacobs is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Tasmania. His two most recent publications are: ‘'Historical sensibility' and its relevance for contemporary housing studies' 10.4337/9781800375970.00010 and ‘Political economy perspectives and their relevance for contemporary housing studies' (coauthored with R. Atkinson and D. Warr) 10.1080/02673037.2024.2359411. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Bluesky @anarchismresgroup.bsky.social Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Rhiannon provides an Afterword summarizing some of the key themes in a recently published volume of collected essays edited by Jim Donaghey titled Fight for a New Normal? Anarchism and Mutual Aid in the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis. Rhiannon also playfully problematizes the title of the book, arguing that rather than fighting for a new normal, anarchists should be fighting against normativity itself. Rhiannon Firth is Lecturer in Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, UCL Faculty of Education and Society. Rhiannon's most recent publications are Disaster Anarchy and Entangled Futurities.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Matt Grimes discusses the continuing significance of anarchism among a group of ageing anarcho-punks, who first engaged with anarchist ideologies and politics in their adolescence in the 1970s and 1980s. Drawing on the relationship between ageing, identity, memory and nostalgia, Matt explores how this group of ageing anarcho-punks have negotiated their anarchist beliefs, alongside the responsibilities often associated with adulthood and ageing. Dr Matt Grimes is Course Director BA (Hons) Music Business and Senior Lecturer in Music Industries and Radio. Matt's most recent publications are; Way, L. and Grimes, M. (2024) (eds) Punk, Ageing and Time. London: Palgrave MacMillan and Grimes, M. (2024) "I'm not someone who calls himself an anarchist, I am an anarchist". Anarcho-punk praxis and the continuing ideological significance of  British anarcho-punk in the later lives of its ex-adherents'. In: Laura Way and  Matt Grimes (eds) Punk, Ageing and Time. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.    

In this essay, Dana Williams discusses the many complicated connections between sociology and anarchism. In particular, Williams explores what could be meant by "anarchist-sociology" and the potential for a social science anarchist studies. Dana Williams is Professor of Sociology at California State University, Chico in California (USA). Williams's most recent publications include "The Uncivil Sphere and Anti-authoritarian Movements: Problems of Status Quo Violence, Internationalist Militancy, and Non-state Civil Society" (published in Theory in Action) and "Anarchist and Anarchistic Anti-Systemic Movements in World-Systems Perspective: A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Non-State Spaces" (with Spencer Louis Potiker and Jake Alimahomed-Wilson, in Journal of World-Systems Research), and a forthcoming book about radical trust with Pluto Press. Williams can be found on social media at: https://scholar.social/web/@dmw  and  https://bsky.app/profile/dmwilliams.bsky.social Full-text articles available here: https://hcommons.org/members/dmwilliams/  and  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Dana-Williams-4 Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.    

In this essay, Alexandria Hollett describes how liberal and conservative approaches to civic education in the so-called United States dangerously position the nation-state as the incontestable organizer of contemporary life, promote national myths, encourage young people to develop affinity for the nation-state, and position voting and other constitutional processes as exclusive tactics for social change. By contrast, this essay offers direct democracy, mutual aid, and direct action as anarchist interventions into the ongoing crisis of civic education.  Alexandria Hollett is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at California State University, Northridge. Alexandria Hollett's most recent publication is ‘No Gods, No Masters: Practicing Freedom through Anarchist Civics' and she is a member of the Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation. You can find her at https://academics.csun.edu/faculty/alexandria.hollett or on Instagram at @alleholle.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Libera Pisano explores Gustav Landauer's unique approach to anarchism, grounded in a rejection of death as both a literal and symbolic concept. Landauer's philosophy emphasizes the transcendence of individual isolation through community and mystical consciousness, positioning revolution as a life-affirming path to unity and interconnectedness. Libera Pisano is a Research Associate at Nova University Lisbon. Her recent publications are “Resisting Nihilism: The Motif of Entwurzelung in Jonas's Early Writings,” in Hans Jonas: The Early Years (eds. D. Herskowitz, E. Lapidot, C. Wiese; London: Routledge, 2024), 201-217 Hans Jonas: The Early Years - 1st Edition - Daniel M. Herskowitz - Ela, and “Die Grammatik der Hoffnung: Diasporisches Hören und weiblicher Abgrund bei Margarete Susman,” in Margarete Susman: Beiträge zu Werk und Wirkung (eds. M.J. Kudla, C. Battegay, I. Sauter, W. Goetschel; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2024), 317-333 Margarete Susman. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Alexander Sawatsky talks about his recent book, Anarchist perspectives for social work: Disrupting oppressive systems.  Along with a summary of the main topics and themes, he describes how he arrived at the idea of writing this book as well as his motivation to work towards an anarchist informed social work practice. Alexander teaches and is chair of the social work program at Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada where he lives with his partner, Wendi and his two children, Marianne and Lukas.  His most recent publications are the following: Sawatsky, A. (2023) What is at the centre? Faith, social work & anarchism, Journal of Religion & Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, 42:4, 477-495. Sawatsky, A. (2024). Anarchism & social work. Critical Social Work.   Vol. 25, No. 1.  Sawatsky, A. (2024) Anarchist Perspectives for Social Work: Disrupting Oppressive Systems. Oxford University Press. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, Leonard Williams reflects on the course of the 2024 presidential campaign in the United States. He then explores some implications of a second Trump presidency for both anarchists and anarchism. Leonard Williams is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Manchester University in Indiana. His forthcoming book entitled Hybridity and Ideology was co-written with Benjamin Franks. Other recent publications include Black Blocks, White Squares: Crosswords with an Anarchist Edge and the edited volume, Anarchism: A Conceptual Analysis. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Jim Donaghey reads an adaption from the introduction to DIY or Die! Do-it-yourself, do-it-together and punk anarchism – the latest volume in The Anarchism and Punk Book Project. The essay goes beyond and before punk to explore the radicality that runs through DIY, in its diverse applications from home improvement to anarchist political philosophy. Jim Donaghey is a punk working in academia, currently as a Research Fellow at Ulster University. You can read his publications at his website. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Alex Christoyannopoulos maps out and discusses the main qualms aired by anarchists about pacifism and nonviolence (around effectiveness, origins and compromises, and dogmatic censorship). He also fleshes out a rejoinder for each, and reflects on the mutual resonances and overlaps between the two.  Alex Christoyannopoulos is Reader in Politics and International Relations at Loughborough University. His most recent publications include a contribution to a forum debate on Andreas Malm's How to Blow Up a Pipeline, a paper articulating an anarcho-pacifist reading of international relations, as well as two pieces he mentions in this essay: a longer paper mapping out the tensions and similarities between anarchism and pacifism, and the editorial to the founding issue of the Journal of Pacifism and Nonviolence. A fuller list of his publications is available on his website.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Jon Burke describes Qalang Smangus, an aboriginal village in Taiwan which has been collectively organized. Jon makes a case for identifying it as an intentional Christian anarcho-collectivist community, assesses its success, and identifies its internal and exernal challenges. Jon is a former lecturer in photography and media studies at Ming Chuan University in Taiwan, and is currently a technical writer in Melbourne, Australia. His most recent publications are ‘Learning to love fakes: how to overcome the inauthenticity of digital artifacts', for the 2023 conference Medievalisms on the Screen III: Digital Medievalisms and the Teaching of History, hosted by Central European University, and ‘Anarchitecture: Anarchist Principles Made Concrete for the Anarchist Studies Network 7th International Conference, 2022.' Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Jess Dillard-Wright and Danisha Jenkins make the case for an anarchist approach to nursing. Part love note to a problematic profession we love and hate, part fever dream of what could be, we set out to think about what nursing and care might look like after it all falls down, because it is all falling down. Jess Dillard-Wright is an associate professor of nursing at Elaine Marieb College of Nursing at University of Massachusetts Amherst. You can learn more and find Jess's contact information here.  Danisha Jenkins is an assistant professor of nursing at San Diego State University.  Jess and Danisha's most recent publications are:  Jenkins, D., Cohen, J., Walker, R., McMurray, P., & Dillard Wright, J. (2024). Getting Ours? “Girlbossing” and the Ethics of Nurse Reimbursement Models. Health Equity, 8(1), 480-492. https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/heq.2024.0059  Dillard-Wright, J., & Jenkins, D. (2024). Dangerous and Unprofessional Content: Anarchist Dreams for Alternate Nursing Futures. Philosophies, 9(1), 25. https://www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/9/1/25  Dillard‐Wright, J., & Jenkins, D. (2024). Nursing as total institution. Nursing Philosophy, 25(1), e12460. https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.12460  Out of the hospitals. Into the streets. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Cahal McLaughlin reflects on the influence of anarchist principles on his documentary filmmaking practices in societies affected by state violence, using case studies from South Africa, Haiti, Brazil and Ireland. Cahal McLaughlin is Professor of Film Studies, Queen's University Belfast. His recent publications include Challenging the Narrative: Documentary Film as Participatory Practice in Conflict Situations (Anthem Press, 2023) and We Fight For This Land: Quilombola and Ka'apor Communities in Brazil (2024, 62 mins). See more at www.itstayswithyou.com and www.prisonsmemoryarchive.com Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Henry Brown examines the controversial participation of anarchists in the Republican Army during the Spanish Civil War (1936-9). Despite the universal association of anarchism with antimilitarism, the Spanish anarchists responded to the demands of antifascist war in a nuanced fashion, creating a distinctive military subculture based on solidarity, comradeship, and clandestine political agitation. Henry Brown is a PhD candidate at the University of Kent, examining military culture and identity in the Popular Army of the Spanish Republic (1936-9). His most recent publications include ‘The Anarchist in Uniform: The Militarisation of Anarchist Culture during the Spanish Civil War' and his contribution to the Special Issue ‘Iberian Anarchism in Twentieth-Century History': ‘“¡Vivan las tribus!”: persecution, resistance and anarchist agency in the Popular Army.' Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Alex Doyle examines how anarchists in late 19th and early 20th century Cuba grappled with thorny issues of the nation and nationalism in their pursuit of social revolution. Contrary to common assumptions about anarchism which posit that the movement wholly rejects and ignores the nation, the anarchists in Cuba, through their discourse and praxis, cultivated a critical engagement with the nation characterised by a fascinating mixture of compromise, support and rejection. Alex Doyle is an independent researcher. He recently completed a Master's of Research at the University of Leeds with a focus on class, transnationalism and national identity within Cuban anarchism. His most recent publication is ‘Transnationalism, class and national identity in the Cuban labour movement (1898-1902)'.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns).

In this essay, Diogo Duarte proposes a different look at the history of the State, urban planning and social housing in Portugal, by bringing into the picture the often forgotten presence of a significant anarchist movement in the country. As he suggests, to fully understand some of the social and political processes that were underway in Portugal during the first decades of the 20th century, it is essential to consider the threat that anarchism posed to the economic and political elites. Diogo Duarte is a researcher at the Instituto de História Contemporânea (Institute of Contemporary History) in NOVA University Lisbon. He has a PhD in contemporary history with a thesis about the history of anarchism in Portugal and in 2024 he published the book "O Anarquismo e a Arte de Governar, Portugal (1890-1930)" (Edições Fora de Jogo). Recently he has also published the articles "Anarchism, colonialism and the question of "race" in Portugal (c.1890-1930)", in the Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, and "'Um grito de alarme contra a degenerescência da espécie': Homosexuality and Decadence in the Anarchosyndicalist A Batalha in the Early 1920s", in Portuguese Studies, both co-written with Richard Cleminson.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

This essay introduces a short series of podcasts emanating from last year's 'Iberian Anarchism in Twentieth Century History' special issue. Joshua Newmark highlights some of the parallels and linkages between the Spanish and Portuguese anarchist movements, while Sophie Turbutt explores the key themes emerging from the special issue and what they contribute to research on anarchist history.  Joshua Newmark is a fourth year PhD student in the School of History, University of Leeds, researching internationalism in the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement, 1910-1939. In 2023 he published an edited collection on British and Irish solidarity with the Spanish anti-fascist struggle. Sophie Turbutt is a third year PhD student in the School of History, University of Leeds, researching gender and comradeship in the Spanish anarchist movement, 1923-1939. In 2022 she published a journal article on sexual revolution and the Spanish anarchist press. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, David Christopher explores and unpacks the mutually anarchistic and apocalyptic propensities in the early films of David Cronenberg. Christopher positions Cronenberg's films as exemplary of an innovative new methodology of cinema analysis for films following Cronenberg's influence. For more on these topics, see Anarchist Studies 32.1. Dr Christopher is a Lecturer in Popular Screen Cultures at the University of Leicester for the School of Arts, Media, and Communication.  David's most recent publications are: Flexing Armageddon: Displacing Climate Change Anxiety through Soft Power Nationalist Interests in GuoFan's The Wandering Earth, Brill - Youth and Globalization Journal: Cultural Production in Asia, Spring 2024. DOI - tba. Horror and the Cube Films: An Unlikely Vehicle for the Negotiation of Nationalist-Cultural Ideologies, Mutual Images – On Politics of Visual Media, Issue 11 (2023-24): pp. 139-170. (Co-edited and with and Introduction by Dr. David Christopher and Dr. Marco Pellitteri, pp. 53- 59). https://www.mutualimages-journal.org/index.php/mi/issue/view/11/14. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

Writer and organizer Andrew Lee joins me to discuss their new book Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War, published through AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies. Defying Displacement grounds itself in one of the main sites of contemporary class struggle: communities facing the multi-headed hydra of gentrification. Andrew Lee directs our attention to the on-the-ground realities of urban displacement, and in turn, provides a new theory of the state and capitalism in the 21st century. “And all of a sudden, to maintain what we have—not improve, not get benefits. This isn't the ‘60s. We aren't talking about, give us ethnic studies and a health clinic. It's much worse than that. It's: don't displace me. Let me keep paying rent to my landlord; let me keep paying property taxes on the family home; let me keep working a bad job; just don't make my rent so high that my community is obliterated. “And the people that brings us into conflict with aren't just a local regional rich dude. More and more, they are global financial institutions and the entirety of the political system and civil society. In the places where we live, they're bringing us into open conflict with the foundation of capitalist society, and that is what we need to navigate through. And if we can, we can win everything.” Andrew Lee is a writer and organizer exploring the intersection between land, home, resistance, and popular power. Their work has been published in outlets including Teen Vogue, The New Inquiry, and YES! Magazine. Episode Notes: - Learn more about Andrew's work: https://www.xandrewleex.com - Purchase a copy of Defying Displacement from AK Press or Bookshop: https://bit.ly/3X2tO33 / https://www.akpress.org/defying-displacement.html - Music produced by Epik The Dawn: https://epikbeats.net WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast SUBSTACK: https://lastborninthewilderness.substack.com BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

Writer and organizer Andrew Lee joins me to discuss their new book Defying Displacement: Urban Recomposition and Social War, published through AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies. Defying Displacement grounds itself in one of the main sites of contemporary class struggle: communities facing the multi-headed hydra of gentrification. Andrew Lee directs our attention to the on-the-ground realities of urban displacement, and in turn, provides a new theory of the state and capitalism in the 21st century. Support the work and listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

In this essay, Andrew Whitehead examines the two most lethal incidents linked to anarchism in London's history: the murder of three police officers during an attempted armed robbery at Houndsditch in December 1910 and the ensuing siege of Sidney Street in Stepney. He looks particularly at the links between the mainly Latvian perpetrators and three anarchist luminaries then living in exile in London, Peter Kropotkin, Errico Malatesta and Rudolf Rocker.  Andrew Whitehead is an honorary professor at the University of Nottingham and an associate editor of History Workshop Journal. His latest book A Devilish Kind of Courage: Anarchists, Aliens and the Siege of Sidney Street, was published by Reaktion Books in March 2024. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

Duane Rousselle is a Canadian sociological theorist, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and Professor of Sociology. He works in several academic fields including Social Movement Studies, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Cultural Sociology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Anarchist Studies, and Continental Philosophy. His work attempts to introduce an alternative to scholarly discourses that aim to produce consistent and coherent bodies of knowledge (e.g., "University Discourse"). It also offers a counterpoint to what Jacques Lacan has called "capitalist discourse."He helped to contribute to the emergence of a new field of scholarly investigation known as "post-anarchism." He founded and edits the journal Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies. He is a noted Canadian public intellectual.DON'T FORGET TO LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE!Become a Patreon Patron:https://www.patreon.com/cyberdandySupport the Show.

