Podcasts about crimethinc

Jon's knee hurts. David makes a CrimethInc connection. Support us on Patreon http://bit.ly/Ipatreon Send questions and comments to contact@electionprofitmakers.com Watch David's show DICKTOWN on Hulu http://bit.ly/dicktown Follow Jon on Bluesky http://bit.ly/bIuesky

This week, we're featuring an interview with Anton, a longtime member of Solidarity Collectives, a group that supports anti-authoritarian and anarchist activists involved in the resistance to the Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as funding mutual aid projects for civilians and domesticated animals suffering or displaced by the invasion, bolstering left libertarian social movements during wartime, making propaganda and manufacturing FPV drones as well as a few other projects. In this ranging conversation we spoke for 2 hours covering issues of anarchists participating in military structures, the state of the armed resistance, impacts of changes in the US administration and more. Solidarity Collective Links: Website listing ways to support different sectors of work: https://solidaritycollectives.org/en/support/ youtube and kolektiva channels, with interviews of comrades fighting and yearly reports of activity playlists: https://www.youtube.com/@sol_col https://kolektiva.media/c/solidarity.collectives Libcom blog: https://libcom.org/tags/solidarity-collectives Sol Col socials: mastodon: https://social.edist.ro/@solidaritycollectives bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/solcolua.bsky.social telegram :https://t.me/SolidarityCollectives instagram: https://www.instagram.com/solidaritycollectives/ Twitter: https://x.com/SolidarityColl1 FB: https://www.facebook.com/SolidarityCollectives Anton's  work related socials: bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/antonkolcol.bsky.social mastodon: https://social.edist.ro/@anton_tsak@kolektiva.social Other Links: Past interviews on Ukraine: https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/category/ukraine/ Timothy Snyder about Ukrainian history :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJczLlwp-d8&list=PLhTRXzDqRJxjwJVIddAFOF3Eg8OESGiSM Comrades reviewing far right violence activities in Ukraine since 2018: https://violence-marker.org.ua/en/ Media About the 3 Internationalist Anarchists Who Fell April 19, 2023: Dmitry Petrov was interviewed under a psuedonym on this episode of our show: https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/post/2022/02/25/anarchists-in-ukraine-against-war/ Memorial page on Crimethinc for Dmitry: https://crimethinc.com/2023/05/03/in-memory-of-dmitry-petrov-an-incomplete-biography-and-translation-of-his-work Documentary on Finbar (English subtitles available): https://www.tg4.ie/en/player/home/?pid=6347744855112 Remembering Cooper Andrews: https://itsgoingdown.org/remembering-cooper-andrews/ ... . .. Featured Track: Не забудем і не пробачим ("We Wont Forgive and We Won't Forget) - SKOFKA

For questions, comments or to get involved, e-mail us at audibleanarchist(at)gmail.com The text can be read at https://crimethinc.com/2025/02/21/become-an-anarchist-or-forever-hold-your-peace As Donald Trump and Elon Musk subordinate the United States government to their pursuit of totalitarian power, their opponents remain in a defensive posture, accusing them of lawlessness. But neither courts nor laws will halt the descent into autocracy. Massive numbers of people will have to take it upon themselves to organize concrete acts of resistance, to take direct action on a horizontal and participatory basis—in other words, to become anarchists.

In our following episode, we speak with folks around the country about this unfolding reality. First, we catch up with Mia Wong, a journalist at It Could Happen Here, a daily podcast on Cool Zone Media about everyday resistance and the current crisis, then we speak with a participant in the publishing collective CrimethInc, about... Read Full Article

This is an effort of love and volunteerism. No paywalls or super chats etc. Please consider liking and subscribing on YouTube as it boosts visibility. If you'd like to support then donate to the "buy me a book" link below.  All links: https://linktr.ee/TheRightPodcast Elia Ayoub (he/him) is a writer, researcher and the founder of The Fire These Times podcast and co-founder of From the Periphery Media collective. He holds a PhD in Cultural Analysis from the University of Zurich, is an Affiliate Fellow of the Post Growth Institute and is a Project Manager at Shado Mag.   He has written for publications such as 972Mag, Al Jazeera, Commons (Ukraine), Al Jumhuriya (Syria), Newlines, L'Orient Le Jour, Crimethinc and Lausan. He blogs at iwritestuff.blog and can be sometimes found on Instagram, Mastodon and Bluesky. Just a few examples of Elia's work and interviews:  The Fire These Times: https://thefirethesetimes.com/ +972 Magazine: https://www.972mag.com/writer/elia-ayoub/ Al Jazeera: https://www.aljazeera.com/author/elia_ayoub Commons: https://commons.com.ua/en/elia-dzh-ayub-interview/ Al Jumhuriya: https://aljumhuriya.net/en/2022/03/04/ukraine-in-syria-syria-in-ukraine/ Newslines: https://newlinesmag.com/writers/joey-ayoub/ L'Orient Le Jour: https://www.lorientlejour.com/author/8629-joey-ayoub Crimethinc: https://crimethinc.com/2020/02/24/lebanon-the-revolution-four-months-in-an-interview  Lausan: https://lausancollective.com/2021/periphery-has-no-time-for-binaries/ iwritestuff.blog: https://iwritestuff.blog/ Social Media Instagram: eliajayoub Bluesky: @ayoub.bsky.social Mastodon: @ayoub@spore.social

Our discussion with anarchist collective CrimethInc. participant 'B' was full of lessons for how we can better organize our movements. How to form true collectives that value each and every voice, not just symbolically, but in how they make decisions. B describes how there is a way to find harmony without requiring complete unity.This episode helps to better define anarchism as it is in these times; a collective project for self-determination. It is completely compatible with the work we are already doing, and may hold key answers to the questions that hive stagnated many movements. All of our content is free - made possible by the generous sponsorships of our Patrons. If you would like to support us: PatreonFollow us on InstagramResources: CrimeThInc. Homepage

Ben Morea, Black Mask, Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers, the STP Family, STP, LSD, anarchism, 1960s counterculture, Affinity Groups, the Family in Colorado, Rainbow Tribe, Gary Plunker Adams, Rainbow Gatherings, the strange deaths at Rainbow Gathering, Olympic Press, High Times, Dick Motherfucker, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Walter Breen, William Sheldon, pedophilia, NAMBLA, Hakim Bay, Temporary Autonomous Zones (TAZ) CIA, punk, crust, Travelers, Crimethinc, Playboy, Story of O, the New Left vs the counterculture, how the counterculture has subverted liberalism, International Werewolf Conspiracy, werewolvesAnd for your Farm swag, shoot a message to:orionoblivion@gmail.comMusic by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/Additional Music by: Ilsahttps://ilsa.bandcamp.com/album/preyer Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://linktr.ee/pbnlinks

O ato bolsonarista na Paulista foi marcado pela guerra de narrativas em torno da quantidade de pessoas que ocuparam as ruas. Contar a quantidade de manifestantes sempre foi algo bastante impreciso. Para conversar sobre os dados e discursos em torno da manifestação bolsonarista convidamos Marcio Moretto, do Monitor do debate político no meio digital da USP. Além disso, conversamos sobre a autoimolação do militar anarquista Aaron Bushnell, que durante seu martírio gritou: “Não serei mais cúmplice do genocídio! Palestina Livre!”. A principal cobertura sobre o evento foi realizado pela CrimethInc., nas Memórias de Aaron Bushnell. Quer saber mais? Vem com a gente!

In this episode, we speak with Jasmine from the Italian cultural association Maldusa, an organisation that supports migrant solidarity efforts, and documents border violence. Jasmine tells us about September 12, when more than 5,000 people arrived on Lampedusa, overwhelming the Mediterranean island's under resourced and completely inadequate migrant reception facilities and services.  She also tells us how the Italian state has not only completely failed the migrants but the locals too, and how many of them mobilised in solidarity with the new arrivals.    ---Get in touch---   Twitter: @FleetCivil   Mastodon: @civilfleet@kolektiva.social   Instagram: thecivilfleet   info@civilfleet.com   civilfleet.com   Support:  ko-fi.com/civilfleet   ---Show Notes--- For more on Maldusa, visit: maldusa.org/en   Follow them on Twitter: @Maldusa_Project Here is a joint statement signed by Maldusa and many other organisations on Lampedusa and Europe's reception crisis: https://www.maldusa.org/l/arrivals-in-lampedusa-solidarity-and-resistance-in-the-face-of-europes-reception-crisis/   Jasmine mentions the Italian refugee rescue organisation Mediterranea: Saving Humans. For more on them, listen to episode 18, and stay tuned for episode 47!   Find out more about Mediterranea: Saving Humans, here: mediterranearescue.org/en    Don't know where Lampedusa is? Then check out this google map, here.   Jasmine talks about Italian ships saving people lives at sea in 2015. This was naval mission was called Mare Nostrum. Read this Guardian report from 2014 on the end of Mare Nostrum: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/31/italy-sea-mission-thousands-risk   Georgia Meloni is the far-right Prime Minister of Italy. Matteo Piantedosi is Interior Minister, and Ursula von der Leyen is president of the European Commission.    Want to know more about the Dublin Agreement? Then check out this explainer video by The Guardian newspaper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ooecJWPcAY&t=28s&ab_channel=TheGuardian    The book Ben forgets the name of is called No Wall They Can Build, published by the US-based anarchist collective CrimethInc. You can listen to the audiobook here: https://crimethinc.com/podcasts/no-wall-they-can-build

Global Uprisings documentarian and TheRealNews contributor Brandon Jourdan chats about his recent experiences in the pension strikes in France, comparisons to the June Uprising following the murder of Nahel, Belgian Balkanization, the anarchist origins of Twitter, and if the End Notes Decades is ending, or just getting started baby!>>>for the full episode subscribe at patreon.com/theantifada

Episode Summary On this week's Live Like the World is Dying, Margaret and Inmn finish their talk about go bags. They talk about important documents, knives, tools, sleeping systems, shelters, coping with isolation, food, water, firearms, specific situations you might need a go bag for, and of course, DnD. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Transcript Live Like the World is Dying: Margaret on Go Bags Part II Inmn 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 Inmn Neruin, and this week we're continuing to talk about go bags. We have the second part of an interview with the founder of this podcast, Margaret Killjoy, where we continue our conversation from last week at literally the exact place that we left off. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Doo doo doo doo doo. [Making noises like a song] So Margaret, we've gone through hygiene kit, survival kit, and... I immediately forgot the third part of it. Margaret 01:39 First aid. Inmn 01:39 First-aid kit. And so that wraps up kind of like an emergency pack? Margaret 01:44 Yep. Inmn 01:44 What what what else goes in a bug out bag. Margaret 01:47 So, now that we get to the bag itself, I would say the next most important thing is a water bottle. Specifically, I like--and I give to all my friends--single wall steel canteen style water bottles. And the reason that I like these is that you can boil water in them. The double wall vacuum sealed canteens, they rule for a lot of purposes, like actually, they're really good for like putting hot soup in your bag. If you're going out hiking for the day and you get to the top of the mountain you get to--as if I've ever climbed a whole ass mountain. By my standards where I live, the mountains are very short. And so when you climb up a whole ass Appalachian mountain, you can have your warm soup up at the top even when it's snowing and shit, you know. But overall, I use 32 ounce steel wall canteens. I like them a lot. And then you're also going to want to make sure that you have food in there, protein bars and other snacks. So that's the core. But then for the bag itself, it's really going to depend on what you're doing. So, I guess I'll go over the not camping stuff first, the kind of like...the stuff that is like...Okay, because there's all the camping shit. And that's really useful depending on your situation. But, things to put in your go bag: your passport. If nothing else, if you don't want your actual main documents in here, you're going to want to put photocopies and digital copies of your stuff in here, which is of course somewhat of a security risk. If someone steals your bag, they get this stuff, right. But for me, the threat model is that my passport is more useful to me in my backpack than it is at home in a safe when I'm 1000 miles away. So, your passport, which I would push anyone who was capable in the United States of making sure that they have an updated passport, especially these days. You want your important documents backed up. This could be some of your medical records. It could be your dog's medical records. It could be your children's medical records. And, you might want the deed to your house. You might want some of the vehicle registration stuff. You want your like stuff--not necessarily the originals in this particular case--but you want the documents of it in case you're like coming back later and need to prove some shit. You know? Because a lot of crises might disrupt a lot of the institutions of bureaucracy. And you would think that in times of crisis, bureaucracy will be like, "I guess we kind of get in the way of human freedom." But no, in times of crisis borders will still be like, "Oh, I don't know about you. You don't have the right document. I don't care that the road you're on is literally on fire." or whatever the fuck you know. Another way to back these up is to literally just to take pictures of them on your phone and have it on your phone. But I think it's actually a good idea to have a USB stick with these documents as well and you might want to consider encrypting that, which I don't know if all computers can do easily but at least my computer can do easily. And you probably want...you might want more of an expanded first-aid kit in this. I guess I gets into the other thing thing. And then the other thing that I think you're gonna want in your go bag is you want fucking entertainment. Like this gets over overlooked so much. But, when when Covid hit, the way that my mental health works I was very isolated, right? I could not put myself at risk to Covid because of my mental health. And so, I lived alone in a cabin without much electricity. And the best purchase I made was something called a Bit Boy, and I highly recommend it. It is this tiny...it looks like a tiny Gameboy and it has all of the Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, and everything else games like on it. And it uses almost no battery. It's rechargeable. It's a little finicky. If you like turn it off it like fucks it up because it's like a it's like a $30 thing full of pirated shit, right? So it's super finicky. But, I swear that this thing had a better mental health effect on me then like almost anything else during that time. And the other thing that got me through it was I had legally purchased downloads of TV. And so even though I didn't have internet, I once a week, once a day, like sat down and ate my cold soup and watched fucking Steven Universe, and that she got me through it. And so like a USB stick full of like movies, TV, also, specifically, a USB stick full of like survival guides and information about how to build things, fix things, all of that shit. I think it's a super useful thing for a bug out bag. And I leave it up to... Inmn 06:32 It's funny because I feel like this episode is something where we're covering a lot of stuff that--and I just want to start flagging things--we did a whole episode on how you can build a mesh network essentially to have things like libraries of entertainment, or Wikipedia downloads, or like survival bits. So, if you want to learn more about that then go check out that episode. I believe it's called Andre on Solar Punk. Margaret 07:08 Oh, yeah. I forgot we talked about some of the mesh network stuff. That shit's fucking cool. And yeah, so have a library with you. You know, keep a download of Wikipedia on your computer. My computer bag is an example of the kind of bag that theoretically I should be a little bit smarter and kind of keep next to the bug out bag when it's not in use, right? Because I'm going to throw my laptop into my bug out bag if I'm running, right? And so it's like people are like, "Oh, but where's your like giant knife." and like, don't get me wrong, I have a giant knife on my bag. But. I also now have a Nintendo Switch in there, which is an upgrade from the Bit Boy. And like, I am proudest of that of all of the things in my bug out bag. I see that as the most likely for me to use. And I remember before Covid, I remember thinking to myself as I was preparing a library hard drive. And as I was preparing--well I didn't have the Switch yet--but I was like, "Man, what kind of Apocalypse leaves you with free time?" And I'm like, "Oh, Covid." or the next pandemic or fucking hanging out in a refugee center for trans people in Canada or whatever the fuck horrible shit we're gonna have to deal with, you know? Inmn 08:24 Yeah, and just sorry, just