Episode 66 comes in two parts. In our first segment, Lisa sits down with German members Jan and Henry to discuss post-neoliberal transformations in German politics, understood through the AfD and Sahra Wagenknecht's split from Die Linke. In the second segment, Andony talks with fellow West Coast members Octavio, Colin, Ishmael, and Hoang about anarchism on the West Coast, reflecting on the Heart of the Valley Anti-Capitalist Bookfair held in Corvallis, Oregon, and the inaugural Platypus West Coast Conference held in San Diego this February. They discuss the resurgence of anarchism under the Biden presidency in the context of long-standing anarchist traditions on the West Coast. --- Further discussions of German politics (in German): - Was ist DIE LINKE? (13.6.21 Frankfurt) transcript: https://platypus1917.org/2022/08/31/podium_2021_linkspartei/ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZZb7BZp_bY - Redefreiheit und die Linke (4.11.23 Leipzig) audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rf7K5h3h64 Further materials on anarchism: - Heart of the Valley Anti-Capitalist Bookfair (19-21 January 2024): https://hotvbookfair.noblogs.org - Dual Power: A Strategy To Build Socialism In Our Time (DSA Libertarian Socialist Caucus, 2018): https://dsa-lsc.org/2018/12/31/dual-power-a-strategy-to-build-socialism-in-our-time/ - Reimagining Revolutionary Organizing: A Vision for Dual Power (Institute for Anarchist Studies, 2019): https://anarchiststudies.org/reimagining-revolutionary-organizing-a-vision-for-dual-power/ - Against dogmatic abstraction: A critique of Cindy Milstein on anarchism and Marxism (Platypus Review, 2010): https://platypus1917.org/2010/07/01/against-dogmatic-abstraction/ - Social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism: an unbridgeable chasm (Murray Bookchin, 1995): https://libcom.org/article/social-anarchism-or-lifestyle-anarchism-unbridgeable-chasm-murray-bookchin - Whither anarchism? An interview with Kristian Williams (Platypus Review, 2021): https://platypus1917.org/2021/03/01/whither-anarchism-an-interview-with-kristian-williams/ - Reform, Revolution, and “Resistance:” The problematic forms of “anticapitalism” today (2/18/24 San Diego) audio: https://archive.org/details/reform-resistance-revolution-san-diego

In this essay, Jayne Malenfant and Hannah Brais unpack an anarchist approach to confronting housing precarity by bringing together existing anarchist scholarship while proposing housing interventions that support agency, anti-colonial work, and justice. They confront the inadequacy of existing housing interventions and propose an alternative vision that aligns with anarchist values of solidarity, agency, prefigurative politics, and harm reduction. Jayne Malenfant is an Assistant Professor at McGill University in Tio'tia:ke/Montreal. Their work focuses on housing, homelessness, community-led research and anarchist education. Hannah Brais is a doctoral candidate at McGill University in Tio'tia:ke/Montreal. Her work focuses on improving practices and policies for people experiencing homelessness. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

This essay examines the rise of 'direct action' as a key concept in anarchist and radical politics over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It traces the transnational arguments, texts and networks that made this possible. Sean Scalmer is a Professor of History at the University of Melbourne. This essay is a greatly edited version of a recent article: 'Direct Action: Invention of a Transnational Concept', International Review of Social History, vol. 68, no. 3, December 2023, pp.357-87. (An open access version is here).The research and the essay forms part of a research project on 'Direct Action and Democracy: Utopia, Experience, Threat', funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

In this essay, adapted from his recently published book, Sam C. Tenorio (he/they) reconsiders the Watts Rebellion of 1965 and its ruinous disruptions, like arson, theft, and vandalism, as a cataclysm that clears material and discursive ground and proffers its own questions of property. It argues that the cataclysmic vantage of the Watts rebellion overflows on a state narrative meant to misapprehend both the political subjectivity of Black people and their conditions of possibility. Sam C. Tenorio is Assistant Professor in African American Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University. He writes about carcerality and black radical practice as well as black trans and trans of color critique. His most recent publications are Jump: Black Anarchism and Antiblack Carcerality (NYU Press) and “White Carceral Geographies” (South Atlantic Quarterly).  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Nolan Bennett traces through Alexander Berkman's 1912 Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist an unresolved tension between two approaches to the prison: advocacy for political prisoners and advocacy against the politics of prisons. Berkman's ambivalence between these approaches amid his memoirs and later activism signify the book's importance and point toward enduring tensions in contemporary prison politics. Nolan Bennett is a political theorist and assistant professor of Democracy and Justice Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Nolan's most recent publications are "The Ambivalence of Alexander Berkman's Anti-Prison Anarchism" and "George Jackson's Perfect Disorder." Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Peterson Silva talks about metaphors for freedom among anarchists. He particularly discusses a metaphor concerning failure in complex systems, pointing out that anarchists relate freedom to the deep transformation of social patterns. A list of the references he cites in this episode is available here. Peterson Silva is a writer, translator, and PhD student of Sociology and Political Science in Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil. Peterson Silva's most recent publications are Modelos anarquistas de legitimidade [Anarchist models of legitimacy] and A posição anarquista nos debates sobre privatização, burocracia e meritocracia [Anarchists on privatisation, bureaucracy, and meritocracy]. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Chris Robé explores the origins of video activism from the ecology, women's liberation, and anarchist movements of the late 1960s and early 1970s. He then traces the state's increasing surveillance of video activism and recent debates regarding the value of such activism among participants of the Stop Cop City movement. Chris Robé is a Professor of Film and Media Studies at Florida Atlantic University in the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies. He writes about media activism of all varieties and has recently published Abolishing Surveillance: Digital Media Activism and State Repression with PM Press. He occasionally writes film reviews for PopMatters. He is also vice-president for his faculty union, pushing back against the attacks against academic freedom while pursuing creating a quality and free public higher education for all. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Pranay Somayajula critically examines the anarchist movement's relationship to anticolonial politics. Drawing on a rich history of anticolonial movements, from the Kurds in Rojava to the Zapatistas in Chiapas, who have sought national liberation and self-determination without being confined by the nation-state, he argues for an anarchist politics of anticolonial solidarity rooted in a radical conception of nationhood without nationalism.  Pranay Somayajula is an Indian-American writer, researcher, and cultural critic currently based in Washington, D.C. His writing has appeared in outlets including Jacobin, The Nation, and The Drift, as well as on his Substack blog, culture shock. He can be found on Twitter at @p_somayajula.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

On this edition we speak with scholar activist AK Thompson. The conversation revolves around the importance of looking critically at the lack of radical thinking within the public expression and action of many important social movement demands in the west. AK speaks on the ways that the reform oriented frameworks for social action, largely developed in the late 19th and early 20th century do not speak to the urgent need for radical change that exists today, from climate justice, to the extreme colonial violence that persists in places like Gaza. Here are links to two collections of works by AK out on AK Press Premonitions Selected Essays on the Culture of Revolt https://www.akpress.org/black-bloc-white-riot-anti-globalization-and-the-genealogy-of-dissent.html Premonitions Selected Essays on the Culture of Revolt https://www.akpress.org/premonitions.html Music on this edition is by Anarchist Mountains. Image from the Institute of Anarchist Studies page: https://anarchiststudies.org Free City Radio is hosted and produced by Stefan @spirodon Christoff and airs on @radiockut 90.3FM at 11am on Wednesdays and @cjlo1690 AM in Tiohti:áke/Montréal on Wednesdays at 8:30am. On @ckuwradio 95.9FM in Winnipeg at 10:30pm on Tuesdays. On @cfrc 101.9FM in Kingston, Ontario at 11:30am on Wednesdays. Also it broadcasts on @cfuv 101.9 FM in Victoria, BC on Wednesdays at 9am and Saturdays at 7am, as well as Met Radio 1280 AM in Toronto at 5:30am on Fridays. Now Free City Radio will also be broadcasting on CKCU FM 93.1 in Ottawa on Tuesdays at 2pm, tune-in!

In this essay, Christopher Powell examines how sovereign statehood generates an economy of shame that fosters identification with the imagined sovereign.  Achieving anarchy requires a shift in who is shamed and for what, shifting self-worth from ‘higher' ideals to horizontal solidarity. Christopher Powell is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Toronto Metropolitan University. His most recent publication is “Radical Complexity: Using Complex Systems Theory to Think About Social Transformation” in New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Elena Pagani presents theorising and practices of freedom as interpersonal and intersubjective. She does this through the conceptions of agonistic self-creation and agonistic empathy in conversation with empirical findings from a militant research of radical worker co-operatives in Greece. Her presentation invites us to imagine and prefigure an anarchist utopia where the notion of power would be redundant (without 'archy') in the now, or otherwise, how we could potentially get rid of informal hierarchies. Elena Pagani is an activist and currently a Lecturer in Organisation Behaviour at the University for the Creative Arts. Her doctoral thesis was Organising Equal Freedom: from antagonism to agonism. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Deric Shannon outlines the anarchist analysis and critique of capitalism. He also gives some potential explanations for capitalism's resilience. Deric Shannon is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Emory University's Oxford College. His most recent books are The State of State Theory: State Projects, Repression, and Multi-sites of Power  and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Pedagogy and Place-Based Education: From the Abstract to the Quotidian.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Sonia Hernández describes the central role Mexican women played in the emergence of anarcho-syndicalist organizing during the early 20th century. She examines the emergence of transnational feminism influenced by anarchist ideas in the Gulf of Mexico region - such women's labor activism left an indelible mark on the greater history of the US-Mexican borderlands. Sonia Hernández is a Professor of History at Texas A&M University. Her most recent publications are For a Just and Better World: Engendering Anarchism in the Mexican Borderlands, 1900-1938 (University of Illinois Press, 2021) and "Gendering Transnational State Violence: Intertwined Histories of Intrigue and Injustice along the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands, 1900-1913," Journal of American History, Volume 110, Issue 2, September 2023: 258-281.  Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Benjamin Franks identifies the core principles that lead anarchists to reject participation in democratic elections. It then explores the occasions where anarchists have engaged in different forms of electoral engagement and showing the particular conditions that make some constitutional interventions compatible with anarchist principles. Benjamin Franks is a Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Philosophy, School of Social and Environmental Sustainability, University of Glasgow. His most recent publications are:  Anarchism, Postanarchism and Ethics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2020) and (2020) “Four models of anarchist engagements with constitutionalism”. Theory in Action, 13(1), pp. 32-69. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.    

In this essay, Carne explores the spiritual dimension of anarchism, which he once assumed was more a ‘political' philosophy about how people make decisions and transact business. He concludes that there is indeed a vital spiritual element and moreover that anarchism centres love and human connection at its core. Carne Ross is a writer. His most recent book is ‘The Leaderless Revolution: how ordinary people will take power and change politics in the 21st century'. His articles, films and other writing can be found at carneross.com. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.    

In this essay, William Marling asks why there seems to be so much rhetoric in/about anarchism. He digs for an answer in his recent book on Ammon Hennacy, finding an answer in the practice of "parrhesia," or speaking truth to power. William Marling is Professor of American Literature and Film at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. His most recent books are Christian Anarchist: The Life of Ammon Hennacy and Gatekeepers: The Emergence of World Literature. Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Rhiannon Firth reads from an article published in DOPE Magazine issue 22, which is part 2 of a 2-part summary of her latest book, Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action, published by Pluto Press last Autumn. In it, she offers a response to the question: Do anarchist approaches to disaster relief have more to offer beyond state-friendly 'social capital', mopping up the failures of the austere neoliberal state? How do anarchists engaged in disaster relief stay radical, rather than just papering over the cracks in a failing neoliberal system? Rhiannon Firth is Lecturer in Sociology of Education at IOE, UCL's faculty of Education and Society. Her most recent publication is Disaster Anarchy: Mutual Aid and Radical Action (Pluto 2022) and she is soon to publish the co-edited volume Utopian and Dystopian Explorations of Pandemics and Ecological Breakdown: Entangled Futurities (Palgrave, 2024). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Gabriele Montalbano considers the Italian-speaking anarchists of the end of the nineteenth century and their involvement and legacy in trade union movements and strikes in Tunis during the first decade of the twentieth century. This essay demonstrates the connection between diasporas, anarchism, and labour movements, and the place of Tunis in the global radical network. For the English version of the talk: 00.41 - 16:07 For the Italian version of the talk: 16.11 - 30.31 Gabriele Montalbano is Postdoctoral Researcher and Adjunct Professor in History of Colonial and Postcolonial Spaces and in History of Maghreb at the University of Bologna. His most recent publications are ‘Tunis in the Global Radical Web' and Les Italiens de Tunisie.     Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group and the journal Anarchist Studies. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Artwork by Sam G.  

Duane Rousselle is a Canadian sociological theorist, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and Professor of Sociology. He works in several academic fields including Social Movement Studies, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Cultural Sociology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Anarchist Studies, and Continental Philosophy. His work attempts to introduce an alternative to scholarly discourses that aim to produce consistent and coherent bodies of knowledge (e.g., "University Discourse"). It also offers a counterpoint to what Jacques Lacan has called "capitalist discourse."He helped to contribute to the emergence of a new field of scholarly investigation known as "post-anarchism." He founded and edits the journal Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies. He is a noted Canadian public intellectual.DON'T FORGET TO LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, AND SHARE!Become a Patreon Patron:https://www.patreon.com/cyberdandySupport the show

In this essay, adapted from his recently published book, Anarchist Atheist Punk Rock Teacher, DaN McKee reflects on his personal experiences with the inner conflict of being an anarchist teacher working within a school-system built on discipline and control.  He looks back on his misguided attempts to subvert such systems through strict adherence to their absurd rules, and the more successful moments of subversion that came when he restored humanity and horizontalism to his classroom. DaN McKee received his PhD from Cardiff University in 2009 and is currently Head of Theology and Philosophy at a secondary school in the West Midlands.  Alongside Anarchist Atheist Punk Rock Teacher: A Memoir of Struggle, Grief, Philosophy and Hope (out now on Earth Island), his recent publications include Authentic Democracy: An Ethical Justification of Anarchism  and ‘Character Flaws – An Anarchist Critique of Character Education in England's Secondary Schools' in Anarchist Studies. His forthcoming paper, ‘An Error of Punishment Defences in the Context of Schooling' will be published in the Journal of Philosophy of Education soon. DaN also produces music under the name of Strangely Shaped By Fathers and runs the websites www.philosophyunleashed.com and www.everythingdanmckee.com  Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro Artwork by Sam G.

This bonus episode is a conversation Stephen had with anarchist Hayward Gatch about his experience studying with Jehovah's Witnesses. They also get into the politics of anarchy and it's different forms where they have a lively discussion about the benefits and/or downsides of the state. Become a patron to support the podcast https://pod.link/1540824671/episode/c44b365f30de35687734f3e83af38aab Contact us https://culthackers.com/  

In this episode, I speak to Dr. Duane Rousselle. Duane is a Canadian sociological theorist, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and Professor of Sociology. He works in several academic fields including Social Movement Studies, Lacanian Psychoanalysis, Cultural Sociology, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Anarchist Studies, and Continental Philosophy. He is the author of numerous books including his latest work, Post-Anarchism and Psychoanalysis: Seminars on Politics and Society. We engage in a free flowing conversation about the unconscious, society and love. Hope you enjoy!

In this essay, Spencer Beswick argues that anarchist infrastructure, values, and tactics played a key role in the development of militant antifascism in the late twentieth century United States. He explores how anarchists in Anti-Racist Action (1987-2013) and Love and Rage (1989-1998) confronted fascists in the streets while also organizing radical movements that sought to address the root causes of the broader social crisis. Spencer Beswick is a PhD Candidate at Cornell University writing a dissertation titled “Love and Rage: Revolutionary Anarchism in the Late Twentieth Century.” His most recent publications are “From the Ashes of the Old: Anarchism Reborn in a Counterrevolutionary Age (1970s-1990s)” in Anarchist Studies and “Defending Democracy Through Elections Won't Be Enough to Stop Fascism” in Truthout. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro Artwork by Sam G.  

In this podcast, Dai and Steve discuss the issues that deaf people and deaf communities face in capitalist society and the ways in which deaf people have traditionally framed their engagement and resistance to these issues. We discuss the issues that anarchists need to consider when reflecting on how anarchist spaces can be more accessible to deaf people. For a video of this talk in British Sign Language, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9_Z6nkFUqw For a text version, see the Anarchist Studies blog: https://anarchiststudies.noblogs.org/post/2023/01/16/anarchism-and-deaf-people/ Dai O'Brien is an Associate Professor in BSL and Deaf Studies in York St John University. His most recent papers are M Chua, Maartje De Meulder, Leah Geer, Jonathan Henner, Lynn Hou, Okan Kubus, Dai O'Brien and Octavian Robinson (2022) ‘1001 Small Victories: Deaf Academics and Imposter Syndrome' in The Palgrave Handbook of Imposter Syndrome in Higher Education, and ‘Theorising the deaf body: using Lefebvre and Bourdieu to understand deaf spatial experience' in Cultural Geographies.  Steve is a Lecturer in BSL and Deaf Studies at York St John University. His most recent papers are: Emery, S. D., & Iyer, S. (2021) ‘Deaf migration through an intersectionality lens'. Disability & Society, 1-22; and Emery, S.D. (2016) 'Deaf Rights Activism, Global Protest', in G. Gertz & P. Boudreault (eds) The SAGE Deaf Studies Encyclopedia, SAGE: C.A., 266-271. He has written a joint chapter and contributed to the others in the forthcoming publication: Kusters, A., Moriarty Harrelson, E., Le-Marie, A., Iyer, S., Emery, S. D. (2023) International Deaf Mobilities. Gallaudet University Press: Washington D.C. This episode of ‘Anarchist Essays' was supported by a grant from The Lipman-Miliband Trust. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Gloria Truly Estrelita provides an overview of the history of anarchism in Indonesia. Co-authored with Jim Donaghey, Sarah Andrieu and Gabriel Facal, this essay discusses the early roots of anarchist movements in the archipelago in the context of anti-colonialism and nationalism in the late 1800s and early 1900s; details the abolition of leftist movements, including anarchism, in the 1960s; traces the re-emergence of anarchism as part of protest and counter-cultural movements in the 1990s; highlights the shifting forms of state repression in the 2010s; and points to the importance of anarchist critique for the contemporary Indonesian context. Gloria Truly Estrelita is a PhD candidate in the Department of History and Civilisation at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, France. Member of Centre Asie du Sud-Est (CASE), she is also one of the founders of AlterSEA, Observatory of Political Alternatives in Southeast Asia (GT Estrelita's most recent publication is an article on GIS Asie: 'Can progressive thinking exist in contemporary Indonesia?' For the English version: 0:46 – 19:03 For the Bahasa Indonesian version: 19:09-37:32 For text versions of these essays, see the Anarchist Studies blog: English - https://anarchiststudies.noblogs.org/article-a-brief-history-of-anarchism-in-indonesia/ Bahasa Indonesian - https://anarchiststudies.noblogs.org/article-sejarah-singkat-anarkisme-di-indonesia/ This episode of ‘Anarchist Essays' was supported by a grant from The Lipman-Miliband Trust. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro Artwork by Sam G.

In this essay, Jim Donaghey reads the introductory chapter to the newly published book Smash The System! Punk Anarchism as a Culture of Resistance, edited by Jim Donaghey, Will Boisseau and Caroline Kaltefleiter, and published by Active Distribution in December 2022. The volume includes 18 chapters, offering a snapshot of anarchist punk as a culture of resistance across the globe. In these diverse and internationalist contexts we witness struggles against racism and colonialism in South Africa, resistance to neo-liberalism and state oppression in Latin America, resistance to police brutality and capitalism in Western, Central and Southeast Europe, struggles for equality and against patriarchy in the US, and anarchist resistance against injustice and authoritarianism in Asia.  Smash The System! is the first volume in the Anarchism and Punk Book Project series. A written version of this essay is available on the Anarchist Studies blog. Our music comes from Them'uns (featuring Yous'uns). Anarchist Essays is brought to you by Loughborough University's Anarchism Research Group. Follow us on Twitter @arglboro Artwork by Sam G.