to clarify, free time for a lot of people and an incredible amount of not free time for a lot of people. Margaret 08:33 Well, yeah, no, I I think I mean more about isolation. It's not like I like...maybe I'm just being defensive. But it's like at the beginning of the pandemic, my cabin did not sustain life. And so I had to put all of my work into plumbing it, solaring it, you know, washing all my clothes by hand, like doing all this shit, right? But, I think that especially in times of isolation there's like downtime that people don't expect. And I could be wrong, but I suspect that this would be true almost no matter the crisis is that there's like downtime you don't expect where turning your...where not thinking about the crises that are happening is incredibly important. No, it is funny. You're right because I think in my head there's like the beginning of Covid a lot of especially middle class people were like, "Oh, fuck, I'm stuck in my house and bored." Right? Versus a lot of working class people who are like, "Well, now I'm still working in the middle of this nightmare," you know? I think that like...but I would guess that...I dunno, whatever I'll stop being defensive. Inmn 09:41 Yeah, sorry, less of a push back and more just a bringing in this other piece of the piece of the context. But, you know, there were also overworked doctors who were separated from their families. And so, I imagine they also did have probably this weird amount of downtime where It's like, "Well, I'm not at work, but I'm not with my family. What am I doing?" Margaret 10:04 Yeah, and specifically for me, games are a really good anti-anxiety because I definitely hold by the, "Busy bee has no time for sorrow." But then you're like, "Well, it's dark out and I don't have lights in my house. Fuck am I gonna do?" You know? Okay, so that's some of the stuff from a bug out bag point of view. That's the kind of...like;, documents and things like that matter a lot. You're also going to want anything that you need for taking care of other loved ones and or animals that you might have to do. Like, my dog has a smoke mask. He does not like it. If we were in a wildfire situation, he would deal with it. You know? And so there might be like different stuff like...I should probably get a muzzle for my dog. I do not. I do not muzzle my dog on any kind of regular basis. But, I could imagine a situation in which like, everything is so stressful that it would be necessary, right? And you're gonna know better than us what specifically other other stuff you need. But I guess we'll talk about more of the expanded survival stuff that a lot of people are gonna put in their bug out bags, if that makes sense? Inmn 11:20 Yeah, totally. And sorry, just to keep flagging some things. So folks, if you want to learn more about other little pieces of this topic like how to prepare for needing extra medications in a world where like medication systems kind of break down, we do a whole episode on it. I'm blanking on what the episode title is. But I believe it's called "Taking care of your medical needs." Margaret 11:50 That sounds right. Inmn 11:51 And I forget who the guest was. But yeah, I love that we're having this go back conversation now. Because I feel like we can really tie a lot of larger topics that we've talked about before into it, which I'm really loving. Margaret 12:08 Yeah. And then maybe we'll go through, you know, kind of some more of this checklist type stuff and then talk more about the different situations in which one might need to go bag. How does that sound? Inmn 12:18 That sounds great. Margaret 12:19 Okay. So, for the bag itself beyond the emergency kit, you've now added your documents, you've added your water bottle, you've added snacks. And for snacks from my point of view, I recommend snacks that you don't like because otherwise you're going to eat them beforehand. If you're me. [laughs] I used to keep Clif Bars and not Builder Bars as my snacks because I didn't like Clif bars, but I ate so many builder bars as part of my regular life as being an oogle that now I'm kind of sick of them. So now it's like reversed. And Clif Bars are my regular protein bar and Builder Bars are my my snacks I throw in my bag, you know. And, everyone's gonna do this a little differently. And then that stuff is like...most of the stuff in here is...Like I also pick things that don't really expire, but food expires. And also so does that medication, although the medication tends to just lower its efficacy rather than become dangerous. Other things I keep in my bug out bag: a collapsible plastic water canteen. These are useful for a bunch of different things. Like if you just need to hold more water for a while, you might want one of these. I also have moved to a hydration bladder. A lot of people move away from them. I've recently moved towards them. People kind of go back and forth in the hiking world about hydration bladders. As an oogle, I never used them. As a hiker, I really like them because you can hands free or like minimal effort drink as you go, you know. And, you know, more water good except for the weight part of it, you know? And you're also going to want, to keep talking about water, you're going to want to filter in water. And I think that this is true in most circumstances. I think that this is like...you know, some of this like survival stuff is very back woodsy, but a lot of the survival stuff also applies to cities. And it applies to cities where like if you got to boil advisory... like I don't know, anyone who's not had a boil advisory where they live at some point or another, right? You know, every now and then they admit that the water isn't drinkable in your area, and also a lot of like urban survival stuff is like...whatever, I've like slept on a lot of rooftops in my life and shit, you know? Like shelter from the elements is often easier to find in a city but not necessarily a lot of other stuff. So for myself, there's a lot of different water filters. A lot of them are designed for backpacking and those tend to be pretty good. I use a Sawyer water filter. They're these little tiny ceramic water filters and they have a bunch of different attachment sense to them. I used one of these at the beginning of Covid for all of my water because I didn't have a great water source. And, I was just like basically like...I set mine up to a five gallon bucket system where I put water in the five gallon bucket, and then it goes through a hose into the Sawyer filter, and then it gravity drips into a five gallon jerrycan. That's like a stationary kind of thing. For a go bag, you use the same water filter, but it has like one bag of dirty water and one bag of clean water. You can also just rely on chemical filter...not filtration but like purification. Some people like the UV filter chemical things. I've never used one. I don't totally understand them. I mean, I understand the concept, but I don't...I can't attest to them. It seems like most people are picking ceramic water filters. There's also a LifeStraw. And a LifeStraw is a perfectly fine thing to have. I keep one in my hiking day bag. These are these cheap water ceramic filters--like 15 bucks often--and you just drink through it. Usually I go up to the stream and you stick this thing in it and you drink out of the stream. Inmn 16:09 It acts as a filter but also you can't get viruses or stuff? Margaret 16:14 Exactly, it's a ceramic filter that...Yeah, all of these filters are designed to take like mountain stream water and make it potable. Actually, the thing that they're bad at is filtering large stuff like mud. And these can get like clogged up. It's the biggest downside of a ceramic filter. What a lot of people do is they take their bandanna or their...if you're an oogle you use a banana. If you're a military bro, you use the...I forget what they're called. They're the like, giant bananas that...Folk...I can't remember the name of them. Folks in the desert and like, you know, Southwest Asia and stuff tend to use, I think. You use one of those. And then if you're a hiking bro, then you use your...what did I decide they were called? Buffs? Inmn 17:11 Yes. Margaret 17:13 So, you filter all the water through that if you want to keep the ceramic water filter lasting longer. I haven't done as much like hiking filtering, I usually just bring enough water because I don't go on really long hikes. But, I mostly have used the ceramic water filter in a stationary sense. So that's like my personal experience with it. But, that's what I carry. You can also add, if you would like, you can add these more ready-to-eat food besides just like bars and stuff. They make these...it's basically Lembas [like in "Lord of the Rings"] bread. They make these like military rations that are like vacuum sealed and are good for five or ten years. And it's just like oil and flour. And it tastes like nothing. And it's just calories. It's just like a block of calories. And your body can go a fairly long time without food compared to water, right? But like, for peak efficacy--and also to not be a grouchy asshole--you want to at least put calories if not nutrition in your body. A lot of the survival food isn't really focused on nutrition because like it's not the end of the world if you don't get your vitamins for a couple days. Inmn 18:21 Yeah, but obviously everyone has different, you know, body needs or like food requirements. Margaret 18:27 Yeah, totally. Inmn 18:28 And so this is like maybe a good time for folks with diabetes or just any any other kind of predisposition that requires to have more food around. Margaret 18:39 Yeah, and different types of food. And I think it's actually worth having a variety of types of food also for the people around you because I think a lot of this is going to be based on sharing, because greediness in times of crisis, people are like, "Oh, that's when you got to be greedy." And I'm like, "The single most useful tool you can have is another person." Like I can't imagine something I would rather have in a time of crisis than someone else. And so like, yeah, having a variety of types of foods, I think is great from that point of view. No, yeah. And like, yeah, everyone's going to need different things. Okay, so next, fire. In most people's day to day life, fire is not a big component of it. And honestly, most random overnight...like, when I was in oogle, I didn't like fucking stop and make a fire in the woods most nights, you know? And if I did, it was kind of like a celebration type thing, you know? However, from a survival point of view, there's a lot of situations where being able to have a fire is really useful specifically mostly for warmth, also for other like, you know, signaling purposes and for like...you know, if you make a wet fire, it'll smoke more and things like that. And for both boiling water to...another way to, you know, purify your water or whatever. And also for cooking. It's kind of a morale thing for cooking a lot of times. A lot of foods you can just eat them cold and that's especially the kind of stuff you might want to keep in your bag. But for fire, you might want to have additional fire methods, but you've already got a lot of them going on in the rest of your kit. The kind of thing that I always sort of made fun of, but now I understand, is the big fuck-off knife. I mean, you're a knife maker. So you probably think about knives more than the average person. But... Inmn 20:39 It's true and I think I'm curious what you have to say about the big fuck-off knife mostly because I've kind of worked my way back from it, because I used to have a big fuck-off knife all the time. Like when I was an oogle, I was that oogle with the big fuck-off knife. Margaret 20:57 The big fuck-off knife has two purposes. One, is to get people to fuck off. It's not even about drawing it, it's about fucking open carrying it. It's just about being like, "Yeah, I'm in a miniskirt. And I have a like seven inch knife on my waist." Like, people just fuck with you less when you have a big fuck-off knife. And so that's like one of the purposes. But then, bushcraft. I didn't understand why survival knives were big because I was like a big knife...I'm not a knife fighter. I think anyone who is a knife fighter is not thinking about how long they want to live. Like, that's why I mean having a big fuck-off knife is to make people leave you alone, not to like fight them with it. But just to like fucking get people to leave you alone. But the giant knife is really useful for bushcraft. It's really useful for processing wood especially if you don't have a hatchet or something with you. That's what I've like come to understand as to why survival knives are big and how specifically they're bladed on one side with a wide--you're going to know these words better than me--like spine. [Inmn mummers affirmatively] And they have a wide spine so that you can split wood with it. You can take a stick and you can put it on it on the end of the stick and then you can hit it with another stick or a rock. And you can push the knife through the thing. That's [Inmn interrupts] Inmn 22:18 Can I? Margaret 22:19 Yeah. You know more about knives than I do. Inmn 22:21 Yeah, yeah. Just to offer a little bit of re-contextualization. So you know, I'm not a bushcrafter by any means. I wish that I was. I'd be. God, I'd be so much cooler. But I do know knives pretty well and I've been asked to make bushcraft knives before and so you know, I did a bunch of research about bushcraft knives. And what I found was that and then what I found from use is that like the big fuck-off knife is not actually great for bushcrafting. Margaret 22:58 Oh, interesting. Inmn 23:01 Yeah, most Bushcraft knives are like they kind of max out at six inches. And a lot of people err more on the like, you know, four and a half to five and a half range. And what that gives you...because for bushcraft, it's like--you described batoning earlier--if you're batoning your knife through wood to reduce it you don't need a big knife for that. You need a sturdy knife for that. And with a smaller knife, you kind of get a lot more manual dexterity so you can do all of your other tasks. I love knives, I love big fuck off knives. I agree that the purpose of a big fuck-off knife is for people to fuck off. And, you know, I can imagine like survival knives are often longer because you might need them for heavier, larger tasks. But I'm honestly a fan of having a belt axe for that purpose because it's does that thing better. Sorry. That's my that's my segue into knife world Margaret 24:06 No, that makes a lot of sense. And if you ever want to lose a lot of your life--and I feel like you might have also--read people talking about survival knife versus axe versus saw versus machete, about what you're supposed to bring into the woods, you know? Inmn 24:27 Yeah. And what you're gonna learn is that knives...there's no single knife. That's good for everything just like there's no single bag that's good for everything. You need to pick the things that you're comfortable doing. And you need to pick the tasks that you need done. And then find the right tool for it. Margaret 24:48 No, that makes a lot of sense. I will say in terms of saws and knives and all that shit, I have found that the little wire saw is sort of bullshit. Have you seen these? Inmn 25:01 I always wondered. Margaret 25:03 But yeah, I think...and the one...I haven't used that much. I think I tried to use one once. The pocket chainsaw is not bullshit, which is basically a chainsaw blade with two loops on either end, and you loop it around a limb, and then you like, saw back and forth. You know, I think those are not bullshit. Although I think, personally, I'd rather have a folding saw. But they're bigger. So. Inmn 25:30 Yeah, yeah. And that's the key thing here is like if you want to build shelters, use the saw. Don't...You could use your knife for some of it. But yeah. You don't want to build a structure with like hacking 10,000 sticks into something. Get a saw. Margaret 25:51 No, I think you've convinced me. Because I've been like, I've been pondering my--I have a survival knife on my bag--and I've been pondering its actual usefulness versus its weight and stuff, you know? And like, besides the like, I keep it on the outside of my bag and it's a little bit of a like, leave me alone, you know? I think that I have been seeing...Yeah, like, yeah, I think I want to fuck with this more. Redefined my own...Because the knife that I use on a day-to-day basis is my folding pocket knife. You know? It's what I use for almost everything. I'm not going to baton wood with it. Well, I would. It just wouldn't do a very good job of it. Inmn 26:27 Yeah. And, you know, I say this as someone who is always going to have a big knife, probably. And I don't have a purely rational reason for that. But yeah, it makes me feel more comfortable. Margaret 26:45 No, and it's like, and I think it's telling that backpackers don't tend to have large knives. They don't tend to have survival knives at all. Backpackers also tend not to have axes or saws because they're not really...they're focused on getting somewhere and camping, not like building large fires or building structures and things like that. Yeah. And then like, I think more and more, I think fighty type people have been focusing more on smaller knives anyway. Like the karambit is a popular fighting knife or whatever and it's not a big knife. Inmn 27:19 Yeah, yeah. And if you see the...like a lot of the like, original from...I actually don't know where karambits come from. But, where they were developed, they're incredibly small knives. They're like inch and a half long blades. They're incredibly tiny. Margaret 27:36 It's Indonesian. I just looked it up. Yeah. Yeah, no, yeah. It's not a like...Like don't fight a bear. Like a general rule. Don't live your life in such a way where you're fighting bears. And then, if you are then use bear spray. If you're not using bear spray, use a 10mm handgun. Like, you know? Oh, we haven't really talked about firearms. Inmn 28:06 Anyway. Sorry. Derail into knife world over. Margaret 28:09 No, no, I think that...I'm really...It was useful. I learned some. It's probably worth carrying some kind of knife sharpener. If you suck like me, you can use the pull through style--that Inmn is probably going to be disgusted that I use because it destroys the initial original bevel. If you know how to sharpen a knife properly, you can bring a whetstone. It's a little... Inmn 28:31 But, whet stones are heavy. Margaret 28:33 I know. And it's also...or you can also bring a little diamond sharpener stick and stuff like that. Yeah, what would you...Okay, what would you suggest? What would you suggest as your portable knife sharpener? Light and transportable? Inmn 28:45 Yeah, so you know, a knife doesn't do much good if it's not sharp. And most people's knives are not very sharp. I would say that it is a great skill to invest in is learning how to sharpen a knife. There's a lot of stuff... Margaret 29:06 I've tried it so many times. I don't believe in it. I don't think it's real. Anyway, yeah, let's continue. Inmn 29:13 And yeah, like, you know, like what I have at home are these big series of benchtop whetstones. There's a million grits and...but one of the better things that you can have is a strop. Just a leather strop, which is just some like full grain leather. You want it to be fairly thick and use some green polishing compounds that you rub on it and you strop the edge, which helps maintain the edge. And, but as far as pocket sized sharpening devices, the strop doesn't sharpen the knife, the strap like helps redefine the burr on the edge. And there's a million different little pocket sized whetstones. But, the important part is that you want something coarse and you want something fine to like refine the bevel. And so like if I had to build a little to-go kit, I would get a little miniature like 400/1000 combo stone. That is probably not something ceramic because it's heavy. But, they make a bunch of different things. I'm actually less knowledgeable about