Ruth Kinna is a professor of political philosophy at Loughborough University in the UK.  She gained her doctorate in politics from the University of Oxford and, since 2007, has been the editor of the journal Anarchist Studies.  She has published many academic papers and books for the general reader, including Anarchism: A Beginner's Guide and The Government of No One: The Theory and Practice of Anarchism.  Today we discuss the intellectual tradition of anarchism in general as well as particular strands that deal with spirituality and our relationship to nature.

Resisting state repression and surveillance is one of the cornerstones of The Final Straw and has been since the beginning of this project. Over the years we've featured interviews with support committees, political prisoners, defendants in ongoing cases, incarcerated organizers, radical legal workers and lawyers and others to talk about how power strikes at those who it fears constitute a threat. For those of us caught up in cases, navigating self-defense through the courts, penal system and mainstream media can be treacherous, as we attempt to balance our political and personal goals with our lawyer's desire to have us do as little time and pay as little money as possible to the courts. Winning in these circumstances can sometimes seem to pit a well-meaning lawyer or legal worker against their own client. Enter the Tilted Scales' new book, “Representing Radicals.” This week, you'll hear Jay from the Tilted Scales Collective talk about this book out from AK Press and the Institute for Anarchist Studies, about anti-repression work, and about this book's attempt to shift the culture of legal representation by intervening with arguments by radical lawyers, more intimately inviting clients and their supporters into the fray and new frameworks for approaching cases. You can find their guide for defendants and other resources, as well as contact, at TiltedScalesCollective.Org. You can hear our 2017 interview with another member of Tilted Scales about their defendants guide. And you can follow the group on instagram or twitter. You can find a transcript of this interview up at our website in a week, linked alongside others as well as print-able zines at TFSR.WTF/Zines . ... . .. Featured Track: The Wrong Side Of The Law by Mick Jones from Mick Jones

Episode Notes Cici can be found on twitter @postleftprole. The IAF-FAI can be found on twitter @IAF__FAI and through their website iaf-fai.org. The Javelina Network can be found on twitter @JavelinaNetwork. The host Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. You can support her and this show on Patreon at patreon.com/margaretkilljoy. For an overview of radio from an anarchist perspective, check out the zine For An Anarchist Radio Relay League. Transcript 1:32:19 SPEAKERS Margaret, Cici, Eepa Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy. Are use she or they pronouns. This week I'm talking with two people who have a lot of experience with different radio communications, mostly HAM radio and other means of two-way radio communications. Their names are Cici and Eepa and they work with the Indigenous Anarchist Federation and/or the Javelina Network which is a network of—well, they'll explain it. And we're going to be talking a lot about radio communications, and they actually do a really good job of breaking it down—a subject that could feel very technical. I know I get very overwhelmed when I try and understand radio communications. They break it down in a fairly non-technical way that, well, I'm excited for you all to hear. So this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And usually I lead with a jingle, but this week I'm going to do something slightly different and first I'm just going to say welcome to the Maroon Cast. I don't believe they have a jingle yet. But there is a new podcast on the network called the Maroon Cast and it is absolutely worth checking out. And the jingle—they actually call it a commercial—that I am going to play is from the Institute for Anarchist Studies who are offering grants. And here's that. Hooray. Hey radicals, anarchists, and all of you liberatory leftists. Are you a podcaster, video maker, multimedia artist, or writer? The Institute for Anarchist Studies wants to let you know we have grants available for projects focusing on Black and Indigenous archaisms, police abolition and alternatives, and mutual aid. For details and how to apply visit anarchiststudies.org and click on the grants application post on our main page. That's anarchiststudies.org. Anarchist-studies-dot-O-R-G. Applications close January 31, 2021. Spread the word and tell your friends. Okay, so if y'all could introduce yourself with I guess your name, your pronouns, and then any political or organizational affiliations that makes sense with what you're going to be talking about today. Cici 02:32 So my name is Cici. I do she/her pronouns, I also do they/them pronouns. I don't really have any organizational affiliations at this time. I am—I have some experience with radio in a like a certain area, but in other areas I'm still learning and I'm trying to get up to speed. I am a licensed radio operator which helps a bit. But obviously, like, you don't have to be licensed to do stuff with a radio. And that's I guess enough about me. Eepa 03:13 All right, [I didn't catch a lot of this except Eepa] and I use he/him pronouns. My affiliations, I'm with the Indigenous Anarchist Federation and I'm a part of the newly formed Javelina Network. And basically, I am fairly new to the whole communication world. But it's one of those things that I've become very passionate about building up people's knowledge that way in communities for mutual aid, you know, both in disasters and just for general preparedness. We have ways of communicating that don't rely on, you know, corporate infrastructure or government infrastructure. Margaret 04:02 Yeah, so I guess one of the first things that I want to ask you all, for people who are, like—so this will probably be in some ways a slightly more technical conversation than some of the—some of my shows, just because, at least, there's an awful lot of acronyms and weird technical stuff that comes along with learning about radios. And I think it's worth—I'm going to ask you all a lot about that stuff. But I guess I was wondering if you all could start with kind of like a pitch for why we should care about radios. Like, we all have cell phones. Shouldn't we just use cell phones? Like what are some of the advantages of understanding and having an experience with radio communication? Eepa 04:40 So one of the things that people should consider whenever they're using—whatever type of communications you're using on a daily basis, that could be using email through ProtonMail or using Signal or WhatsApp, or just using your regular cell phone service—these are things things that are controlled by somebody. So the infrastructure that makes them possible is controlled by either corporations, or they're controlled by corporations and regulated by the government. They're subject to warrants and data collection and they're subject to a lot of other, you know, less security-related, but more just infrastructure in general. You know, if, as we saw in hurricane Maria, when hurricanes come they knocked down cell phone towers and if you don't have cell phone towers, your cell phone just becomes a, you know, a box with whatever photos you have on, it doesn't become very useful for communications. And the same thing goes for emails, when you are logging on to your, you know, ProtonMail account which is, you know, a great service and everything—if those servers go down in Switzerland, then you're out of luck—that that means that communication no longer exists. If the United States government decides to block a certain app that—that could basically cut off your service and take away all of your context. So it's a very fragile thing that we have, you know, during normal circumstances cell phone services is great, it's convenient. And honestly, it should still probably be your primary means of communication because of its ease of use. But there's a lot to be said for having all of the infrastructure you need to communicate in your own hands without needing any external infrastructure, aside from a community of other people who are likewise equipped and trained to communicate with. Cici 06:42 I think that's an excellent answer. In addition to what Eepa said I would basically just add on, like, yeah, there's—it's hard with the infrastructure that people usually use—cell phone towers, servers, routers, or at least, you know, commercially available routers and phones and everything. People don't have—people in, like, their communities don't have a lot of control over it. One of the things that I'm actually—I need to do way more study into it, because it's rather technical. But if something were to happen and the internet were to go down, either unintentionally, because—or, you know, not because of a—because like it's natural—something natural happens like a hurricane. Or because the government has shut the internet down for the express purposes of, you know, preventing people from communicating. One of the things radio can do is it can actually mimic a internet, I should—I may say mimic but it's actually a true internet protocol. So you can actually get an internet running up in your community. Those are the kind of things that I think radio is great for. I would echo what Eepa said where it's not really a—in terms of people saying, "Well, I have a cell phone what's, you know, what is radio offer to me?" I'd actually say, yeah, I don't think that just being able to say, "Hey, I communicated with somebody in another spot." Like, that's not really the attraction necessarily for learning a bunch of radio things. I would also note for a lot of people who are just doing off-grid stuff, there's a lot of places where your cell phone just, there's just no signal, it's too far away from cell phone towers. You can still get out with a radio if something were to help. A lot of people are like, well, you know, I'm not gonna be setting up a another Wifi internet system. But, you know, if you're ever hiking or you're doing stuff that's just not close to a big city or whatever, it can still be useful if something happens, you get hurt, you're not out in the middle of nowhere with no cell phone signal needing extreme medical attention immediately. So I just like to point that kind of thing out where it's useful on an individual level, but it's also useful on a community level. Margaret 08:58 Yeah. Yeah. I mean— Eepa 09:00 I think that that's probably one of those—I think that's one of those misconceptions that people have about radio, just in a general sense, is they think that it's two people on walkie-talkies talking to each other. But there's a whole realm of radio use that includes, you know, sending messages, photographs, even videos utilizing radio that people are probably not aware of. Margaret 09:24 I only learned about that really recently when someone was talking about how you can take your Baofeng radio and—I think it was, like, get a photo from the international space station on your cell phone by having your, like, cell phone listen to what's coming out of your radio? Eepa 09:46 Yeah. Margaret 09:48 That was a good moment of like, "Oh, this is some scifi shit." And I'm like, "Oh, and I mean it's some like 1970s scifi shit." But it's—that's so fucking cool. Yeah, I mean, okay, so like, I'm rudely guessing that a lot of people who are listening, if they have much experience like, say, direct action stuff, they're probably their only real experience with radios might be walkie-talkies. Right? And so I was—I was wondering if there's like a way to, like—the thing that really intimidates me when I look at radios is that I look and then I'm, like, okay, there's high frequency, very high frequency, ultra high frequency. There's walkietalkies which use FRS. There's MURS. They're CB radios, there's GMRS radios, there's the Business Band, there's a HAM radio. There's AM/FM, SSB, contint CW, like, there's like all this shit, right? And so I guess I kind of wanted to like start and try and kind of break some of this down if you all can, like, maybe talk starting with like—maybe you'll have a better pedagogical sense of like where to start or something. But in my head, I would ask you first about maybe, like, Family Radio Service, the walkie-talkies, that people might be used to, like what they can be used for and kind of build out from there. Or if there's another way to introduce all of this that you all would like to use. Cici 11:18 I can't actually speak too much to the Family Radio Service. I'm glad you mentioned that there's a lot of different modes. What tends to happen is there's very few people that know all of that, or if they do they're a dime a dozen. At least from my experience talking to other radio people, they tend to focus in areas that they think are interesting, or areas that they think are useful, or whatever. So for instance, you mentioned Family Radio and you mentioned, I believe it's GR-GMRS, I actually have like no experience in those. I mentioned in the introduction that I'm licensed. What I meant by that, or I probably should have been more specific, is that I'm licensed as an amateur radio operator. If people have ever heard someone talk about HAM radio, that's basically what I'm talking about. HAM is just another way of saying an amateur radio app. I'm an amateur in the sense that I don't get money. I'm not like a radio station. I'm not commercially broadcasting, like, the radio you might listen to music or whatever. So that's all that means. Amateur doesn't necessarily mean you don't know a lot or that, you know, it just means I don't get paid. And that my license basically says I can't get paid to broadcast. So that's kind of my experience. So yeah, I don't know if Eepa would be able to talk about the Family Radio Service. Some people have heard CB radio. I believe that's—it's similar to amateur radio but it's it's still very different. I actually associated with truckers doing stuff in the, like, I know, that's kind of an old association, doing stuff in their cars. As far as modes, I know Margaret, you mentioned things like single sideband which is that SSB. That's a voice mode. You mentioned—I guess I should start with the—you mentioned high frequency, very high frequency, and ultra high frequency. Usually people will shorten that to the individual letter. So like very high frequency they'll just say VH, VHF. Those just basically are a shorthand way of talking about how far you can talk. So for instance, people that have Baofengs are often going to be using very high frequency or ultra high frequency. Very high frequency is usually going to be a line of sight, maybe a little bit further because radio waves can actually see a little further than, like, the way we see the horizon. But for instance, if you and a friend both had Baofengs and you lived in the same city, depending on your antenas, that a bunch of other technical stuff, you should be able to hear each other. A lot of times the type of radio also use a repeater. The repeater is basically something that will send the signal further—it's it's own equipment but it will send your signal further than if you just had it by yourself. So when people hear that I just want them to think, "Oh, that's just distance." My interest is in very high—or, excuse me, is in just high frequency, just HF. That tends to be very far distances. So like that's usually talking to people in other countries, or talking to people across, like, a country, like a big country like the United States, or the so-called the United States. I'm in the Midwest, I can use high frequency to talk to someone in California which is obviously not line of sight or, you know, horizon. So that's all that means. I don't—a lot of times HAM radio and radio in general uses these terms that make stuff sound really technical and really like scary, but it's actually just a—there's an easier way to understand it. So that has to just do with distance. That's all I'll say about that for now. I don't want to overload but uh... Eepa 15:01 Yeah, and so basically what I'll add to that is there's two basic things that somebody who's new to radio needs to do to understand what their radio is going to be used for. And so like Cici was talking about with the frequencies: Frequency is one of the two things that you really need to pay attention to when you're a beginner, is frequency and wattage. So wattage is just how much power is actually being emitted from your radio. So one of the ways that you can think about frequency—we'll start with frequency first—is it's basically wavelength. And so the shorter your wavelength, the smaller it is, the smaller the distance—or the frequency or sorry, the frequency. So ultra high frequency, very short distance. Very high frequency is going to be kind of a medium distance. And then high frequency is long distance. Now what the Family Radio Service radios that you're talking about, they broadcast on very high frequency. But what makes them not very good for communicating at distance is they have a low wattage, so they're legally not allowed to go above a certain wattage. And so that means that they can only communicate at like a very, very short distance. Basically, these radios were designed so that way parents and kids could have radios or, you know, a family convoying on a vacation—this is in the days before cellphones—could have communication with each other. And so they didn't need very high wattage, and they didn't want these radio frequencies to be basically blocking other radio traffic. So it's a low wattage, very high frequency and that means that it's going to be a very limited distance. So even with like ultra high frequency, if you have a low wattage, you get even less distance. What amateur radio opens up to you is higher wattage, and it opens up more frequencies. So that's the key thing there. Margaret 17:09 Okay, yeah, I took a bunch of notes about this right before. Right before we started I was trying to like map out all of this because I've been learning about this some for a while. And I was just trying to map all of this out. And what I came up with was basically like three types of, in the US, unlicensed types of radios, and then like two sort of types of licensed radios with HAM radio being kind of like the big—or amateur radio being like the big open one. And it was kind of interesting to me because I learned, like, for example, like I was reading about, like, what the hell is the difference between CB and FRS, and between walkie talkies and trucker radios as I always kind of saw it. And yeah, so I guess if CB is high frequency it needs—it can go further on lower wattage—or I don't know if it goes through a low wattage, but it can go—it bend—the the frequencies like bend around the horizon and hills and shit better. But apparently it takes like a much, much more of an antenna and it doesn't like going into buildings and shit very well as compared to like— Eepa 18:17 Yeah. Margaret 18:17 UHF, which is like much more—I don't know, in my head it's almost like piercing rather than, like, you know, it doesn't go very far but it like goes through things a little better or something? And doesn't need as much of an antenna. I don't know, that's what I—what I—so I guess—like, what I came up with as the things that you can use unlicensed are—well, I mean, you can theoretically use anything—well anyway—actually, I'm gonna ask you some about some of that stuff and a little bit, what you can get away with. But unlicensed, you can use FRS which are like the walkie talkies, you can use CB which has like a slightly higher wattage limit and is shortwave only but requires more of an antenna, and then something called MURS, M-U-R-S, Multi Use Radio Service, which is, like, a little bit better. And then, I think, in terms of licensed radio, I'm actually—I'm running this past youu so you can like tell me if I'm wrong. But also if I'm right then I'm just expressing everything that I learned to the audience. In terms of licensing, there is one type of license you can get without taking a test, you just give the US government 70 of your dollars. And it's General Mobile Radio Service, GMRS. And it's, like, still substantially more limited than amateur radio, right? But it allows more—I don't know, it's a little bit—it's nicer than than family radio service. It's nicer than a walkie-talkie. It's like a fancy walkie-talkie. And you don't have to take a test, versus amateur radio, which I guess you have to in order to—you have to pass these very intimidating tests in order to start using it, or in order to legally start using it. And I guess—I dunno, does that match up with with—does that seem correct? This is just like what I put together right for the show. Eepa 20:08 Yeah, so if people wanted to just get on the radio, like, tonight, if you could just go down to the store and pick something up and get on the radio. Basically, what you outlined is spot on, you know, Family Radio Service is probably the weakest kind of radio that you can get. And, again, if you're within, you know, eyesight of the person you're talking to those kind of radios will work for you. CB radios are larger, typically they're mounted in like a vehicle. So they are a little bit less easy to keep on your person but they do carry further. So this is what nowadays you tend to see, like, off -oaders and other things like that use whenever they're going out in the desert and off-roading. Again, you have limited channels on both of those. So you have, like, you know, theoretically there's a bunch of channels in there, sub-channels, but it's very limited. So if you're in a city or something, you could find very easily that all of those channels are occupied and being used by people. And so that could just make things really confusing and really challenging. CB radios are kind of known as, like, the wild west of like the radio world, because you can say and do anything on that radio channel without any kind of punishment. So it's full of very not great things. And, again, it's a very busy radio channel because it's used by a lot of unlicensed people to communicate. Now, when you're talking about basic commercial radio, which is that license you're talking about for those handheld, the GMRS, that is going to be something that usually requires that you show you are a business. So you need to have an LLC, a nonprofit, some kind of designator, some kind of, like, you know, tax ID or whatever, to tell the FCC that yes, I'm a business. They will assign you a little tiny frequency of the spectrum that none of the other businesses in your area have and then you're stuck with it. So that means that you might have a few channels on your radio, but that's all that's going to be available to you to legally use. And you're having to pay money on a regular basis to keep that license. Margaret 22:23 Okay. Eepa 22:24 The one upside to that is you do get to use a slightly more powerful radio that—I mean, they are designed for, you know, like, mines and construction sites and factories, that's typically where these kind of radios are used. So they are more powerful and they also have the legal ability to be encrypted. So you can actually get encrypted radios, which is not legal on any other radio service. The only way you can do that is through the GMRS. But you have to go through a major company to get your encryption service which means if somebody wants to de-encrypt your radio, all they have to do is get in contact with the company and find out what your encryption keys are and then they're in. So this is also something that you see a lot of law enforcement that had switched to is this style of radio, just a modified one that are, you know, higher power and use repeaters. So these are all legal non-testing options, but they're purposefully designed to limit you. They're designed to basically reduce your capacity to communicate beyond line of sight in a way that, I mean, the amateur radio community would say the reason why is because, you know, you can't have people running rampant on the on the air, there needs to be, you know, law and order on the air. So that's part of the reason why the amateur bands are more thoroughly regulated, is to basically make sure that there's a system of accountability to the government. Margaret 24:00 Okay. Cici 24:04 Actually, I'm really glad that Eepa shared tha. I have—my information outside of HAM radio is very limited so I actually learned a lot listening to that. The only different thing I would like to say is there's actually a lot of changes coming with the—not with the testing, but the FCC—this is extremely recent. Like, I think the actual report from the FCC is, like, was dated like December 28—of like a few days ago, like last month, basically, it'sless than a month old. But they did actually say they're going to start charging people for HAM radio licenses. This is extreme because it used to—like, as of right now it's completely free. You have to take a test, but you don't have to pay any money. Sometimes if you look online you'll see people saying they want $15. That doesn't actually go to the FCC, that goes to the people providing the test itself. Those people are actually just HAM radio operators. It's, one of the interesting things is that the FCC actually has a very decentralized, like, they basically let HAM radio operators test each other and that's—they just send the paperwork to the FCC to get your callsign. So if anyone's at home thinking, "Oh, I was thinking about getting licensed and I think I'm ready." If you don't want to pay the FCC $35, like, I would, I would say, like, do what now. Along with that, they actually cut the GMRS license to $35 as well, it used to be $70. So they actually made getting a GMRS license and getting a HAM radio license the same price. HAM radio—people on ham radio, very upset, like, they—one of the big things is, oh, we need to attract people to HAM radio. So, like, the community in general is not happy about this change. It hasn't taken effect yet. The report doesn't actually say exactly when it's supposed to take effect, like, it's supposed to take effect the month after the report, but then it has to go through a bunch of bureaucracy. If I had to guess I'd say they're probably going to try to do it sometime around February/March. But it might be sooner, it might be more after that. As far as my experience, I—that's correct, you do have to take a test to get into HAM radio. Even in HAM radio, the first—there's three levels. Basically you have to pass each test to get to the next level. So like you can't just, like—so the levels, the first one you have is technician—technician level. The second one's a general level, that's actually where I'm at. I have a general level license. And then the highest one is called amateur extra, a lot of people just say "extra." That's—extras basically have the most privileges on the HAM radio. Margaret 26:36 They all sound inverted. Like, if I was to come up with the hierarchy, I would be like amateur, general, technician. Cici 26:44 Yeah no, they're like actually, like, holdovers from older—like there used to be advanced, there used to be a novice and, like, they've changed—the FCC is the one that's in charge of making these levels. And it's like, it's changed a lot. It used to be kind of like five or like three and a half kind of, and now it's basically just the three. Sometimes you'll run into a really old HAM who's like, "I haven't advanced license," and it's, like, what the hell is that? But it's basically like an old, depreciated license that they don't issue anymore. So yeah, I'm at the middle level. You can't just jump straight to, like, one of the levels. So like, if you're like, "I think I know enough to get an extra license," you can't just go and say, "Give me the extra test, I'll get an extra license." But you can take them all in one sitting. So like, if you're like, "I'm pretty sure I could do the extra," they'll give you a technician test. If you pass it, they'll give you a general test. If you pass it, they'll give you an extra test. The extra test has more questions, it's—I'm actually studying for it right now. It's very technical. It's kind of like what Eepa was referring to. There's kind of a culture of HAM radio. And it's, there's this idea that you basically have to earn your privileges on the bands by knowing what you're doing and all this type of basically hierarchy type of ideas. But I mean, it is helpful to know some of the things that are in the test. I've actually learned a lot, just from having to study for the technician or the general test even though I've forgotten some of it. The licenses are good for 10 years. So you do have to actually renew them every 10 years. So yeah, after a few years I'll have to renew mine, and pay them this stupid fee that didn't exist when I first got it. But yeah, also something I want to put out is if you—you only need a license if you want to transmit. By what I mean by that is if you want to send a signal out. That's important if you're, like, if you're in an emergency situation, you're probably going to want to send a signal out. If you're trying to communicate with people that are not near you, you want to send a signal out. But if you just want to listen you actually don't need a license, you can actually go grab a radio tonight, tune your radio to HAM radio bands and just listen all day long, as long as you don't transmit. And technically you're not supposed to interfere. So you can't, like, jam other people's signals. But, like, if you're not transmitting, you can listen, like whatever. Like there's no license to listen. So that's something interesting I want people to know: if you just want to listen to stuff, you don't actually need a license. Margaret 29:05 What do they talk about around you? Because around me, like, I got a scanner and, you know, it doesn't transmit any way, right? And I set it to listen to HAM radio channels, and I mostly heard like a 70-year-old talking to maybe a 15-year-old about like how to cook hot dogs and how to get trucks unstuck in mud, and then started explaining a story about snakes that I found very improbable. And that was about the most interesting thing that's happened, like, all of the many hours I've, like, just had the scanner on in the background. I don't know. I'm curious what you all have heard people talking about on these things. Cici 29:45 So for me, I actually don't do that much listening. Going back to kind of like different areas of different—I guess that's something called "rag chewing." In the HAM radio world that's if you hear someone say, "Oh, you're rag chewing," that's basically you're getting on the radio, you're just listening to other people. A lot of times people will make—I don't want to say a game, game probably sounds—is the right—is the wrong—but people will actually do this as a contest. Like, sometimes people will try to contact as many people as you can in a certain amount of time. You've heard of people called "contesting," that's what they mean. You'll hear some people "de-exing," this is better if you have that—so if you're in the high frequency, you try to get people as far away from you as you can. A lot of that, actually, you don't say much. Because you want to get as many contacts, you'll actually have this very non-conversation. It's basically like your call sign, like, some necessary information and that's it. Some people actually automate it. It's interesting. So you don't actually say a lot when you're doing that. However, I know we mentioned ultra high frequency, the UHV—or excuse me UHF, I'm sorry—UHF earlier, and somebody might be thinking, "Why would I want to even talk"—like they're very short, like, distances. They can penetrate into buildings which is helpful. So someone's like, "Why would I want to do that? If somebody right there, like, what's the point?" I mentioned earlier, one of the things you can do is you can create your own WiFi networks. Those actually operate. And those vary—or excuse me, not very, but ultra high frequency. 