these pocket things. Yeah, but you want something coarse and you want something fine. 400/1,000 are great grits and then a strop to kind of like polish out the edge with. With that you can't go wrong. Well, you can go wrong... Margaret 30:48 Yeah, I will go wrong. Inmn 30:49 I don't know enough to tell you how to go wrong. Margaret 30:51 No, I will successfully go wrong. I've been trying to sharpen knives my whole life. I will continue to do it. I can kind of do it. I actually use a little all-in-one pocketstone, a little bit larger than the like stick ones, and it's a longish yellow piece of plastic with two sides. And then also has a little fold out part that can be used for filing in the saw parts. And it has kind of a guide, has a little bit of an angle guide built into it, and that's the most useful part for me. So that's the only time I've been able to sharpen knives to where they like can shave. Inmn 31:28 Knife sharpening is is a skill. Don't...That would be my advice is don't think that you're going to...don't rely on learning how to sharpen your knife for the first time when you're in an in an emergency. Practice that now. Margaret 31:40 And I will say as someone who has used all knives for almost everything over the years, it's like, it's all right. I mean, it's not as good. But, I can still cut a cord with a shitty knife, you know? Inmn 31:54 Yeah, well, you know, the old knife making adage, "A dull knife..." or sorry, the old kitchen worker adage, "A dull knife is a dangerous knife." Margaret 32:02 Yeah, so live dangerously. Cut... Cut paper with your knives and never sharpen them. Yes. Okay, let's talk about sleeping systems. Inmn 32:06 Live dangerously? [laughing] Sleeping systems! Thank you for indulging my derailment. Margaret 32:20 It's what we're here for. And some of this we might kind of like...some of the like camping stuff we might not dive as deep into. We're already on episode two of what was going to be one episode. So, I believe in the sleeping bag. And that's leftover from being oogle. I would say that the one thing I would carry in any kind of bag is a sleeping bag. This is not always true. I don't always carry sleeping bag. But, it's like almost a comfort item. It's a like no matter what I'm warm kind of item. I believe in sleeping bags with a good stuff sack. I personally don't use down. Backpackers tend to use down. It's lighter. It compacts more for the same warmth. However, it doesn't insulate once it gets wet. And that is a big deal from my point of view, from a survival point of view. When everything is fine, I prefer a non down one. They're also cheaper. And that might be why I have that preference. And also, I don't know anything about how the birds who produce down are treated. So, sleeping bag super important. A lot of backpackers have now moved to backpacking quilts. And then a lot of old timers will actually just use like wool blankets and stuff like that. I love a sleeping bag. You're gonna want to get off the ground. However, that said, in an urban environment you can use cardboard. You just need to layer it a lot. And it's not as good as a sleeping pad. But it is still useful. And you're going to need a sleeping pad that is appropriate to weather and desired comfort. If you want to hear me learn more about sleeping bags and tents you can listen to me talk to Petra a year and a half ago. I don't remember the name of the episode besides Petra being the guest. And that's where I learned that the combo move of an air mattress and a foam pad is is often really good. For shelter, the sort of three choices kind of is a tent, a bivy, or a tarp. This is not necessarily in a lot of bug out situations. It is necessary in my bug out situation and it might be in yours. And the advantage of a tarp is that it is like only one object. It is light. It is kind of easier to hide in a lot of ways. And I actually, when I'm sleeping in dangerous situations--like a lot of oogle life is like trespassing--I don't like tents because tents, you can't see out of them. Like it's like a little bubble. It's why people do like tents is that they want to be in their little bubble and I totally get that. And I'll probably be a tent person moving on because it's like comfortable, and safe, and stuff. But when I was younger and everything was well, not easier, my life was fairly hard. But like whatever. It was easier for me to not bother with a tent so I used a tarp. And then the other option is the bivy. And a bivy is like a...It's like a waterproof sleeping bag. And there's like ones...like I have one that has like one pole, just to keep the head of it off your face, you know. And these compact really small. This is what a lot of people who are rucking, who are doing military shit, tend to prefer are bivys. They're not popular among backpackers. The kind of closest equivalent is hammocks. A lot of people also use, but that involves there being good trees in the right place. However, hammocks can be light, and good, and stuff, too. And these are all gonna be preferences. And the reason I no longer fuck with bivys is I have a dog. And he's coming with me. And so I'm now probably a tent camper. Because if I'm sleeping outside, I'm just leashing my dog to a tree. But, I don't want him to get rained on. I want him warm. So I'm probably going to be a tent camper from now on. And then some tents now, a lot of backpackers are moving to these tents where you use your hiking poles to keep them up and then they're super lightweight and they're actually kind of cool. And they're a little bit...like some of them are like almost halfway between a tarp and a tent. And... Inmn 36:06 I love as like camping technology evolves it just like...I feel like it gets more old timey and more oogley but with you know, fancy stuff. Margaret 36:17 The $700 oogle tent. Yeah. Some of these tents are like fucking $600-700 and made out of like, space material or whatever. Yeah. What's your favorite shelter for camping? Inmn 36:32 So this is funny. I once bike toured across the entire country. From the west coast to Chicago, I built a tarp tent every night. Margaret 36:47 Like an a-frame? Inmn 36:50 Yeah, I built like a little tarp tent every night, which I had to get really creative in the West. As you know, there's not a lot of trees everywhere it turns out. And then when I got to Chicago, I went out and bought the Big Agnes ultralight backpacking tent, which is like sort of halfway between....Yeah, it's halfway. It's like...It's not a bivy, but it doesn't have a much larger footprint than a bivy. And it was the best thing that I've ever spent money on. I'm embarrassed to say that I spent money on it. Margaret 37:28 Whatever. Whatever. Inmn 37:29 But, I did. Margaret 37:30 I'm revoking your oogle card. You didn't scam it from REI dumpsters? I can't believe you. Yeah, yeah. Fuck yeah. Inmn 37:41 All right. Yeah, but I love that thing. But, I would love to move to a bivy. Yeah. Margaret 37:45 Yeah, I think that..Yeah, honestly, like, I've only...I haven't slept a ton in my bivy. But I was like, "Oh, this works." The other downside of a bivy is that your bag doesn't fit in the tent with you. And so if you sleeping in a bivy in the rain, you're going to need to work on waterproofing your bag. But that is something that like as a backpacker, you're probably trying to do anyway. The main ways that people do it is 1) a pack cover that goes on the outside. And then 2) people often either put things in dry bags, or just like fucking contractor bags, like trash bags, inside their bag and let the bag itself get wet. And if you're, if you're bivy camping, you're accepting that your bag is getting rained on and you just need to work around that. Which, is I think part of why it's the tactical person's choice or whatever. Because you're like, "Comfort doesn't matter. Surviving to get where I need to go shoot somebody is what matters." or whatever, you know. Or not get shot or whatever. Which actually, you're going to have to take into mind when you when you choose what kind of color for all of these things you want. I personally would lean towards the camo type stuff for my...I live in a red state. I could imagine having to leave. Inmn 38:49 Yeah. Margaret 38:50 I'm gonna like I'm gonna like speed run the rest of the camping stuff. You might want a poncho or a raincoat. Some people like ponchos because you can also turn them into shelters or whatever, but I think sometimes it's a little bit just fucking carry what you like. You want additional socks in your go bag no matter what, no matter what you're...Even if it's not a camping go bag, put some fucking socks in there and some other...change of underwear and possibly like better soap, like camp soap, like more hygiene type stuff. My go bag has a fucking battery powered Waterpik so that I can floss with water at night because I have spent a lot of money on my teeth. They are not in great shape and water picks rule. I also have a portable battery powered electric toothbrush that I fucking love. You might want an emergency radio. If you're like good at radio shit, you might want a Baofeng. It's like an all channel and it can send as well as receive. It's called a transceiver. It's really easy to accidentally break the law with a Baofeng because you're not allowed to actually use any sending signals on it most of the time. But they're very useful crisis if you know what you're doing. On the other hand, I would just say get one of those like, your little battery powered weather AM/FM radio. Have and put it in there. At home, I keep one of those like hand crank solar panel everything survival radios or whatever. But they're like a little bit bulky and a little bit cheap. And so, I like don't quite trust it in my bag, but I keep one at home. But, other people feel differently. I like having a monocular or binoculars in a go bag. I like this because looking at shit is cool. And sometimes also, I could imagine there are situations where I would want to look at and see what's ahead and not go there. If I had money, if I was a money