13 centimeters is about where that happens if people are able to look at a band plan and, like, see what links go where. If you were trying to set up your own—like, even like the commercial WiFi networks operate in that same thing. That's why your router is generally limited to your house and just outside your house and why you can't pick up a router like a mile away. So that's kind of like—I know, this is getting away from the question of what do people talk about around you. Margaret 31:50 Oh, no, no. Go on. This is a better tangent. Cici 31:55 It's like you don't have to necessarily even if you—there's a lot of people that have radios and they hardly ever listen, they don't ever rag chew. One of the things I'm trying to learn is it's basically Morse code. I don't know why I said basically, it is Morse code. It's called—for technical reasons it's called "continuous wave" in HAM radio. So if you hear people saying CW, that's Morse code. One of the attractive things in Morse code—because someone's like, "Well, why would you want to do that, that seems way more, way more like technical and you have to learn a whole thing and then"—it gets out when nothing else can. When I say that is a radio signals take up a certain amount of space, basically, in the bigger—the more space it takes up—bandwidth is how, I guess, the technical word for that. But the more bandwidth it is, the harder it can be to get that signal out. This is particularly pression, as Eepa was saying, a lot of times you're limited in how many watts you can put out. So if you're running something that's not a lot of watts—especially you've got like maybe an antenna that you've made or an antenna that's not extremely efficient—if you can do something like Morse code, it might get out, when if you were trying to do a voice code wouldn't get out. Now you have trade-offs with that, like, you know, you have to, you have to have equipment that will use it, you'll have to have somebody on the receiving end that can listen to it. But actually a lot of people use automatic—something, I forget what it's called. But it's basically something where when it comes up to your computer, or your radio, depending on if your radio is nice enough, will just automatically translate the Morse code for you. So you don't necessarily have to know it. In the HAM culture it's kind of like, well, that's cheating, you know, like you're supposed to like actually learn it and whatever. But if you're using it as an emergency thing, for instance, it can be really important. Another thing is if you don't really want to listen to what people around, you have to talk about, like I don't want to care—I don't care how people make hot dogs. The jokes is actually that if you are actually—a lot of it's just what gear do you have, what radio do you have? And like, "Oh, how nice is your radio?" And it's just, like, this is not information I need. One of the things, you can actually send out images? Which seems kind of like, "Well, I've got a computer, why do I care that I can send out images and like actually receive them?" This can be key if you're in a place where the government's actually shut down on purpose, you know, your your internet or your cell phone stuff, because they're doing things that they don't want people to know. For instance, I don't actually, I don't know if it's still happening. But I remember in the northern region of India, there was a blackout there a year or so ago. The Indian government was doing just, we don't really know because nothing could get out. But if you had a radio that could send out—there's fast scan and slow scan—TV is what it's called. But if you could send out an image without the government knowing, you could potentially let people know what's going on and in a situation where it's otherwise impossible to get communication out. So I mean, that's something that I—basically my answer to the question, "What do people talking around me?" is, "I don't really know." I'm not listening to people around me so much and I'm not a I'm not rag chewing, basically. But that's just to give people examples of what you can do if you're like, well, I'm really antisocial, I don't want to talk to anybody around me about just random stuff. So... Eepa 35:14 Yeah, for like around me, one of the things that—I actually do listen. I'm actually still in the process of getting licensed. The tests are themselves are, you know, intimidating and challenging but you can develop a lot of interesting insights, basically, by listening. And, I mean, around where we're at it's simple stuff, like, they have little game shows where you can, like, call in answers to trivia questions. And they have, like, little social meet and greets. They've got like a technical night where if you're having a problem with your radio, you can call in and they'll help you troubleshoot what's going on with it. And this is all done via repeaters, which means you could use a UHF or VHF, you know, like a Baofeng basically, to talk to somebody in Ohio. Now, again, these repeaters are run by local radio clubs which means, you know, you don't control the infrastructure, which means if those repeaters were to go down or, you know, the government was to take them over or something like that, you could lose access. And that's one of the reasons that I'm very interested in HF because HF is a self-contained communication system where you're able to do everything on your own. The IF's in contact with some of the people—some of the anarchists in Ethiopia. And during the recent civil war in Tigray that was one of the issues that they were running into and something that they had wished that they had basically prepared was people who could actually send out images and send out news reports on the radio from within Tigray because a lot of the news was only coming from the Ethiopian state forces. And there were, you know, reports and rumors of massacres and other things like that. But there were no images, there was nothing really to substantiate what was happening. And so just touching on that, the ability to send images and things like that is really nice. But just when it comes to listening, I think that's actually something really critical to think about when you're looking at radio from a prepper kind of standpoint, from a—the idea that you are trying to get into communications because you want to be a part of community awareness. The primary thing that you will be using radio for in a situation where communications are shut down through normal means, and that could mean just a grid down, you know, Hurricane knocked out the power grid or something like that. Or it could be something more sinister where, you know, the government is purposefully denying people access to communication. The primary thing you're gonna be doing on radio is listening, is intelligence gathering. It's figuring out what all the other HAMs that are on the radio are talking about, what are they seeing, you know. Are they seeing, you know—are there rumors of, you know, troop movements to the north? Are there rumors, that there's a food shortage in the town that's north to you or that, you know, they're sick people really concentrated in a certain area? That intelligence gathering is something that you can do with really cheap equipment. You can—one of the things that we recommend on our site is to get a shortwave, you know, receiver or something that can listen to all of these different bands. And just use that as a tool in your community to get people the ability to listen and learn because information is absolutely critical for survival, it's the central thing you can have in a situation where stability has crumbled, is to have information awareness on the ground. So listening, even when you're, you know, not licensed, can do that. It also can kind of give you an idea of what your local HAM community is like. Because one of the things that you will very, very rapidly learn, if you're a minority and you're involved in HAM, is that the community is blazingly white. And sometimes they can be fairly reactionary. And you can actually start to take notes of people that are actually kind of cool on the radio and people that you never want to talk to you again, just based off their call signs because they're required to give those. And that can help you decide in the future how reliable somebody information might be, or what kind of perspectives they might be providing in a disaster situation. So that kind of, like, finite information gathering is an important skill to develop even before you consider transmitting, you know, that's something you can work on right now. Margaret 39:59 Yeah, that makes sense. Cici 40:00 I'm actually really glad he mentioned that. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you, Margaret, I'm sorry, Margaret 40:04 No, go ahead. Cici 40:05 I was just gonna say like, I—I'm gonna preface this just legally by saying, don't ever do anything illegal on the radio. But one of the things that I don't think people necessarily realize is that the FCC isn't—they don't have the manpower to sit and listen to like every single band. So like, generally, if you're doing something say, untoward, or you're not necessarily licensed, it's not the FCC that's going to like find out. It's the other HAMs. HAM radio is largely kind of self-disciplined. It's self—like, for instance, we do our own testing. Like, it's not like if you do—if you do something someone's—the band hammer is gonna come down. It's basically if you piss off enough HAMs or if they know, they'll— they're the ones who's going to report it. Eepa had mentioned earlier in our conversation that in HAM radio you can't send encrypted communication. However, you could send—and there's kind of a formality of how you send information via HAM radio—but for instance, you could say what they would expect you to say if you were doing a regular HAM conversation and it could mean not what they would necessarily expect it to mean. So for instance, one of the things on—I don't know a lot about voice because I actually am trying to focus more and Morse code, but one of the things that you're supposed to do on Morse code to call a another radio is CQ, CQ CQ. And then someone will be like is, you know, are you looking for someone? You can use those codes to mean for your intended audience whatever you want them to mean. So it's not encrypted. But it's also something where the other HAM radio, if someone happens to be listening, has a HAM radio, they won't necessarily know what's going on. Again, you should never do anything illegal on the radio. I just want to let people know that it's not like there's a radio police that sits and actively listens, like, it's really just other HAMs that are gonna report you. Also, that's something to know. If you note that you're in kind of a, you know, maybe you live in a really remote area and there's just not a lot of other HAMs, you're listening on the air, and they're just not a lot of other people, you don't hear a lot of other people. That also might mean there's not really a lot of people listening, which means there's not a lot of people that could report you to the FCC. So that's something to keep in mind as well. If people were, you know—also something to note that even in a licensed situation, for something that's considered an emergency, and this is actually one part of the test, you can break HAM radio protocol and laws in the case of emergency. And that's actually something that's acknowledged. So like, if something were happening where it's like, this person needs immediate attention, you're not expected to follow all the—like, you can get on the air and be like, "I'm not licensed, but I need help," and most HAMs are gonna not, you know, they're not going to get on you. Like, that's allowed. So that's also something I want people to know, like, if you just want to radio for emergencies technically you should be licensed and it's good, because you'll have experience and you'll know what you're doing, but if it's something like this is like four death, or this is extreme, other HAMs aren't gonna report you. Like, people are generally, you know, and also that's allowed. So even if they did report you other HAMs would be like, well, that's allowed in the rule. So something I just wanted people to know. Margaret 43:44 Yeah, that actually helps. Eepa 43:45 So if you break your leg out in the woods, go ahead and get on your Baofeng and start honking. Margaret 43:51 So I feel like at this point, I should probably tell the audience what a Baofeng is. Which is, as far as I understand—because that's actually, that's how Baofengs were introduced to me, right is like, "Oh, yeah, I got a Baofeng." Like, "Oh yeah, there's radios over there, they're Baofengs." And like, everyone like talks about it, like, "Whoa, like, this is the fucking coolest thing ever," right? And it's just a really cheap radio that can do a lot of things. And it can do a lot of things that are legal like transmit at low wattage on FRS. And it can do a lot of things that would only be illegal if you were licensed. But it's just kind of like, what, a $20 or $30 radio you can buy on the internet and you can like swap it out with a nicer antenna? And it's just kind of like—it's become, like, kind of like a thing in this sort of like tactical and prepper and whatever worlds is like Baofengs is, like, the thing. But actually what you were talking about, about how you can use it in emergencies. That's kind of how I've always seen, like, I have a Baofeng, right? I don't really know how to use it. I've pretty much just used it to listen to things. But I'm like, okay, I could theoretically transmitted an emergency if I needed to. And, you know, for a $20 thing that can transmit in an emergency, that's cool. It's also cool that it's a tool that, like, isn't limited, like, I hate when I buy something and it's like, this is locked down to make sure that you can't do the things it's supposed to do. Just the things that you're allowed to do. You know? Eepa 45:23 Yeah. Margaret 45:23 I hate that kind of shit, I—there's a, just, I don't know, whatever. I'm clearly an anarchist, I—there's—I don't really have to defend this position very hard. Eepa 45:36 Yeah, and so like, those Baofengs are basically like, I mean, the the way that you can think about it is, like, your first, you know, foray into radio if you are, like, just—what I generally recommend Baofengs for is if you're actually interested in doing like, computer stuff with it, if you're interested in doing programming, they can be really fun to play with. Also, if you're interested in a radio that the cops can confiscate and you're not going to miss it because it's not that much of an investment, that's another really good reason to get a Baofeng. But if you're a beginner and you're serious about getting into radio, I do think that there are better options for just ease of use, because Baofengs can be very difficult to program, sometimes, they can be very finicky to use all of the functions of it. And so something like, you know, an Alinco, or a Yaesu, you know, these types of like, you know, Japanese radios can be a little bit more easy to use and they're going to be much more durable, you know, as far as like weather proofing and things like that. But again, that's something you have to weigh the pros and the cons of, you know, is this something that's gonna be confiscated at a protest, I probably don't want to spend a lot of money on it. Whereas if you're something where this isn't my go bag, I need something that's going to survive no matter what, then you might want to invest more money in something that's going to be easy to use and is going to be durable. So I mean, yeah, the Baofeng s ubiquitous, because it is cheap and there are better options that are still affordable. Margaret 47:20 I feel like the Baofeng is like such a perfect way to introduce someone to help goddamn convoluted radio looks, like, you know? Eepa 47:30 It can't—that's one of the issues with it is if you were—if I was to hand you a Yaesu. Like if I was to give you just like a Yaesu FT4X you would be able to program that without plugging in into a computer. It's much easier to use. You can just run to the menu, everything's right there. It's not convoluted and complex. And I think that's one of the issues with the Baofeng is it kind of—if you're not used to radio it can be very, very intimidating if you see that as your first introduction to radio. At least that's been my experience. I do have Baofengs, I was that typical person where I went out and I, first thing I got was, you know, a four-pack of Baofengs that I split amongst some of my comrades. And we were, you know, learning how to use them. But it was much more challenging. And the first time I used a radio with a nice, smooth, easy operation interface, you know, a nice, easy menu system. It really—it made it a lot less intimidating. Margaret 48:35 Now you sold me. I mean, yeah, like, I basically look at my Baofeng and I'm like, I'm an idiot. And I'm like, I know how to program a computer to some degree, like, I've been doing technical shit for very long time. And I just look at it, and I'm like, I don't have enough time to dedicate in my life. Actually, this ties back to something I don't remember—I think it was Cici who was saying it but I'm not sure—earlier about how like, you know, Cici's like well, I actually very involved in this community, right, but then you're like, but I only know about the stuff that I'm interested in. I don't necessarily have to know everything about everything. And that is one of the things that's so hard about radio is when you look at it from the outside, it's just a string of letters that you're supposed to know how to make sense of. I mean, it honestly reminds me of like when you get into guns or something when everyone's like, "Oh, yeah, well if you don't have this thing go attached to this thing and the other thing and then this thing, then you're just gonna die." Well I don't wanna die. Cici 49:32 I mean it's actually—yeah, I'd say with guns it's a good analogy. Like, there's very few gun people who, like, their experienced with revolvers, and they're experienced with like the latest pistols, and they're experienced with like lever guns, and their experienced with black powder, and their experienced with like—yeah, like, if people are—I don't know if listeners, if your listeners would have a good sense of like how guns are. I know you've done some episodes on firearms, but generally people tend to know more about certain aspects of firearms and they do other aspects, even though—even people that have a broad knowledge will know more about stuff than others, like black powder is very specific. A lot of people don't—who know a lot about guns, still don't know a lot about black powder, or vice versa. In the same way radio is kind of like that. There's very few. And I mean, like, I haven't met anybody who's, like, I know everything about every aspect of radio. That's, like, a crazy person. Like, or I should say, a person who's like, you know, they might be an engineer or something or that's their job. Eepa 50:33 Yeah, yeah. Cici 50:34 So for most people, like, I actually don't do too much what I would call local radio stuff and be—that'd be the very high frequency and ultra high frequency. I am interested in mesh networks, which would be the setting up those WiFi networks, but I haven't actually done a lot with it. What I'm interested in, the stuff is usually called high frequency, it's more long-distance, it's very different from the ultra high frequency. So I'm still learning a lot about setting up a mesh network and how to do a decentralized WiFi. I'm still learning a lot about that. What I guess my interests lie more in something called, I mentioned Morse code over there. There's another aspect of radio called QRP. So yeah, QRP is just a fancy way of saying low power. Generally, when people talk about radio they're gonna be talking about wattages. So we've been talking a lot about Baofengs and I know Eva mentioned the Alinko radios, Yaesu radios, these are generally going to be handy talkies. They looknkind of like what people might think a walkie-talkie would look like. The type of radios that would be a base station, they'll look very different. They look kind of like a—basically a box. It's a real, if it's a nice space station, that might be a really big box. Generally those are going to be at 100 watts or more, but those are also going to be extremely expensive. They're going to also generally require kind of semi-complex antenna setups, a lot of room to set up some type of base station like that. The stuff that I'm interested in for low power, the difference is that it's much cheaper. And a lot of people look at radio and they're like, I don't have an extra $1,000 to just drop on like a nice radio, I don't have an extra—especially if you want to do long distance stuff. That was kind of my interest. That's actually why I have a general license. If you get a technician license, it actually kind of limits you to very high frequency and ultra high frequency. You can do some stuff on the longer distance, but it's very limited. So yeah, you to even do stuff with long distance in a general sense, you have to get a general license, but a QRP is a way that you can not spend a lot of money—or at least spend less money, it still might be a lot of money, relatively speaking. But um. What'd you say? Margaret 52:58 And QRP means low powered, right? Cici 53:01 Yeah, low power. For Morse code, that's five watts or less. For voice modes like single sideband, that would be 10 watts or less. Actually, a lot of HAM radios kind of poopoo it because they're like, why would you use, you know—it's just, it can be difficult because you're using such little power, but you get a lot of benefits with it. A lot of benefits is you can use a radio that doesn't—or you can use an antenna that doesn't take up a lot of space. If you live in an apartment, that's huge. If you live in a place where, you know, like, you don't—you're not supposed to set up outside antennas or something, that's huge. I already mentioned that it's very cheap, or cheaper, I shouldn't say very cheap. But it's cheaper than doing other types of radios that use much higher power. Also, one of the big things is that you can make your own radios. We were talking about earlier how one of the benefits of radio was that it's decentralized, like, you're not about to go make your own smartphone. Margaret 53:55 Mm hmm. Cici 53:56 At least I can't. I don't know anyone who can. But you could make your own radio. And you can make your own antenna. In fact, a lot of HAMs encourage people to make their own antennas because it's—antennas are actually kind of expensive to go buy. It's actually cheaper to make them. So like a lot of HAMs will just learn how to make antennas out of, like, nothing. Like a lot of people make them on a tape measure and stuff, like it's very—if you're kind of that person where it's like I want to experiment and I want to kind of just make stuff with found materials or stuff that's, like, I have already at my house. Like, that's a huge benefit. Also, we didn't mention this earlier, but RF safety kind of is a related to the amount of—it's related to a lot of stuff, but it can be related to the amount of watts you're putting out. Margaret 54:39 What is RF? Cici 54:41 Oh, sorry, RF is radio frequency. It's just—it's the type of energy we're using for radio. Margaret 54:47 So what is—how does it tie in to safety? Sorry, I'm just like... Cici 54:52 Oh, it's okay. So if you're using something like 100 watts or more and you're transmitting. Like, for instance, you should never touch an antenna at that many watts that's transmitting. You're gonna get an RF burn. It's basically something that, like, it can get kind of complicated. But—and there's—I don't want to like scare people or anything, like, it's not—I'm not trying to be like, "Oh, we didn't talk about safety." But the lower wattage you use the less you have to worry about that, basically, especially if you have an indoor antenna or something. Like, if you have an indoor antenna, you really want to keep your RF, like, levels lower so you don't—part of it is actually practical, like, we haven't talked a lot about interference. But if you have a really, really high, like, wattage, and today—it can cause interference. And it can be something where your neighbors are trying to like use their electronics, and they hear all sorts of weird stuff, they hear all sorts of clicks and whatever. That's because you're using like a really high power radio. So, like, your neighbors just might get mad and be like, "You're, we see this antenna outside your house, and it's doing this thing and blah, blah, blah." So using a less power, it can be—it can cause less interference. But also it will just cause less RF like fields, which means that it's safer to operate inside. And someone might, like, might be thinking, "Well, why would I want to operate inside? If I can operate outside, shouldn't I?" Well, it depends. Are you doing something where you don't necessarily want people to know you're operating. A big antennas, like, if you have a huge antenna outside your house, or even just kind of a moderate one but something that's obviously an antenna and not a TV antenna, it'll be like, well, that person's a radio operator. Not everybody wants that immediately known if they were to walk by their house. I'll just say that. It's something that, if you're using QRP, it's much easier for you to not cause interference, to operate from completely inside, and to be able to make your own equipment. Margaret 56:51 It's really cool honestly. Like, talking to you makes me want to learn how to build radios. Eepa 56:58 I mean, it's like, there's some benefits to, like, QRP, like low power HF radios for prepping especially because they're mobile. You can literally put one of these—you can put a full QRP setup—a low power radio, power source, an antenna, and like an antenna tuner—in your purse. You could put it in a very small satchel and be able to talk to somebody states away. So these can be really compact and really mobile solutions that still give you access to autonomous email, like, still give you access to, you know, listening to all of these different bands, transmitting all these different bands. So from a preparedness perspective, that is a huge benefit. The low wattage basically allows you to use less power from your battery so you can use a very small solar panel that folds up and into your backpack to recharge your battery when you need. And so that just has tremendous benefits for mobility. And one of the key things to think about from a, maybe, a situation where you have any type of adversary. So that could be, you know, a lot of white supremacists militia types have created radio nets and have radio training. They're—they've been working on preparing this for years, they have pre-designated frequencies and nets, they've got all these different things set up. And one of the things that they can do is they can track you. So it's extremely easy to triangulate and locate the source of a transmission. So if you are needing to transmit something that is sensitive or that will identify you, as politically opposed to people that might be interested in finding you, you're going to want to transmit from locations away from your place of residence and also in a way that doesn't, you know, create a big circle on the map around your house. You're going to want to choose random locations to transmit from, and you're going to want to use, you know—low power helps with that a little bit as well. You can reach the people you need to without giving away your position too much. But as soon as you click the transmission button, you're opening up the world to find out exactly where you're at. So you can transmit what you need to, pack up, and get out of there if you need to. That's the nice thing about those low power rigs. So that's something to really think about when you're getting into radio. And, yeah, you can build your own, you can build your own antenna. There's some awesome antennas that you can literally just launch up into a tree with a slingshot and it's—all it is is one giant long strand of speaker cable, speaker wire. That's it, that's an antenna. Nothing more is needed. You just need a little antenna tuner to hook up to it and your radio and you're good to go. So those kinds of things are—they open up the whole world to you on a very, very—on a lower budget than you would be if you had a base station. One of the things that we talked about with the article that we released the Javelina Network is that handheld radios and QRP HF radios are very good for transmitting on the go and that was our main focus on that. You can do base stations which is like based out of your apartment, based out of your co-op or your bookstore or whatever you want to do. But again, that's a known location, that's a fixed location, that means that you have to be much more careful about what you're transmitting. And if you're transmitting outside of legal areas, the amateur radio committee has a whole community of amateur snitches that their whole thing—they get their jollies by tagging people on not having licenses and stuff. So it can happen. You just got to be careful about what you do. Margaret 1:00:53 That's actually one of the questions that I—when I asked around basically being like what should I ask these people? One of the questions that came up a couple times was how real is—I think—it was presented to me that's called fox hunting? Like, the hobby of tracking down on licensed operators. What a great culture, what a wonderful culture where their whole thing is just snitching on people. But so, yeah, my question was, like, how real is that? Like, how much do people—especially like, let's say if you're not—I mean obviously if you're doing something where people are—where the people around you are politically opposed to you, and opposed to what you're saying, obviously that will increase the odds. But if you're just, like, coordinating some random bullshit like picking up lumber or something like that, how much do you act—do people—how real is this? How much do people actually get kind of tracked down? Eepa 1:01:52 So from my experience, basically, fox hunting—I'm sorry, I've got a ICE helicopter flying over me right now. The—as far as fox hunting goes, if you go to any type of, like, HAM Fest or HAM convention or HAM con or, you know, whatever you want to go to, they will all have fox hunting competitions. This is something that, you know, people really enjoy doing is just like, you know, hunting down signals. Now, what this is typically used for is not going to be tracking down the guy who's saying, "Hey, I got lumber," or, you know, the person who's like, "Hey, you know, I need to pick up a quart of oil from you," or something like that, or the gal that's, you know, "I've got eggs for sale," or something like that, you know. It's not typically going to be stuff like that. It's usually like sources of interference that people are going to be tracking down. So if you're causing a lot of interferenc, and it's pissing people off, then they will fox hunt you down, and they'll find out what's going on. So if you have a jammer or something like that, which are illegal, and you operate that jammer and it makes people mad—if you operate it for long enough, people will find it and they will make sure that that is put to the stop. And so you have to be careful if you do utilize jammers and things like that, that you're not using them when you don't need to. So fox hunting in, like, day to day circumstances is a little bit less of a threat. If you know kind of what radio people sound like—and, again, do this at your own risk. This is something, again, that, you know, is illegal. But if you had like a fake callsign and you just follow the standard protocols of calls, you could basically get away with it as long as you didn't accidentally have some callsign that somebody there knew as being somebody else. So generally it's not going to be an issue if you're just talking between two people, you select a frequency, you listen to it, nobody's on that frequency, nobody's been on that frequency for a long time, and you just use it to call each other to coordinate something. Just kind of sound like you belong and you'll be okay. As soon as you get into an adversarial situation, that's when you do have police operating like stingers and other devices that will track down cell phone data, they'll track down radio data, everything—any kind of frequency that's being emitted, those things will be able to track down the source of so just be very aware of when and how you're transmitting, and be safe about it. Cici 1:04:29 Absolutely. And I would actually add to what Eepa says: If you're going to use a call sign, first you want to absolutely know who—you know, if you're licensed—So, okay, so for people who are like what the hell is call sign? Margaret 1:04:43 Yeah I was about to ask. Cici 1:04:46 For HAM radio, what—basically what happens is you take this test. Assuming you pass they'll—what the license actually—the most important thing that I guess the license gives you is a call sign. I actually have a call sign. I'm not going to say it. The reason I'm not going to say it is because for anybody that says a call sign, it's instantly look up-able. When you take the test you have to give like an address, it's supposed to be your home address, of where you live. And basically that data is publicly available. So like, if I were to say my call sign right now, anybody listening to this podcast could go look it up online and find out exactly who I am—or at least, I shouldn't say exactly who I am. They could find out the name that I gave to the FCC, which is my real name. They could find out the address I have listed. You're supposed to updat it, like, you know, every time you move or whatever. A lot of people don't necessarily but like if they find out, like, that can become an issue. So for instance, let's say you just found a call sign. Nobody's using it. Cool. Somebody happens to look it up—and they might actually do this innocuously, a lot of people want these—they're called QSL cards. It's basically a little card that say, "Hey, I contacted you." And it's like a postcard that 's like, oh, cool. So they might just look it up just thinking, "Hey, I contacted you, I want a little postcard," and see that,