person, I would have at least a thermal monocular if not full on like night vision shit. But that's money. You want the rain cover, the dry bag, you want to beef up your first-aid kit a little bit. You probably want an ace bandage at the very least. There's some other stuff like moleskin and other things for like long distance walking that you might want. I've heard good things about leukotape--and I haven't used it yet--but as like...people use it as a replacement for moleskin for covering blisters and shit. You might want cooking stuff, which I'm just not gonna get into cooking stuff here. And you might not. You can also like cold soak your food and just like put it in like a peanut butter jar with water and fucking have it turned into food. Whatever. You might want hiking poles. You might want a solar charger. You might want, as we've talked about, a folding saw, a hatchet or machete. You might want more light. Like some people like the collapsible LED solar lanterns. They're not like a great bang for your buck in terms of like, I mean, they're actually really light and shit, but like, you know, you can use a headlamp just fine. But, like sometimes if you've got like a family and shit, it's like nice to have like a little bit of ambiance and niceness or whatever. Especially like maybe if you're in like a building right when the power's out, you know, like that's the kind of thing that like is a little bit more likely and is useful. You probably want a plastic trowel of some type for pooping outside or a little aluminum trowel for digging a hole so you can poop into it. And alright, guns really quickly, and then...My recommendation is only carry firearms if you train in them. Unlike everything else. Carrying something you don't know how to use is fine if you know you don't know how to use it and you get someone else to use it, like your first-aid kit. Like, my IFAK for gunshot wounds, If I'm shot in the belly, it's for someone else to use on me if at all possible. You know. I am trained in how to use it, but so guns are the exception to this. Do not carry a gun unless you can keep it secure at all times and you pay a lot of attention to the ethics and also the legality around firearms. Those have been covered a lot more in other places on this show. Specifically, my current recommendation that I'm a little bit this is like do what...Whatever, I haven't yet mastered this. The handgun that I keep near my bed in a safe, in a quick access safe, would go into my bug out bag in a moment of crisis or be on my person. And then in the bug out bag is additional magazines with 9mm ammunition. 9mm is by far the most common ammunition besides like .22LR, which is a survival round meant for hunting small animals. But, for a self defense point of view, I believe a handgun 9mm. And if you are the type who wants long guns, if your whole thing is you're gonna be surviving in the woods or whatever, you might want to consider some type of backpacking .22. They make, I think it's the AR-7 is one type of survival collapsible .22. And then the other one is a 10/22 with a backpacker's stock that folds. What I personally plan on carrying if it was a get out past the militia checkpoint the US government has fallen scenario or whatever is a folding 9mm carbine, which is a rifle that shoots nine millimeter rounds. A lot of people don't like these from a tactical point of view. It's not nearly as effective at long range stuff as say an AR-15 or other rifles that are meant to shoot larger rounds, right, or not larger but more powerful rounds. But, the ability to use the exact same magazines that I already use for my other gun and the exact same ammunition makes it worth it for me for specifically a bug out bag scenario. I don't have enough money to do this yet. That is why I don't have that. My only bug out bag gun is my handgun that is also my home defense gun. And now everyone knows what I have at home. Anyway, that's my firearms. Inmn 44:30 They know one thing that you have at home. Margaret 44:32 Yeah, totally. Or do they!? They think I have a 9mm but really I have a 10mm. Whatever. Oh, and then the other thing. Randomly. Okay, if your other threat model, if you're in like fucking Alaska or some shit, you might want a 10mm, but you already know this if you live in Alaska. 10mm is a round that's better at shooting really big animals. It doesn't really have any like particular advantage against people in it and shit, right, but like against grizzly bears and shit. One, bear spray more effective. There's a bunch of studies, bear spray is more effective at stopping a charging bear than any gun that exists. Whatever, I mean maybe like a bazooka or some shit, I don't know whatever. Oh, poor bear. And then also, you don't kill the bear. It's just trying to fucking scare you and live its life. Yeah, yeah, that's my bug out bag. Do you feel ready? And or do you wanna talk about, really quickly, like some some scenarios? Inmn 45:35 Yeah, I feel a lot more informed. I feel overwhelmed, Margaret 45:40 I should address the overwhelm. And I should have led with this. I'm so sorry everyone. You don't need all this stuff. This is the "I'm building a bug out bag. And I have all the time." You slowly build the bug out bag. You slowly get prepared. There's no one who's entirely prepared for all things. And the purpose of a bug out bag from my point of view is to ease your mind. When I first made my bug out bag and my cabin in the woods, I was able to say to myself, "If there's a fire in this forest, I know what I will do. And now that I know what I will do, I am not going to worry about a fire in this forest anymore." And so the first little bit that you get is the most useful. You get diminishing returns as you spend more money and more size and things like that. Massively diminishing returns. The everyday carry, your cell phone is the single most important object. You know, the pocket knife, the pepper spray, the the basic shit is the most important. If you have purse snacks and a water bottle, you are more prepared than almost anyone else. Yeah, I should have led with that. Inmn 46:57 Yeah. Oh, no, no, it's okay. I feel like, you know. We eased into it then it got real complicated. And I'm, grateful to think about the overwhelm afterwards. But, Margaret, so in thinking about a lot of these things, there's like...I'm like, okay, like, if I'm in real life DnD or if the literal apocalypse happens then I could see needing these things. But why else might one need a bug out bag? What is some threat modeling kind of stuff to think of? Margaret 47:42 Yeah, I mean, like, again, it's gonna depend on where you are. If I were to pick where I'm at, I can imagine gas supplies running out, right? I don't think...or like getting interrupted in such a way that, you know, suddenly, there's a lot of limitation to the amount of fuel that you can have, right? I could imagine grocery store stuff. I could imagine like, you know, supply chain disruptions. We're seeing supply chain disruptions. People might have to leave because of earthquakes. People might have to leave because of fires. Like, natural disasters is like probably the number one thing, right? And where you live, you will know what the natural disasters are. Where you live, personally, I would worry about drought. And I would worry about water war. But, and I would focus my prepping around rain barrels and you know, keeping five gallons of water in my truck or whatever. I didn't even get into the shit you should put your vehicle. Some other time will the vehicle preparedness. And but yeah, I mean, like there's scenarios where like...it was completely possible that January 6th type stuff could have happened on a much larger level, right? They tried to have it happen on a much larger level. We could have had a fascist coup in the United States, because they tried. And in that scenario, you might need to leave the country or you might need to move to a safer part of the country. Or you might need to move to a place so that you can prepare to defend. God, defend the country. But like, fight fascism, even if that means being like, "Alright, it's us and the Democrats versus fascism," or whatever, you know? Like, I can't imagine like the partisans in Italy were like, "Oh, no, you're a bourgeois capitalist. I'm not going to fight the Nazis with you." You know? Like, I mean, actually, that probably did happen. Inmn 49:46 Yeah, or how there's...there have been tons of anarchists who are fighting in Ukraine. Margaret 49:52 That is a...Yeah. Yeah, totally. And like if we were suddenly invaded by Russia, there would be like us and some patriots next to each other fighting on the same side, and it would be real awkward. Right? Real awkward, but like, you know. Okay. And so I think that it was entirely possible, at that moment, that my threat model included, "What if I need to get out of the south?" you know? And if I need to get out of the south, yeah, I'm driving until I hit the points where I start thinking that there's gonna be militia checkpoints. And then I'm in the woods, you know? Yeah. And like, so. It's not nearly as likely as other things. But, most bug out scenarios, yeah, are like, "I need to go spend a weekend somewhere." It could even literally be like, a go bag is like, if I got the call that my dad was in the hospital and I just need to get in my fucking truck and go see my dad, right? Like, nothing else bad is happening in the world. It's still real nice to have the bag that I am grabbing and walking out the door. You know? Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the scenarios that you imagine that you would worry about? Inmn 50:01 There's kind of, there's kind of a lot. I mean, there's, you know, there's a lot of scenarios, and I'm wondering if this is the potential for like, future episodes is like...You know, where I live, I do think about drought, I think a lot increasingly more about militia checkpoints, because I live in a--I mean, I feel like everyone lives in a place where there could suddenly be an active militia--but I think about those things. This is a whole episode that we should do. But, I think about friends who live in places where it floods, I think about friends who live in places where there's hurricanes. Margaret 52:01 And a go back is also getting to go...If you need to go help someone who's in a tight place of crisis, you know, like having your truck--don't drive your truck into standing water ff you don't know how deep it is-- but like, if you needed to get into a disaster zone to help people, if you're more prepared, you're more able to do that. Inmn 52:22 Yeah. Oh, and actually, could I suggest an addition to to go bags? Just as a thing. Yeah, I would love to heavily urge people to have in their go bags or to have this as a separate bag in your emergency kit is, you know, something that we're learning a lot from harm reduction communities and organizing right now is harm reduction supplies. Yeah, Naloxone or Narcan, fentanyl testing strips, drug testing stuff in general. And, you know, even if you don't use drugs, then I would suggest having stuff in case other people who do use drugs and need them to some extent or have complicated dependency around them, having that kind of stuff for someone else could be life saving to someone else. Margaret 52:29 Of course. No, everything I said is the only stuff you can use. Inmn 52:41 That is a really good point. Alright. Well, that's some stuff. Is there anything else we should talk about go bags. It's cool to have a go. That's what I'm gonna say. Don't let the right wing have it. It's fucking cool. Being prepared rules. People are gonna think you're cool. They used to make fun of you, but now...now they don't. I have two kind of silly questions, because I love rooting these discussions in humor and light heartedness. There's another word for it. Margaret 54:14 I famously hate joy. Inmn 54:16 Yeah. Okay, so we've just gone through this big list of stuff and do you remember Donny Don't from Crimethinc? Yeah, what is the Donny Don't of go bags? Margaret 54:33 Donny Don't is a, just so people know, it's the don't do with Donny Don't does. And what is the Donny Don't of go bags? It's probably the like crazy overkill versions. Like I probably don't need an ice axe in my go bag. Now that I say that I'm like, I mean, if I had to cross into Canada on the East Coast I would actually need an ice axe. So, but like, gear obsession, I think that and letting go bags be an endless bottomless non fun thing. If it is fun for you to geek out and find the the version of the thing that's two ounces lighter, do it--as long as you give away the old one or like, you know, maintain it in such a way that it's useful to somebody else. But yeah, I think that Donny Don't is the overkill, like a bag that you can't carry. Unless, I mean, some people can't carry certain amounts of weight that they would need and then they need assistance and things like that. That's actually okay too. But like, but overall. Yeah. Inmn 55:42 Cool. Yeah. And actually, that is my retrospective answer for which knife to bring is the knife that you will carry. Margaret 55:49 Yeah. Inmn 55:49 Is the knife that does not that does not impede you from caring it. And then my other comical question because I can't do a single interview without talking about it is: So in Dungeons and Dragons, you have the adventuring kit and what is the 50 foot of hempen rope, which every single adventurer uses at some point, and what is the like climbing like...not crampons. Pitons. What is the pitons thing that no one has ever used. If you use them, please tell us about it. Margaret 56:32 Everyone uses the the eating stuff. The spork, the utensils. Everyone uses...Yeah, the stuff that everyone uses is the tiny light cheap shit. You know? It's the fucking BIC lighter. And know what what no one uses is the magnifying lens to start the fire, which I didn't even include. I actually include tiny little magnifying lenses in the kits because they cost like five cents, like little Fresnel lenses size of credit card. But, it's mostly so you can read small stuff. And that weighs nothing. I like throwing it in. But the magnifying lens. That's the Yeah. Inmn 57:21 The piton thing. Margaret 57:25 Yeah. Whatever it is. Inmn 57:29 Cool. Thank you. Thank you for indulging my silly questions. Well, it seems like maybe we should do some more...Talk about this more some other time. Margaret 57:41 Yeah, you should ask me about vehicle preparedness sometime. And home preparedness. Inmn 57:46 Yeah, vehicle preparedness, home preparedness, like specific disaster preparedness. Yeah. Like, I know, we're gonna...we're planning on doing a hurricane thing at some point. Margaret 57:58 We're just gonna throw a hurricane. Inmn's a level 17 Wizard. Inmn 58:07 And, you know, maybe we like...do we eventually started talking about...Do we just throw you, Margaret, into situations and say, "How would you deal with this issue?" Like as an episode concept? Margaret 58:22 I thought you meant physically. Like, while I'm on tour, be like, "Sorry, Margaret, you're suddenly survivor lady." And I'm like, "Wait!" Inmn 58:32 No, no, I'm thinking of like, this funny episode concept where we come up with situations, almost like roleplay situations, but real life, and you tell us how you would prepare and deal it. Margaret 58:46 Okay. Yeah, we should do that sometime. I guess I'll have to get good at this. Usually, because I'm like...Well, my whole thing is I'm not quite an expert. At this point. I think I do know more than the average person. But my whole point was like, I'm not an expert. I find experts and ask them things. But, I guess at this point, there's a lot of this shit that I either sometimes have hands on experience and sometimes I just fucking talk to people about it all day. So. Yeah, sounds good. Well, Inmn 59:12 Well. Thanks so much for coming on this, what ended up being a two parter episode of your own podcast that I am a weird guest host of right now. Margaret 59:24 No, it's our podcast. It's Strangers' podcast at this point. Inmn 59:29 Yeah. Do you have anything that you would like to plug? Margaret 59:34 You can hear me on my podcast, Live Like the World is Dying, it's a community and individual preparedness podcasts published by Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. You can also hear me talk about history. I spend most of my time reading history books and talking about it on a podcast called Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff on Cool Zone Media. It's very confusing that one of my podcasts is on CZN and one of my podcasts is on CZM, but that's the way it goes. And my most recent book is called "Escape from Incel Island." You can hear me talk about a shotgun that I used to really want, the Celtic KSG which is what Mankiller Jones carries. It's no longer that shotgun I lust after. Now I want to Mossberg 59A1. But, you know, I don't know whether I want to change what they're carrying. And I'm on the internet. @MagpieKilljoy on Twitter and @Margaretkilljoy on Instagram and you can also follow...I'm now trying to make people follow our social media, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. You can also follow us on social media @TangledWild on Twitter and then at something on Instagram. I'm sure if you search Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness it will come up. Do you know what it was? What is our Instagram? Inmn 1:00:48 It is @tangled_wilderness on Instagram. Margaret 1:00:51 We did a really good job of grabbing all the...we've been around for 20 years and we didn't fucking grab good Instagram handles at the beginning. Yeah, that's what I got. Inmn 1:01:00 Great. Great. Well, we will see you next time. Margaret 1:01:04 Yeah. Inmn 1:01:11 Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please go make a go bag and then tell us about it. But also tell people about the podcast. You can support this podcast by telling people about it. You can support this podcast by talking about it on social media, rating, and reviewing, or doing whatever the strange nameless algorithm calls for. Feed it like a hungry god. And, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Our Patreon helps pay for things like transcriptions, our lovely audio editor, Bursts, as well as going to support our publisher Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. Strangers and in a Tangled Wilderness is the publisher of this podcast and a few other podcasts including my other podcast, Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, which comes out monthly and is usually our monthly feature of anarchist literature or something. We also put out the Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is the podcast for people who love movies and hate cops. And we would like to make a special series of shout outs to some of our patrons in particular. Thank you Anonymous, Funder, Jans, Oxalis, Janice and O'dell, Paige, Aly, paparouna, Milica, Boise Mutual Aid, Theo, Hunter, Shawn, SJ, Paige, Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Kat J., Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Kirk, Sam, Chris, Michaiah, and Hoss the dog. I love that this list just keeps getting longer and longer and longer. And seriously, we could not do any of this without y'all. So thank you. I hope everyone does as well as they can with everything that's happening and we'll talk to you soon. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co

This week, we're sharing a recent conversation with some of the organizers behind the International Day of Solidarity with Marius Mason & All Longterm Anarchist Prisoners.  Check out June11.org and read this essay from CrimethInc. to learn more about the long-term struggles of anarchist prisoners. Support Coffee with Comrades on Patreon, follow us on Mastodon, Twitter and Instagram, and visit our website. Coffee with Comrades is a proud affiliate of the Channel Zero Network. Coffee with Comrades is an affiliate of the Firestorm Books & Café. Check out our reading recommendations! Our logo was designed by Nathanael Whale.