Episode Notes The guest, Philip, has compiled this list of further resources and encourages people to check out look into them because there are a lot of good lessons about how counterinsurgency has operated historically that can help us resist today.   Know Your Rights trainings are available from the CLDC and ACLU [including the Live Like the World is Dying episode on the subject]   For the history of police and state repression "Our Enemies in Blue": "Secret Police, Red Squads, and the Strategy of Permanent Repression" "Life During Wartime" - Kristian Williams, Lara Messersmith-Glavin, William Munger "Witness to Betrayal / Profiles of Provocateurs" - Kristian Williams "Basic Politics of Movement Security" - J Sakai "Policing Indigenous Movements" - Andrew Crosby & Jeffery Monaghan good for Canadian context Intercept article on TigerSwan surveillance of Standing Rock: "New State Repression" Ken Lawrence "War at Home: Covert Action Against US Activists and What We Can Do About It"- Brian Glick Government resources on counterintelligence Church Committee Report (federal committee on FBI COINTELPRO ops) "Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency, Peace-Keeping" Frank Kitson The host, Margaret Killjoy, can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy, instagram @margaretkilljoy, and on Patreon at patreon.com/margaretkilljoy. Transcript: Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm your host, Margaret Killjoy, and I use she or they pronouns. This week I'm talking with Philip who, among many other things, teaches security culture trainings. And I first was introduced to Philip's work on it when we had a conversation about the complexities of security culture. Security culture—we'll go over in this episode—is basically the idea of creating a culture of security, a culture of a way—creating a culture by which people don't get caught as much for the types of things that they may choose to want to do in order to advance, you know, their desires. It's for activists and revolutionaries and shit to not get fucking caught. It has lot of good tools around how to do that kind of culturally. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And—but for this week, and next week, I'm going to do it a little bit differently, and instead of running a jingle for another show on the network, I'm just gonna tell you about another show on the network because I don't think they have a jingle yet. And basically say that the Maroon Cast is now a member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts and I'm very excited about that. And you all should go check it out. Also, the Institute for Anarchist Studies is an organization that gives grants to people who—well, I'm just about to play a fucking jingle for it. So I'll just fuckin play the jingle for it—da daaaa! Jingle 01:40 Hey, radicals, anarchists, and all of you liberatory leftists: Are you a podcaster, video maker, multimedia artist, or writer? The Institute for Anarchist Studies wants to let you know we have grants available for projects focusing on Black and indigenous anarchisms, police abolition and alternatives, and mutual aid. For details and how to apply visit anarchiststudies.org and click on the grants application post on our main page. That's anarchiststudies.org. Anarchist-studies-dot-O-R-G. Applications close January 31, 2021. Spread the word and tell your friends. Margaret 02:24 Okay, so if you could introduce yourself with whatever name you want to go by, your pronouns, and I guess kind of a little bit about what brought you to this work of teaching and security culture trainings? Philip 02:35 Yeah, my name is Philip, I use they/them pronouns. I'm living in Suquamish Territory and the Salish Sea. I've been involved in a lot of solidarity work with Indigenous liberation movements and Black liberation movements that have exposed me to a lot of frontline experiences and experiences with state repression, both immediately and down the line. And in response to those encounters with law enforcement with legal repression, and with the effect that that has on our movements, me and a lot of friends and comrades have dived into learning about security culture, learning about the tools and the techniques that we can all use to keep each other safe. And also learning about the ways that the state works to isolate our movements, to discredit our movements—basically, to disempower us—so that we're able to be more informed about how to take care of each other. So I'm definitely deeply indebted to a lot of Black and Indigenous liberation movements for developing these skills and passing them on. And I'm here to just try to contribute now what I've been taught and foster a conversation about how we can be moving into this, like, pretty unprecedented territory in the world of new state surveillance, expanding state surveillance, more encounters with police, but also with right-wing vigilantes, paramilitary groups, white supremacists, and some of the tools we can use. Margaret 04:07 That makes sense. Yeah, one of the reasons that I wanted to have you on in particular is a conversation that we had about the nuances of security culture, and I'm really excited to get into that stuff. But for people who have no idea what we're talking about, could you introduce the concept of security culture? Philip 04:26 Yeah, that's a great question. I feel like there's a lot of intersections between security culture and a lot of other topics that you've had on this show or that you might have on in the future. Ultimately, I think of security culture as this big framework. And it's a framework that helps us reduce risk for ourselves when we're engaging in social movement work, basically by protecting sensitive information. So one definition might be: It's like a mix of interpersonal and organizational and technical practices that help us be more resilient to state repression. It's a shared set of customs, that helps us minimize risk by explicitly naming some norms, over our boundaries and over our communication and that helps us lessen our paranoia, reducing ambiguity, and feeling more secure as we're engaging with the inherently risky work of challenging unjust power systems. Margaret 05:31 So what are some of the examples of that when you talk about, like, changing social norms in order to accommodate security culture? Like, you know, what comes to mind with that? Philip 05:43 Yeah, well, I think that the first thing to say is, intentionally or unintentionally, we all have a set of security practices that we do as human beings. We all have boundaries with each other, intentional or unintentional. And the point of security culture is really to be explicit about those boundaries. I, you know, I really want to do a shout out that a lot of people already practice security, culture, and situational awareness in their daily lives, you know, especially trauma survivors, people who are targeted by police and state surveillance. But some of those specific boundaries and norms that we might use would be having, you know, a clear idea of what information is sensitive, and then not sharing that information with people who don't need to know it, to protect yourself and to protect them. Margaret 06:37 Like so concretely like— Philip 06:38 That— Margaret 06:38 Go ahead. Philip 06:40 Yeah, so that would, you know, a big, obvious one is like, don't talk about illegal activities that you have done, or that you're thinking about doing or asking someone else if they've done it. A big thing might be like, "Oh, yeah, I thought I saw you at this protest the other week doing this illegal action. Was that you? How does that feel to you?" That's a big thing that we wouldn't do. That's a pretty clear violation of norms and boundaries over not wanting people to expose themselves in that way. Margaret 07:09 But what if you want to change your profile picture to, like, you throw in a brick on, like, Facebook? Philip 07:15 And that's another one, you know, it's not only the explicit things that we share with each other, but also what is available to the outside world, to law enforcement, or to right wing groups through our social media presences, through, you know, just things that are immediately perceptible like bumper stickers or, like, the Antifa uniform that we're wearing. Being aware of the information that we're communicating, even if it's non-verbal. Margaret 07:45 One of the— Philip 07:45 Though I do wanna say— One of the main things is we should be aware of the sensitivity of the information and limit the information that's sensitive. And then the flip side of that is not stressing about information that is not sensitive. So it's not only, you know, being discreet and confidential about things that could expose us to legal targeting, but also then shedding the worry and anxiety of, "Oh, do I need to be lying to everyone in my life because they asked me what kind of coffee I like, and they're trying to build a case against me?" Margaret 07:47 Go ahead. Mm hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. I—you know, it's like, when people first started talking about security culture around me, I ran into a lot of—we kind of all ran into a lot of issues of it with it, where it would cause, like, a lot of paranoia and then also a lot of like bravado and, like, it definitely, when practiced poorly, can be kind of not a very pleasant culture to be in. Like, it can become a culture of paranoia. But one of the things that I always really liked doing, you know, okay, so it's like—Alright, if you engage in a culture where you just don't talk about crime, like, you kind of have the sense that everyone around you is doing crime and that's cool (assuming they're doing cool crime, because lots of good things and bad things are crime). You can kind of just like—like, one of the things that I try and tell people is just, like, assume that everyone is a secret badass. Like, the shitty kid has been like sleeping on your couch for two weeks and like, doesn't do her dishes enough or whatever. Like, maybe she's getting up to, like, really wild shit. Or maybe she's on the run, you know, and kind of just assuming that everyone is up to something cool. And therefore you just don't need to know it. I don't know. That's something that's always worked for me. Yeah. Yeah, and I think there's absolutely something to be said there about—it takes a lot of intentional work to sort of decouple these practices from some of the, just the other cultural norms that we all have. And that being a big thing of social clout. Philip 10:00 Of, you know, wanting—especially in a movement space—to be able to, like, celebrate the badass shit that we're doing. And one of the awkward things about security culture, or that makes it a little counterintuitive to people who are just learning it is that a lot of times the things that maybe have the biggest impact on our lives, or that we're spending lots of time or energy working on, or that were these really activating, or traumatizing, or fun and exciting experiences we had, we can't really talk about with other people, both for our safety and their safety. And so it's really nice, then, to think, not only, you know, is that something that we shouldn't do, but then also allowing us to think about, well, what are some of the positive ways that we can still be fostering community connection, and, you know, healthy, strong relationships and trust with people where we're not having to communicate about risky things that could implicate us in, like, all sorts of legal entanglements, but instead we can be still be building vulnerability and trust with each other. And that's a really big, important part of security culture that I think gets missed by a lot of people is that this is a great opportunity, actually, for us to think about what are our community norms around communication and interpersonal dynamics? And what are some of the ways that we can shape those intentionally to, like, really build trust and group cohesion and the ability to make us all feel like we're able to do the things that we need to do to survive in this world while staying safe? Margaret 10:00 Yeah. Okay, so what are some of those things? Philip 11:32 So I think a big one is that building trust with each other is an active process that we all need to be doing, especially in movement work. One of the big things that I think is really important is being able to, you know, talk about harmful and difficult dynamics that come up about conflict that comes up, about addressing accountability, and how much of state repression is able to impact movements by fracturing us along pre-existing tensions that we aren't able to work through. So there's a lot of examples in that historically, of state targeting movements, basically, where there was already distrust that was unable to be resolved, and fracturing movements by encouraging people to distrust each other because they weren't able to work through conflict. Margaret 12:25 So you're basically talks about how the way that the state will essentially, like, bad-jacket or fed-jacket people, like, in order to sow distrust. Like basically, like, pick apart, like, so-and-so is unpopular, or maybe so-and-so actually caused harm, right? Like, so-and-so abuse someone or assaulted someone or is, you know, in accountability around it, or evading accountability around it, basically like sowing distrust about therefore, like, that person doing state work? Or what do you what do you mean by that? Philip 13:00 Yeah, I think that is one popular example. We can definitely talk about that—about both how the state uses false accusations, you know, maybe to break trust—but also how real continued harm, real accusations, are then downplayed when we're existing in this like defensive, reactive space of being, "Oh, well, if, you know, we're going to be talking about these things then it's obviously a bad-jacketing." And so our movements are put in between a rock and a hard place because of just the widespread norm that exists of not being able to address the conflict when it comes up. But another way that that also happens is just how not only direct state intervention can fracture movements, but even the perception of state intervention, the fear and paranoia that gets spread through knowing that we're surveilled, through knowing that there's all these historical examples of actual state harm and us imagining then that we are being actively targeted at that time and us fracturing under that stress, even when there's not active state repression happening to our specific movements. And so it ends up that we almost start policing and repressing ourselves. And we're doing the state's work for it. Margaret 14:20 I guess, like, one of the things that I think about this is I try to use history and awareness of that connection to actually—hm, how to I want to say this? It's like, I assume everyone's a cop and that makes me not paranoid. And I feel like there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. But for me, and the security culture that I practice—and this might be wildly unpopular—I just I assume that a decent portion of the people that I'm friends with and am close with, so possibly people I've been known and working with for decades, might be state agents. Or I've certainly had a lot of friends, a lot of people very close to me, become state agents, become informants in different cases. And because I'm able to do that, it kind of doesn't break my trust. Because I know that I'm, like, firewalling, all the information that I'm putting out there, right? I'm thinking about what I say to whom and because of that, you know, when someone turns out to be a state agent, I'm like, "Well, okay, like, I didn't trust them anyway so I was careful about what I said to them." And, you know, and obviously, this can be done in a very bad way. But, I don't know, I find it really useful to study basically, like—like, we can look at the history of COINTELPRO and it can, like, you know, drive us into a lot of fear and a lot of, like, just looking over our shoulders constantly, right? Or we can look at it and be like, "Okay, this is the situation that we may or may not be in, and what are the right steps to take if that's the situation we're in." And I think, for me, I mostly watch this be much harder on people for whom it's a shock, for people who come in and are like, "Wow, we're all doing this wild shit together and this is so great." And then it turns out that you're all being surveilled, or, you know, two of you are cops or something like that. And it's kind of heartbreaking and causes more fear as compared to if you just enter it knowing that that's going to be the case. Philip 16:36 Absolutely, and I think you highlight two things there that feel really important to me in a security culture practice. So one is just having those proactive boundaries and that discretion, and just making that part of your everyday life—part of your way of relating with people and not this whole other mindset that you're adopting just in moments of direct action. Basically assuming, like, I just don't want to publicly share anything that I don't want read back to me at a grand jury hearing. Margaret 17:10 Right. Philip 17:12 I think another thing that is really important with what you just said is how important learning from history and looking at the concrete and well-documented examples of state repression that we can learn from prepares us to be able to be more resilient. And that that is an actually really important part of being able to evaluate risk and being able to care for ourselves and being able to know what's coming down the line. And that that should be something that we're constantly doing. And it's a lot of work but I think that's one of the things that I've been really excited by, it's just thinking about all these different resources and tracking the terrain of state repression and being able to then sort of stay ahead of the ball as best we can with thinking about what sort of terrain we have to be working in, and the actual tools and maneuverability that the state has, or that right-wing groups have to be interfacing with us. You know, it feels—not to minimize the very real risks that many people are experiencing by confronting white supremacy and capitalism and state violence.—but thinking about this on a little bit more exploded of a level, it feels like we're, you know, kind of playing this like big elaborate board game. And that state repression isn't functioning in the way of just pure unbridled force being exacted on any sort of social movement. There are absolutely moments of that. You know, we have seen assassinations, we have seen brutalization, there are many historical examples, you know, bombs were dropped on the MOVE collective in Philadelphia, police assassinated Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers while he slept in his bed. There are big examples of that. But by and large, at least as far as, you know, the material that is publicly available to reflect from, the way that state repression happens is more by controlling dissent through these sort of like light touches, by erecting the container that social movements and public opinion exist in, and trying to have that subtle touch, you know, that sort of negotiated management or that controlled management, similar to a lot of ways of how street protests are handled by police. Now, instead of it just being an outright brutality, it's more of negotiating with movement leaders, shutting the terrain, and if we're able to track that and we're able to keep a good tab on where public opinion is at, keep a good tab on what sort of restraints the state has for interacting with us for not trying to move public opinion towards supporting popular movements, you know, we're able to then track the sort of tools that we have available to be able to challenge these systems and have a little more strategy, a little more creativity, you know, thinking outside of the box and really engaging with this in a very adaptive and flexible and, like, spontaneous way. And I think that's one of the greatest strengths of decentralized movements is being able to be really flexible and responsive in a way that the state and other authoritarian or hierarchically-organized systems aren't able to keep up with. Margaret 20:25 To keep asking you kind of the same question over and over again, but can you give examples of that? Like, what is it about decentralization that gives us that kind of advantage, like, or what are some examples of people using that advantage? Philip 20:40 So I mean, one great example is just looking at the trove of documents that gets produced through surveillance of movements, and realizing how little these different analysts and intelligence agencies actually understand about social movements and about organizing. And so one example of that is specifically, there was a great series published by The Intercept after Standing Rock about this intelligence agency, Tiger Swan, and all the surveillance that they did on the Standing Rock movement. And this is an enormous cache of documents. You know, the state spent millions of dollars surveilling and compiling networks and trying to understand how these movements were working on the ground to be able to contain them and neutralize them. And yet, at the same time, the state just didn't seem to fundamentally understand how it was possible that such a large movement wasn't operating along, like, traditional military structuring. They were naming people who were, you know, a media spokesperson, or someone who had a popular Instagram feed who was documenting a lot of it, as the leader of the movement or as supplying arms, when that was so clearly not the case to anyone who was able to participate on the ground. And so that smokescreen of the state not understanding the organic flows of movements or how it's possible for things to exist in a [inaudible] fashion, it creates this haze that allows us to kind of keep, you know, the specifics of how we're relating with each other protected from that surveillance and allows us to remain safe. Margaret 22:23 Yeah, I had a—Go ahead. Philip 22:25 I mean, the counterpoint to that is just when states—when militaries are engaging with traditionally organized enemies, you know, whatever might be a centrally-commanded military unit, it's really easy to, you know, be able to identify the central command and eliminate it. Versus, you know, states, armies, militaries engaging with irregular guerrilla warfare is a very difficult situation to be able to differentiate between combatants and non-combatants. And, you know, I really love to point at the example of the United States military losing to the Vietcong, you know, the greatest military empire power on the planet losing to some communist guerrillas in the jungle who, you know, were able to operate in a way that this empire was just not able to respond. Margaret 23:21 Yeah, so that's like, one of the things I like about security culture is it helps create that smokescreen because—and I like the way that phrasing it as a smokescreen—where they have a hard time seeing what a decentralized movement is doing. And a lot of times we don't understand what a decentralized movement is doing. It's like, I feel like whenever I'm engaged in a very chaotic and organic situation, I spend about half my time just trying to figure out what's going on, right? And—in order to understand what's happening so I can figure out how to best engage with it. But on the other hand, I like how a security culture—it's like, I don't know which of my friends are up to things besides what they talk about. And I don't need to know and it also it helps—it helps to minimize—I mean, like, you brought up earlier about the like social clout and, like, I think one of the things that destroys movements is social capitalism, is the idea of, like, everyone's trying to gain clout, everyone's trying to, you know, I mean, to say it cynically, you know, like, have the coolest podcast and get everyone to support your Patreon or whatever the fuck, right? But—and even if you're trying to do that for the best of reasons, even if you're trying to do that in order to like, you know, get out good ideas or whatever, social capital ends up playing a lot into it and social capital games are really dangerous. and way more than like being a cool podcaster or whatever, being a cool militant is like—to the people who know—that's like extra cool. And you get way too much say and what's going on if everyone like is, like, "Oh, yeah, like, she's doing all this like crazy shit," right? And it's kind of this thing, it's like a little bit hard, but you kind of like learn to just accept like, "Oh, alright, well, like I'm a secret badass and no one knows." Well like, not me, but like, you know, maybe when I was younger, I don't know. But like, I don't know—you talk about the smokescreen thing, it's just like, I literally don't know who's up to no good, you know, and that's great. It feels really good. I'm like, I literally can't snitch because I have no fucking clue. One of the things that you were talking about earlier, or that we were talking about earlier, that I feel like is worth breaking down for people who are, you know—I mean, obviously, this podcast is about preparedness, right? And I believe that revolt is an important part of preparedness. But people might not necessarily know what we're talking about when we talk about, like, snitch-jacketing, fed-jacketing, bad-jacketing, you know, which are like, slang terms or terms that we've come up with because this just happens over and over and over again and we want ways to be able to identify it quickly. But what the fuck did those mean? Are you able to break that down? Philip 26:05 Sure. Yeah. Um, let me first—first, like, explicitly name some of the tools of state repression. I think that might be a helpful thing. Margaret 26:14 Yeah. Explicit stuff. Philip 26:15 So in my like conceptualization, ultimately, we have to recognize that challenging and unjust power system, that power system has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. So as we're challenging white supremacy, capitalism, militarism, you know, we are putting ourselves in a position where those systems are going to want to then minimize our ability to change them. And we get our power through working together collectively. And so I kind of see that fundamental tool of state repression has been isolation. A quote that I always go to of how clear that is from J. Edgar Hoover, who was the director of the FBI during the counterintelligence program against the Black Panthers, where his main objective—he, you know, writes that it's to expose, to disrupt, misdirect, discredit, and otherwise neutralize the activities of these black nationalist organizations. So there's a really intentional, conscious push from these state actors to isolate us and to neutralize us. And the ways that they do that historically has been through surveillance, both to gather information, but also as a sort of intimidation, you know, show of power through arrest, whether that's legitimate or illegitimate, through grand juries and legal intimidation, through smear campaigns in the media and discrediting movements, or, you know, saying these protesters are bad because they engage in these types of tactics, through disinformation and spreading paranoia within movements, promoting infighting, blackmail, infiltration, entrapment, threats, and you know, again, all the way up to police brutality and outright assassinations. But so a big way has been by planting informants, by planting undercover agents and those undercover agents either provoking people into committing acts of the state is then enabled us as justification for repression—so we've seen that with the RNC, the Republican National Convention, where an undercover agent encouraged two people to try to use Molotov cocktails and then that resulted in them getting arrested and facing lengthy prison sentences through federal court. But undercovers and informants also can be there to just spread misinformation to break trust, to disrupt group dynamics. And that's just been a really clear way that popular movements have been repressed historically. And so I think that's a reason that it's really easy for us now, as we're worried about security, to say, "Oh, there must be an informant," or like, "Oh, I know that this has happened in the past and so I'm extra aware of this possibility." And one of the outcomes of that is that people who are suspected of being involved in movements with bad intentions can be labeled as an informant, or as a snitch. And so that's basically snitch-jacketing is when you say, "I think this person is working for the police or is providing information," without having clear evidence. And this is something that's really personal to me because I, you know, I've learned a lot of my security practices through trial and error, and there's been error and I've messed up and I've hurt friends and I've hurt movements that have been a part of through dynamics just like this. And I think that's, you know, something I want to hold a lot of humility and hold a lot of accountability for is that I'm saying all these things, but these aren't easy things to implement. Margaret 30:05 Yeah. Philip 30:05 You know, the response to snitch-jacketing, or the response to thinking that someone might be a snitch, isn't to snitch-jacket, but to confront them directly with your concerns and be able to establish, you know, some way of trying to work through that conflict. Being able to address other people with your concerns, with your direct concerns, not things that you're assuming or projecting, and, you know, being able to name things directly, as they are. So saying, "Oh, I am skeptical of this person, because they are sketching me out by taking photos in times that I think are really inappropriate," or "Because they're always asking questions that kind of seem to be digging at trying to expose illegal activities," or "I'm not really sure if they are who they say they are because they're never telling me any information about where they're from or what they do." Margaret 31:01 Right. Philip 31:02 And so, therefore, this person clearly must be working for the FBI and is here as a plant to disrupt our movement. Therefore, this person is a snitch, and I mean, yes, sure, that has happened historically. But in my appraisal, labeling someone is a snitch does probably just as much if not more damage than just name—than that person actually being a snitch. Because it's all of a sudden creating a huge atmosphere of distrust. Margaret 31:29 Right. Philip 31:29 It's creating paranoia. It's exposing huge divisions within the movement. And so even if that person isn't a snitch, by labeling them as a snitch, you've essentially just done the state's work for them of spreading distrust and isolation within movement, Margaret 31:45 Which is cool because then you can say, "Oh, that person's snitch-jacketing people, they must be a fed." You know, because if you're doing the state's work... Obviously don't do that. And that's called "fed-jacketing." The idea of saying instead of—it's the same fucking concept. It's like, you know, someone's probably a fed instead of— Philip 32:04 Yeah. Margaret 32:05 Yeah, one of the ways that I've always heard people talk about it that I've always appreciated is just: judge people by their behavior, not whether or not, like, they're a cop. Like, so rather than assuming, "I think that person's a cop," just be like, "This person is doing something that is making us all less safe." So address that, you know. Address the fact that this person is taking pictures at inappropriate times. Address your distrust of someone, right" But not by saying, like, "I think they're a cop," unless you have hard fucking evidence that they're a cop, you know? Philip 32:41 Yeah, I really go back time and time again, in thinking about security culture, and seeing really clear intersections between security culture and harm reduction, and transformative justice and conflict resolution. You know, I think, in our society, we aren't given a lot of tools for working through conflict and that is especially aggravated by being in this very intense atmosphere that a lot of activists are existing under. But if we were able to—proactively, before engaging in movement work together, as much as possible—generate, what those norms are and what our shared agreements for how we're sharing space with each other are, then we're able to set the container. And then when someone steps over those boundaries, we're able to hold them accountable more directly. And that's ultimately what security culture is, you know, it's culture as a set of shared practices that are embodied, that we're using all the time. And I think it's really important, again, to just make that explicit. And I know that's not always possible, because sometimes we're working with people that we just met. But as much as we're able to, I really like to think about what it would look like if we were able to generate explicit norms and boundaries with each other, and then be able to hold each other to that and say, "Hey, you're making me uncomfortable right now because I told you earlier that I wasn't interested in talking about my historical involvement in that movement, and you're asking me a lot of questions about it. And so I'm just going to ask that you stop asking me those questions." Margaret 34:20 Yeah. Philip 34:21 Instead of saying, "Oh, well, this person is now a snitch." Margaret 34:23 Right. Philip 34:24 But that level of direct communication is challenging, and it's really challenging especially when we're all working in adrenalized frontline environments, or when we haven't gotten a lot of sleep and we're just existing up coffee and cigarettes. And it really speaks to me of just how much there needs to be this intentional push of like building in, like, a feminist ethic of care and of group cohesion and saying, like, we are going to work through this together. Margaret 34:56 One of the things when you talk about holding people accountable to these new social norms that we create, this sort of brings up kind of the dark side of security culture, which is cliquishness. And, well, it's tto things: when I think of the downsides of security culture—I'm clearly a proponent of security culture, I'm trying to do an episode on it. But when I think of the things that we need to be aware of as we attempt to implement it, the two biggest downsides that I think about is creating cliquish, closed off social circles and basically making, you know, obviously, we would never want to be called a Vanguard, but you know, a revolutionary clique. And also, basically making ourselves ineffective. Those are the two biggest concerns that I have. And one of the things that I would say about it is that, like, if we hold people—and it's, actually what you're talking about is great for this, because you talk about, like, trying to set these social norms explicitly, instead of just having them be implicit, right? Because when we hold people accountable to social norms that they don't know about, like, that's not a good way to build a movement, you know? If people that come in and they act in ways that are totally normal for them and, like, you know, their culture, which isn't, like, cool kid anarchy or whatever the fuck, it's really quick—it's really easy if we take these—if we—if these social norms and if these boundaries are so important to us, and, you know, many of them should be very important to us. But if we see them as, like, something that of course people should just know and respect, then we just kick everyone out and get fucking nowhere. Philip 36:41 Yeah, that is a really important thing to bring up. And, I think especially talking about security as this adaptive changing field, the practices we have in the way that we approach this work needs to change as the moment that we're organizing in changes. And I personally learned a lot of my security culture norms and practices through the lens of an anarchist punk subculture, specifically through the lens of frontline forest defense and other land defense campaigns. And the sort of tools and cultural norms that came out of that are ones that evolved really to protect people who were working in small groups or by themselves, engaging in very risky actions—you know, generally like under the cover of night, so to speak—and so it did lead to a set of practices that had a inherent cliquiness to them. I think we're in a really different historical moment right now. I think we're in a moment where mass unrest has spread all across the country in a way that I think is pretty historically unprecedented within the United States. And our security culture norms should change to reflect this mass moment we're in. So it's no longer the same situation as it was in the late 90s or early 2000s during the Green Scare. And one of the most important things that our movement can and needs to be doing during this time is being accessible to people who are newly becoming politically active, who don't have those sub cultural norms, and are coming into movement spaces for maybe the first time and are excited to be part of this huge uprising. Margaret 38:33 Yeah. Philip 38:34 And so something I've experienced a lot of the time is, just as much as there's that social clout of, you know, being the badass militant, I think there's also social clout of being the super secure militant. Margaret 38:47 Oh, yeah, totally. Philip 38:48 Who doesn't answer any questions and it's super dodgy and you don't know anything about them. And that's, I think, a really alienating experience for people who are just coming to movements for the first time without having that sort of background, and it's almost as much of a risk as the state repression itself for isolating our movements. You know, we're not existing solely in a static confrontation with state repression. But the terrain is changing a lot. And so we need to be evaluating what the different risks of our actions are. And if the risk of state repression because our security culture is too weak is lower than the risk of isolation because our security culture is too strong, then we need to be changing our security culture. Margaret 39:42 Yeah. Yeah, I um, you know, the less directly involved I am in the streets, the more I read history-which is sort of a classic getting older move, which I'm not super proud of, but whatever-and one of the things that I'm like learning more and more as I read through different revolutionary history is that, like, sometimes the only way to be safest is fucking win. Like, and there's the quote, shit. German person... I don't even remember what revolution it was from, it was like before the 1848 stuff, but it was—this revolutionist has a quote, 'Those who make half a revolution dig their own grave." And, you know, and that person watched their friends die in jail, right? And, like, because if we—if we go half way we're just gonna fucking lose and—or die or, you know, whatever. Like if, I don't know, I think about it a lot like this—in the current moment, like to just be like really concrete and to not—I am not giving advice at all. Like, I just I literally don't know what the best thing to do is, but I think we need to have a conversation about it—is that like, okay, so on one level, taking pictures of burning cop cars is a really good way to get someone sent to prison, right? Especially if you take pictures of people who are setting cop cars on fire, which I think you just shouldn't fucking do. But if it weren't— Philip 41:19 Absolutely. For all listeners, don't take photos of people doing illegal activity. Margaret 41:24 But it's also the pictures of cop cars on fire that are causing the revolt to spread, right? And a movement that says, "No journalists," or you know, certainly, like no, no—and I am not trying to fucking weigh in on this. I am way too armchair on this particular uprising because I live somewhere where it's not particularly conflictual. But it's not as simple as like, just like, no one ever take pictures of any of this, ever. No one talks about what's happening, ever. Because if people don't know that this shit is happening, no one's going to get inspired. And for me, that is always, that has always worked out to mean, take a picture of, like, the broken window rather than the person breaking the window, you know? There's like, Philip 42:19 Yeah. Margaret 42:22 But it's... Philip 42:24 Which is aa security culture tool right there of, your recognizing the different risks inherent in each activity, the risk of someone getting legally implicated through a photo, or the risk of your movement getting drowned out in the media cycle because there isn't popular media representing what we're doing. Margaret 42:45 Yeah. Philip 42:45 And then specifically, you're talking about our intentional ability to choose how to navigate those risks, and doing something that gives us the benefit of having our own popular media, of being able to build the movement while doing our best to protect people from the like actual legal evidence of, "Oh, here is this photo of you doing such and such action." Margaret 43:07 Yeah. Philip 43:07 And again, it's hard to know specifically what kind of photos might lead to incriminating evidence, hypothetically, but we can make educated guesses. And really, it is all about risk management and knowing the risks and it's not a one-sided risk. It's not, there's just the risk of state repression. You're absolutely right, that the risk of isolation and of getting swept under the rug is going to be a huge thing. And I, you know, again, it feels difficult to try to talk about this in an hour-long podcast because it feels like so many very large, important intersections between security culture and all these other fields that you could, you know, have an entire 'nother interview about. But I think one important one is movement strategy. And, you know, so being another armchair philosopher with you here. Looking at the historical moment of Biden about to enter the White House, you know, for the last four years, there's been this coalition of middle class liberals aligning themselves more actively with antifascist and radical left movements because there's been this clear enemy in the eyes of a Trump presidency. And I think historically we can see that once there's a return to quote/unquote "normalcy," you know, to attempt to reestablish the neoliberal order, there's going to be a move by the Democratic Party, by the centrists and the liberals, to separate themselves from the radical anarchists, the radical left, the militant component that has been supporting their return to power in some ways by being positioned against Trump. And I think it's really important to think about what that means for us practicing security at this time, of trying to weigh the pros and the risks of maintaining that relationship. And trying to use this as a time to continue to build power and not sort of go back to the edges of the social sphere because there's a Democrat process. Again, I'm not providing any concrete recommendations, but I think we should think about the implications of our actions. And, you know, one big place of this is thinking about how, in different contexts, militant actions can be really inspiring, or they can be really alienating for the rest of the population. And there are times that militant action can totally fractionalize and destroy a movement. And, potentially, this could be one of those times. You know, again, I'm not trying to say that people should or shouldn't do anything, but I think we should think about the coalition that has been being built for the last four years and how we can try to use this time to strengthen it and try to build more collective power with people who are shifting further and further to the left from the centrist position, instead of holing up in our militancy, in our purity of our anarchist movement, because that is going to leave us high and dry to fascists and then to state repression. And so it's going to be a good cop/bad cop of the liberals and the fascists against us. Margaret 46:20 When you talk about, like, there are times when militant action will inspire people and their time where it'll divide people, I think about, like, people often make one claim or the other, you know? They'll say like, "Oh, violence alienates people," or, "Fighting the police alienates people." And it's like, first of all, it's like, yeah, probably alienates certain people but there's other people who certainly are like, "Oh, these people are, like, actually fucking about it and they're willing to, like, defend themselves and each other." And that's really inspiring, right? It's gonna be different with different people. But I think about it when I, like—just talk about survival bullshit that I think about way too often—when I'm building a fire in a precarious situation and you, know, building a campfire in a precarious situation, there are times when if you blow on the fire, it goes out. And, but also, if you never blow on the fire, you'll never have a fire and it'll go out. And, you know, that's the main metaphor that I think of when I think of that shit. When—you just have to know the right moments. You have to know the right moments, both like sort of on a tactical level of like reading the crowd around you, and also on a strategic level. I personally think that the main way to not go back to the margins is to, like, not be fucking shy about what we believe in, and that it's a reasonable thing to believe. Philip 47:44 Yeah. Margaret 47:45 And to like— Philip 47:46 Absolutely. Margaret 47:47 —avoid cliquishness. And it even gets into some of the security culture stuff you're talking about arlier. I was thinking about it where it was like—like, I have these like fucking Nazis. Hey Nazis listening to this show. Hello. And I'm just so impressed with the fact that people might hate listen to a podcast. And you know, and like one of the things that like Nazis always try and do when they doxx people or whatever is their like, they're gonna, like, tell people, right? They're gonna be like—and like, you can't fucking call my family and be like, "Did you know your daughter's an anarchist?" You know? You can't even call the local cops and be like, "Did you know Margaret Killjoy is an anarchist?" Right? And I'm in a different position than most people, right, because I intentionally do a lot of public facing work. But still on like an interpersonal level, just fucking be about what you're about and don't be ashamed of being about what you're about without shaming other people for being about what they're about. And that's how you find common ground. And that's how you, like, one of my goals is I want people to be like—like, I know, people who don't shit on the anarchists when all this stuff started because they, like, know some good anarchists who are nice to them. Philip 48:54 Yeah. Margaret 48:55 And so a lot of people want to hide the fact that they're anarchists or whatever other given, like, radical leftist position. And sometimes that's necessary from a security point of view. But you brought it up earlier when you were talking about how there's certain things you do have to keep hush hush, right? Like, like, no one should specifically know, like—actually, it's funny. I just like basically don't commit crime. But no one should specifically know I, like, you know, graffiti-ed to building in 2002—which I actually didn't do. But, like, they don't need to know that. Right? But I'm gonna be like, "Yeah, I was involved in anti war movement in 2002," or whatever the fuck to date myself, you know. And like, it's useful, and I don't know. It's just stuff I think about way too much. And the other part of it that you were talking about that I want to bring up is that when I first got into anarchism my friend was, like, "Oh, anarchists, you're the berserkers of the peace movement." And I was like, "What?" And he was like, "Yeah, when they need people to go run at the front and die, that's you." And he was talking shit. But more and more I see that like radicals have a high risk tolerance, right? And anti-authoritarians in particular have often been willing to build coalitions with people and willing to put ourselves at risk for broader movement goals with people who turn around and, like, turn their backs on us and let us go to jail or whatever. And I don't think that means that we shouldn't be risk tolerant. I don't think that it means, like, in some ways this is our advantage. But we do have to learn how to not be useful idiots. I don't know. Philip 50:47 Yeah, and especially right now as there's a nationwide conversation about defunding and abolishing the police, it feels like such an important time to be putting these anarchist perspectives forward in a way that's actually contributing to people within the broader community being able to see us publicly and proudly, showing that we can live our values in this way. And it also, I think, is worth noting that different people have different stakes, whether that's based on social location, or the activities were involved in, the types of projects we're doing. But, personally speaking, as a white person, you know, I've got different social privileges and resources that I'm able to use. And so being able to mobilize a lot of the social capital I have and then add that with a layer of saying, "Oh, and actually I do fully believe that we should abolish the police and abolish prisons and implement transformative justice frameworks." Doing that doesn't really pose much of a risk to me. And it makes this entire project a lot more legible. And I do feel like there's been a big concern I've seen in a lot of anarchist communities about being authentic with our politics. You know, there's sort of been an emphasis that I've experienced of people, maybe downplaying their politics and trying to more just live their politics directly through the actions they do. And that's important. Of course that's important. But I do think that we're in a very different moment right now. And you're right that I think it's a bit of a sink or swim time. Margaret 52:24 Yeah. Yeah, I think that we even see this—like, to take anarchism out of it for a second—like Antifa Or, you know, antifascism. Like, they really tried to Red Scare that shit really fucking hard in the past couple years. And it clearly worked for a large minority of the population, right? Antifa is like, code for terrorists to a huge chunk of the population, but only a minority of the population. And I think it's the reason is only a minority population is that so many people of all walks of life were just like, "What? Yeah, that's normal. It's totally normal to be against fascism." And like, watching Richard Spencer get punched and then having the whole world just be like, "Ya know, that tracks. I dunno. Punch white supremacists. That make sense to me," And so when we refuse to—when we when we're about what we're about, like, I think it fucking helps. Yeah. Philip 53:30 Yeah, absolutely. And, I mean, again, I want to just go back to security culture having risk management as one of its core goals and aims. And I come from a background of doing a lot of, like, large management-type projects, where I interact with all these sort of tools that get developed in like the business world or the nonprofit world for making decisions. It's actually a really helpful, like, resource bin to go and get stuff from. And one of those tools is a risk matrix. So it's basically a graph where you have likelihood of something happening on one side, and then severity if this thing did happen or, you know, negative impact if this thing did happen. And then you can kind of plot different scenarios on their, on how likely they are to happen versus the negative impact. So the likelihood of the problem versus the severity of the problem helps us make decisions about how to approach all those problems. So like one thing would be driving is something that we do every day, it happens very frequently, and the possibility of you getting into a car crash would have really high, you know, potentially lethal consequences. And so as a result, car companies put all of this energy into safety mechanisms and airbags and all that. So thinking about this in security context situation, by actually quantifying, by explicitly naming the different potential outcomes of the work we're doing and the risks associated with them, I think it helps us visualize it more. And so the risk of us being authentic about our politics, and of then experiencing state repression, seems like a very high impact risk. And so we are risk adverse to that, or I historically have been risk adverse to being authentic about my politics. But the much higher likelihood—although lower risk—much higher likelihood outcome, is that being isolated, and not being able to build our movements has resulted in anarchism being socially isolated historically and, you know, of neoliberalism or centrist regimes being able to just marginalize them invisiblize these groups. And I know that these are things that we've already been talking about, but I think that that same sort of risk matrix can help us similarly with maybe smaller decisions. If we're making a decision about what types of actions we feel comfortable personally engaging in during a campaign, you know, we can think about, okay, these are the different frameworks that we have for what capacity the local police have, the amount of surveillance that we feel we're being under, the likelihood of this action succeeding, and actually being able to graph all these things can help us make informed decisions in a way that just thinking about or just talking about it, sometimes you can get lost. Margaret 56:50 Yeah. Philip 56:53 Another tool that I really appreciate using a little bit is kind of on that same note, it's the spectrum of risk. I think it came from CrimethInc, but it talks about different vulnerabilities of actions to state repression. Or like different levels of, like, illicit-ness of actions. So, you know, from the most mainstream and acceptable of a permitted march to, you know, the most nefarious, evil, militant anarchist thing you can imagine, and a whole spectrum in between them. And then for those different actions or activities, there's a different accompanying level of security discretion that we can use where with the mainstream march, you want to be as public as possible about it, because your objective is to get the message out, to get people out to make a big strong showing. Whereas with the evil, nefarious nighttime plot, you don't want any public attention on it whatsoever until it's completed. Margaret 57:56 Right. Philip 57:56 Theoretically, you know, whatever the objectives are. And again, a whole spectrum in the middle. And so, especially at this time, is showing us the strength of popular movements getting hundreds of 1000s of people out in the street, I do think that we're leaning maybe more towards the wanting to be public side of things. And if we're using security tools, if we're using discretion that limits the reach, then we're actually inflicting harm upon ourselves by being overly cautious. And so we are then engaging in, again, the isolation that counterintelligence is trying to inflict on us the whole time. Margaret 58:37 Yeah, and then—sorry, it's like every—I'm thinking about all this shit wile are you talking about this stuff. I was gonna make a joke earlier while you were talking about how, like, what, no, we shouldn't just make decisions about what crimes to commit based on peer pressure. And then I kind of, like, get lost in this rabbit hole, where I'm thinking about how like so much of our movement historically bases its decisions on what crimes to commit, basically, by peer pressure, which you could also call social capital, or whatever, you know. And I was thinking about in the context of, like, you know, you and I addressing the fact that like, "Hey, anyone listening to this, like, don't fucking take our word for it." Like, I really like that the way that you're describing security culture is a set of tools that people can use to make their own decisions about what risks they want to do—they want to tolerate personally. And I actually think that a security culture tool might be basically, like, if you feel like you're being peer pressured into committing a crime, that's a huge red flag, right? Like, so many of the different infiltrations that have happened, you know—the FBI fucking loves infiltrating radical movements of different types, especially at the moment Islam, you know, like, what it considers, like, Islamic movements or whatever—and manufacturing criminals to then, you know, persecute, right? You know, there's been so many instances of a lot of the actions that people go down for were always the FBI idea in the first place. And one of the main tools, I think, that that happens through is social pressure. And basically, like, I'm now turning this into the ad of like, where like, the kid walks up and is like, "Come on, man, don't you wanna be cool and, like, do drugs or whatever?" Like, no do drugs only if you want to do drugs, and if you want to do drugs, that's fucking cool. If you want to commit crimes, like, you know, whatever, think about the ethics of your actions. Make your decisions based on ethics and risk, not based on crime. Crime just affects the risk part of it. And I don't know, yeah, just like fuckin—like way too often when I meet, like, younger radicals, I just kind of want to be like, "Look, like, I'm not saying be careful but, like, be a little bit careful. And like, don't jump off a bridge because your best friends that you met two months ago are doing it." You know? Philip 1:01:12 Yeah. And I think a healthy way of doing that is really cultivating a good self-awareness of what your skills and your experience and your acceptable level of involvement is with different kinds of activities and of what you are willing to participate in, you know, ahead of time as much as possible. And being really secure in that and not feeling peer pressure. And again, I think it's easiest and healthiest if we're able to do this in our movement of making that norm established from the get-go in a really clearly articulated way of we're respecting each other's boundaries over what they do or do not want to participate in. And we aren't going to encourage people to do things that they're not comfortable in. But also being able to know what feels right or what feels wrong, having that situational awareness of, "Oh, this feels off to me." And being able to trust our gut instinct, or at least—or at least listen to our gut instinct—at least, you know, give it the time to think about the impact. Because, you know, because—and I do want to again say that, um, you know, I've made poor decisions, solely listening to my gut instinct and not thinking about the other power dynamics that were at play. And that's a real thing, too. But situational awareness and tracking how a situation feels is a big way that our bodies intuitively know to manage risk. I mean, we're living creatures who have existed in a risky world. And we do have ways that we know how to move through that world and keep ourselves safe. And obviously, we're in a totally different context. But trying to tap in to our intuitions is a really helpful way. And I think, you know, again, that goes a lot back to people already practicing security culture on a regular basis, especially people who have experienced trauma or who are targeted by violence and brutality, having a heightened awareness of their surroundings and of the risks that they're being exposed to, and making decisions in a much more intentional and active way than someone who is not at all needing to think about those things because they come from a social location and a privileged background that has insulated them. Margaret 1:03:36 Could you—like basically saying that, like, if you're a rich kid, you're a lot more—you're a lot safer from—a rich kid, or white or, you know, have different sets of privileges, you're less at risk with the decisions that you're making is that...? Philip 1:03:52 Um, well, a little bit. I mean, I am saying, if you're a rich white kid, you should go commit crime. Margaret 1:03:56 [Laughing] Philip 1:03:59 I am saying that people who have experienced marginalization and brutality, you know, oftentimes will have more situational awareness and will have just like a more natural set of security practices that they're doing to keep themselves safe than someone who hasn't experienced those things. And so being able to cultivate that awareness of what we're interacting with, with who we're interacting with, with our read on the situation, if something feels out of place, if there's a car parked behind the march with unmarked license plates, that looks brand new, and it's got tinted windows, and "Oh, that seems out of place. I wonder if I should keep an eye on that because it's either an undercover cop or a right wing vigilante who's about to drive into the crowd." Margaret 1:04:49 Right. Philip 1:04:49 You know, that is security culture and cultivating that awareness of who we're interacting with and how we're interacting with and the different risks is an important tool to just integrate into our everyday practice. Margaret 1:05:05 No, I like tha. I like this idea that being, like, conscious—like as like a personal security culture technique or whatever—being conscious about what's happening and being conscious about your own choice in the decision or whatever... [Sighs] What am I trying to say? It's like, the people who do shit because they're swept up in it—it's okay to be swept up in what's happening sometimes, right? And I'm not trying to say like, never, like, go with the crowd. Because sometimes also, like going with the crowd'a literally the safest thing. Like, even if like—like, sometimes when all your friends are jumping off a bridge you should probably fucking jump off a bridge. Like, because if you chose your friends carefully—like sometimes I pick—I think about how I like pick my friends very carefully. And so therefore, sometimes I trust their judgment more than my own. And sometimes solidarity, like, requires that. But if you're doing shit just because you're swept up in it, especially a crowd of strangers, especially something you're new to. It's not as good of a scene. And also like the people who do that are like literally more likely to roll. Like, you know, some of the people that I've seen turn state's evidence after, you know, felony arrests or whatever are the people who were just, like, kind of in it for the social capital, they were in it as a social scene. They were, like, you know, like, "Oh, I guess all my friends are an anarchist so I'm an anarchist too," or whatever the fuck, you know? Which is a great way to start getting involved in radical politics is, like, pick cool friends. And, you know, they do cool shit, break the law, breaking the laws, cool. I think I'm allowed to?—I don't know, whatever. And, but the people who don't mean it, I don't trust them as much. And I worry about, like, expressing who I do and don't trust on this show because, like, I just don't trust anyone. But that works for me, but apparently it doesn't work for most people. So, but okay, to run with this paranoia thing for a minute: Like, one of the reasons I think that way is that, like, you know, when I first got involved in political activism or whatever, you know, I was involved in forest defense community in the Pacific Northwest. And I went to some of the last meetings of this particular forest defense crew. And they were just like, tree sitters and shit, right? It was like, it was illegalism but it's, like, above ground illegalism. Like people who sit in a tree are, like, "Hey, I fuckin sit in trees." You know? Like, that's like, one thing I'll like admit to, right? I've like sat in trees. And so it's not—they're not, like, the super sketchy arsonists or whatever running around at night. They're not the ELF. But they certainly were infiltrated as though they were. And I went to some of the last meetings of this organization because I joined it near the end of its time. And then during a FOIA request—a Freedom of Information Act request where you send off to the government and say, "Please give us information about this." Or maybe it was during court discovery, I can't remember which—it came out that, like, I think about 3 out of 8 or 9 people in that meeting were informants or cops of one style or another. And so it's just like, okay. 30% of the people in this movement

Ruth Kinna is a world-renowned political theorist and historian of ideas who has authored numerous books on anarchism, nineteenth- and early twentieth-century socialist thought, utopianism and contemporary radicalism. She is a professor of political philosophy at Loughborough University and editor of the UK-based journal, Anarchist Studies.

This week, Ruth Kinna joins Pearson to talk about her forthcoming book, Great Anarchists. Ruth is an anarchist and professor at Loughborough University where she teaches Political Theory. Ruth is also the editor of Anarchist Studies, a biannual academic journal on anarchism.  Check out Dog Section Press and Anarchist Studies. Read issues of Great Anarchists online right now!  Support Coffee with Comrades on Patreon, follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and visit our website. Coffee with Comrades is a proud affiliate of the Channel Zero Network. Coffee with Comrades is a proud part of the Rev Left Radio Federation. Our logo was designed by Sydney Landis. Support her work, buy some art. Music - Intro: "I Ain't Got No Home in this World" by Woody Guthrie - Interlude: "Baby, I'm An Anarchist" by Against Me!  - Outro: "A Match Made in Heaven" by Architects

Ruth Kinna is a world-renowned political theorist and historian of ideas who has authored numerous books on anarchism, nineteenth and early twentieth-century socialist thought, utopianism and contemporary radicalism. She is a professor of political philosophy at Loughborough University and editor of the UK-based journal, Anarchist Studies.

Ruth Kinna is a professor of Political Theory Loughborough University, working in the Department of Politics, History, and International Relations where she specializes in political philosophy. She's the author of numerous books and is co-editor of the journal Anarchist Studies. Ruth's Links: Kropotkin is https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/ga1_kropotkin Voltairine de Cleyre https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/ga2_voltairine Bakunin https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/ga3_bakunin Louise Michel https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/ga4_michel Oscar Wilde https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/ga5_wilde Stirner https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/ga6_stirner Proudhon https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/proudhon Lucy Parsons https://issuu.com/dogsectionpress/docs/parsons Accompanying article http://dogsection.org/great-anarchists/ Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/podcastcocoopercherry Twitter: @Podcastcocooper Instagram: @podcast_co_cooper_cherry

First time for Laborwave, an audio essay from our show host Alex Riccio originally published by the Institute for Anarchist Studies (anarchiststudies.org). Imagining A Better Utopia: Seizing Spaces of Revolutionary (Re)production "Victories against the boss are transformative for workers. They cultivate a sense of new possibilities and openings previously viewed as impossible. The task, then, is to expand the arenas where victories take place. In this way, what may begin as a victory against landlords and project for cooperative housing contains the potential of enlarging its imaginative capacities to become the pathway where a recognition is made that cooperative houses on colonized lands is insufficient, and nothing less than a global revolution against settler-colonial capitalist heteropatriarchy will do. " Laborwave Radio is a proud sponsor of the Opening Space for the Radical Imagination III Read about the gathering and the current Call for Presenters at oregonimagines.com Essay text available at https://anarchiststudies.org/imagining-a-better-utopia-seizing-spaces-of-revolutionary-reproduction/

We spoke with writer and activist Hillary Lazar on the connections between border politics and antifascism, applying intersectional frameworks to movement organizing, and pushing beyond "bread & butter" unionism toward liberatory unionism. Our talk begins with a conversation about Hillary Lazar's recent essay, Connecting Our Struggles: Border Politics, Antifascism, and Lessons from the Trials of Ferrero, Sallito, and Graham published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory (n.30). The piece focuses on the lost history of anarchist editors and supporters of the periodical Man! who were swept up in an anti-immigrant and anti-anarchist political reaction during the early part of the 20th century in the United States. The piece uses this case study to explore connections and continuations of anti-immigrant policies of today and how such policies bolster the repression of political dissent. In the second half of our conversation we focused on the current labor organizing Hillary has been doing with graduate student workers at the University of Pittsburgh. She explains why applying an intersectional framework to labor organizing, as well as other forms of organizing, is necessary for building toward a liberatory society. Hillary Lazar is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at the University of Pittsburgh, where she teaches about social movements, gender, power and resistance through an anarchist lens. Hillary has been published in Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, contributed a chapter to Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach (2018), and has worked on several other book projects. She is a collective member of the Big Idea Bookstore, a content editor for Agency: An Anarchist PR Project, instructor for the Institute for Advanced Troublemaking, and is involved in graduate student worker organizing. Institute for Anarchist Studies (publisher of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory) www.anarchiststudies.org Institute for Advanced Trouble-Making https://advancedtroublemaking.wordpress.com/ AK Press www.akpress.org Agency: An Anarchist PR Project https://www.anarchistagency.com/ Big Idea Bookstore http://thebigideapgh.org/

Sermon delivered by Rev. Colin Bossen on October 22, 2017. W. E. B. DuBois posited that the United States faced a choice between abolition democracy and white supremacy. As part of the UUA-wide teach-in on white supremacy, we’ll explore how the quest for abolition democracy is connected to our religious journeys as Unitarian Universalists. A text version of this sermon can be found on Colin's blog at http://colinbossen.com/the-latest-form-of-infidelity/14264965/abolition-democracy-unity-temple. An award winning preacher, scholar and social justice organizer, Rev. Bossen is currently working on his doctorate at Harvard University where he is studying the relationship between theology and populism. Twice a month he preaches at the First Parish Church Unitarian Universalist, Ashby, Massachusetts, where he serves as the parish minister. His research has been supported by the American Studies program of Harvard University, a Harvard Merit Term-Time Fellowship, a Frederick Kettner Scholarship from the Biosophical Institute, the Fund for Nurturing Unitarian Universalist Scholarship, multiple Joseph Sumner Smith Scholarships, the Joseph Gittler Fund for Religion and Ethics, the Institute for Anarchist Studies, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the Center for American Political Studies. Prior to returning to academia Rev. Bossen served as a parish minister for six years. He serves on the Board for the Unitarian Universalist History and Heritage Society and is the author of two religious education curriculums and close to two dozen published essays, articles, book chapters and poems. Colin's brother is the painter Jorin Bossen. His oil and crayon painting is the image for this podcast listing. The theme for October is how to be a people of courage. To read about our theme-based ministry, please visit http://www.unitytemple.org/faith-development/soul-connections on our website. 

What do anarchists around the world think is in store for the new year? In Episode 45, we began our 2015 year in review, focusing on the US. In this episode, we share reflections on developments in 2015 and from anarchists in Chile, Finland, Brazil, Korea, Colombia, Czech Republic, and Rojava. There are also discussions about developments in fascism and anti-fascism, with reports from the UK and Australia, and an analysis by Gulf Coast anarchists of the environmental movement's supposed "victory" over the Keystone XL pipeline in November. On the Chopping Block, we review the latest issue of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, the journal of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, on the theme of "Justice." Long term black liberation political prisoner Herman Bell discusses his upcoming parole hearing, and we share plenty of news, including some reflection on a new round of revolts in Tunisia, plus prisoner birthdays, events, listener feedback, and more. {February 11, 2016} -------SHOW NOTES------ On the Chopping Block, we reviewed the latest issue (Number 28, on "Justice") of Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, the journal published by the Institute for Anarchist Studies. You can order it through AK Press; you can also find them on Facebook, though you know how we feel about that. Our friends at the North American anarchist news website It's Going Down have announced plans to produce a print magazine! Check out their Kickstarter page if you want to show them some support. Former Black Panther and long term political prisoner Herman Bell is up for parole in February. Please check out this info from his support site about how to help with his parole hearing, including an online petition. Here's Glenn Greenwald's editorial critiquing the notion that internet encryption is responsible for the Paris terror attacks by the Islamic State. The report we shared on Rojava came to us from a group of anarchists and internationalists from Central Europe working for liberation in Kurdistan. If you're interested in reading more, CrimethInc. previously published a longer interview piece from this group titled "From Germany to Bakur: European Anarchists on the Kurdish Struggle". To learn more about the Guarani resistance in the state of Sao Paulo, mentioned in the report on 2015 resistance in Brazil, visit yvyrupa.org.br. Our friends who reported on the so-called "victory" over the Keystone XL pipeline sent links to some of the ongoing ecological resistance happening along the Gulf Coast, including folks fighting a massive 42" LNG export pipeline whose route from West Texas to Mexico cuts through Big Bend National Park - visit Defend Big Bend and the Big Bend Conservation Alliance; and the environmental justice group in Mobile, AL called MEJAC that is fighting an oil storage tank farm that would directly impact the historic community of Africa Town. In terms of ecological resistance coming up this year, there's the Prison Ecology Project's gathering coming up June 11-13 in the Washington D.C. area, focused on building around the intersection of incarceration and the environment. There's also a struggle brewing against a new federal prison slated to be built on a former mountaintop removal site in Eastern Kentucky. And the Earth First! Winter Organizer's Conference is taking place February 10th-15th on Chumash territory outside Santa Barbara, California. Please take a moment to support Jared "Jay" Chase of the NATO 3! You can attend his court date on February 18th in Chicago, follow his case on Twitter, Facebook, or the NATO 3 support page. You can also write to Jay at: Jared Chase M44710 P.O. Box 99 Pontiac, IL 61764 Here's an announcement from supporters about the court date: Pack the court for Jay Chase Thursday, February 18, 9 AM Cook County Criminal Courthouse 2600 S California Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60623 The presiding Judge had a sick day on 2.3 so Jared "Jay" Chase now has a pre-trial hearing on February 18th at 26th and California in Room 303. He is being targeted by the same prosecutor (Anita Alvarez) he faced during the NATO 3 trial for alleged assault charges pinned on him by guards while he awaited trial for two years back in 2012-2014. These same guards were allowed to testify against him during the NATO 3 sentencing in a somewhat successful attempt to bring a harsher sentence and now they will likely testify against him in this case . . . This trial is not just about a few extra years being tacked on to his current sentence which is coming to an end in May. The State has made it very clear through this obviously vindictive prosecution that they want to ensure Jay lives out his days in their cage. Please be there and show the State that we stand with Jay and let Jay know that we have not forgotten him or his struggle. He needs our love and support as he stands in defiance of this ongoing persecution. Upcoming prisoner birthdays: Veronza Bowers, Jr. 35316-136 USP Atlanta Post Office Box 150160 Atlanta, Georgia 30315 {February 4th} Kamau Sadiki (Freddie Hilton) #0001150688 Augusta State Medical Prison, Building 13A-2 E7 3001 Gordon Highway Grovetown, Georgia 30813 Address envelope to Freddie Hilton, address card to Kamau {February 19th} Shaka Cinque (Albert Woodfox) #72148 West Feliciana Parish Detention Center Post Office Box 2727 St. Francisville, Louisiana 70775 Address envelope to Albert Woodfox, address card to Shaka {February 19th}

This presentation can accompany the audio podcast of the event Chris Dixon presents Another Politics, also posted in iTunes. Recent decades have seen the exciting convergence of anti-authoritarian radicalism and broader-based movements in the U.S. and Canada.  Drawing on interviews with organizers across North America, this event will explore the meaning of “another politics”. Chris Dixon, originally from Anchorage, is a longtime community organizer, writer, and educator with a PhD from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He serves on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies and the advisory board for the activist journal Upping the Anti.  He currently lives in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Algonquin Territory.  His new book is Another Politics: Talking Across Today's Transformative Movements and is published by University of California Press.

Recent decades have seen the exciting convergence of anti-authoritarian radicalism and broader-based movements in the U.S. and Canada.  Drawing on interviews with organizers across North America, this event will explore the meaning of “another politics”. Chris Dixon, originally from Anchorage, is a longtime community organizer, writer, and educator with a PhD from the University of California at Santa Cruz. He serves on the board of the Institute for Anarchist Studies and the advisory board for the activist journal Upping the Anti.  He currently lives in Ottawa, Canada, on unceded Algonquin Territory.  His new book is Another Politics: Talking Across Today's Transformative Movements and is published by University of California Press. Chris Dixon's presentation for this event is also posted in iTunes. Note, this event is held in honor of Anchorage icon Ruth Sheridan.