Episode Summary Margaret and Casandra talk with Cindy Milstein about what anarchism actually is, why you should try it, possibly for life, the many horrors of fascism, and once again why community is all too important. They also talk about Milstein's new book from Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, "Try Anarchism for Life." Guest Info The guest is Cindy Barukh Milstein (they/them). Milstein can be found on Instagram @CindyMilstein on Twitter @CindyMilstein, on Wordpress at CBMilstein.wordpress.com on on Mastodon @CBMilstein. Their new book, "Try Anarchism for Life" can be purchased from our publisher at TangledWilderness.org Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Casandra can be found doing our layout at Strangers. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness 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 one of your hosts today. Margaret Killjoy. And also with me is Casandra. How are you doing, Casandra? Casandra 00:24 Pretty good. Margaret 00:26 Today's episode is an episode that a lot of people have been requesting, which is, 'what is anarchism?' This thing that we keep talking about on this show. And how should you talk about it with other people? Or I don't know, whatever. It's what isn't anarchism, and with us today as a guest is the author of Cindy Milstein. And I think that you all will hopefully get a lot out of this conversation. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Casandra 01:05 Hi, Milstein. If you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns. And just a little bit of background about why you're talking with us today. Milstein 02:05 Yeah. Hi, to both of you. My name is Cindy Barukh Milstein and I use 'they' and I'm talking to you two, who are both part of Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness publishing collective. And you are about to put out my...your first book, and my somewhere in a bunch of books I've done called, "Try Anarchism for Life." Yeah, so I'm super excited to think it's actually in the mail to me now the real copy. Very excited to see it. Casandra 02:45 That's handy that you authored a book about anarchism, and we want to talk about....anarchism. Milstein 02:53 Wow, coincidence. Good coincidence. Margaret 02:57 Wait, are you an anarchist? Milstein 03:01 Time will tell. Margaret 03:06 Is that like a 'we all aspire to this,' thing? Milstein 03:08 Yeah, that was gonna be one of my answers to what anarchism is. Or like that, you know, a friend of mine was talking about recently how they're from Greece, and how people don't actually, they....I forget the whole anecdote, but anyway, that you can't say your something until after your life is over, then people can say it about you. So, Casandra 03:33 Oh, interesting. Milstein 03:34 You know, because we're all,we all really are aspiring to be an anarchist. I hope. And, and, yeah, I guess I do use that label. And it's on the title of some of my books so... Margaret 03:45 Okay, well, that leads us into the first question, which is a question that I get a lot, that you might get a lot, which a lot of listeners of the show have. Milstein, what is anarchism? Milstein 03:59 Oh, okay. Joking ahead of time, that if I am Jewish, yes, one Jew, they have two opinions. But if you ask anarchists, we probably have even more, and if you're Jewish anarchists, thousands. So I guess I was thinking about this, there's so many ways to describe anarchism, but lately I've really been thinking about it as like life, how we make life in common life and care. And do that in collective ways through self determination, self organization, self governance, because most of what we're facing that is not anarchism are different forms of deaths machines. So yeah, lately I've been thinking about what is that? You know, what does that mean to be staunchly in not just an advocate out but like actually, actively engaging in forms of bringing in essentially life? But yeah, I guess the other ways people...or I describe anarchism often is a compass, or sort of horizon made up of a bunch of ethics, which you often highlight on this show through various practices of like mutual aid and solidarity and collective care and all sorts of other nice warm and fuzzy ways we do good in this world or try to create better worlds. But yeah, I guess the nutshell other version, I would say is, to me, anarchism is both the absence and presence, and the absence of all forms of hierarchy and domination or striving to lessen them as much as possible. But, it's no good unless there's a presence of something to fill in those absences. Like, I don't know, anarchism isn't just like, we hate everything, let's like, you know, hate capitalism, patriarchy, chaos, whatever. But what is the presence of what we want and that's actually for me, where anarchism really shines, as a philosophy and practice of freedom, and liberation and liberatory practices of all sorts. So, I really like to think about that part of anarchism. And, and so therefore, the, that means that anarchism as a practice, which to me embodies the whole of your life every second of the day, is constantly juggling tensions, and between, you know, what we don't like and what we do and what we want to destroy, and what we want to create, or in a way, the core tension in anarchism is how do you create these beautiful societies and worlds based upon kind of balancing out freedom for each of ourselves and freedom, collectively? And, and that's hard. That isn't easy. But like, that's what anarchism is and is not. Like, we just want people to be free and do their own thing, which to me is capitalism or liberalism, or all these other things, like, "Fuck you, I'm gonna do my own thing." But anarchism is like, "No, you know, I should be able to become who I want to be. But I can only do that if you can do that too. And how we do that together is where it gets fun." And to me, that's what enter you know, a lot of what anarchism is about, that presence of all we do. So I don't know, what do you two think? Margaret 07:04 I mean, okay, one of the things that you touched on....I actually do I would define anarchism as this like striving for freedom, but I would I define freedom a little bit differently than, well, certainly liberalism or capitalism would. You know, my argument being we're not free if we like live alone in the woods, I tried it, actually, I still had a society to fall back on. But, you know, freedom is like, not just the individual in a state of nature, or whatever. Freedom is, is something that we create, and build cooperatively with each other, because if freedom is the ability to like, maximize my own agency and act in the ways that I would like to the most or whatever, right? We can create that with each other. And I basically, I make the argument that freedom is a relationship between people rather than a static state for an individual. And so, I do you believe in maximizing freedom, in that I believe in creating relationships of freedom between people. And I really like, and I don't remember who said it, I think I'm kind of paraphrasing it from Ursula Le Guin, is that anarchism is about the marriage of freedom and responsibility, that basically we need to all be as responsible to each other as possible so that we can maximize all of our, our freedom. And so that's like, kind of what I set out to do as an anarchist, is create these relationships of freedom. But, I guess I would say like, if I'm talking to someone who is like, "Well, what is anarchism?" I think at its like, core, it's like, simplest is, you know, yeah, like, as you said, you know, are like people trying to live in a world without oppressive hierarchies, right? You know, traditionally, in the sort of Western philosophical tradition that anarchism is most often reflected through, you have basically the idea of like, it comes out of an anti capitalist movement, it comes out of a movement against capitalism, and they said, "Well, also the state," you know, they were like, "The state and capitalism are intrinsically linked, we are opposed to all of them, or both of these constructs." And then people very quickly took it from there to be like, "and also patriarchy, and also white supremacy and also all of these, like systemic institutions of oppression." And, you know, anarchism is the movement against those things, but has, as you talked about, always been tied into, for most people also a sort of positive vision, the creation of a society without these things as a, as a desired thing to move towards. Milstein 09:39 Yeah, no, thanks for filling. I was I was thinking when you were speaking, it's like, so much of anarchism to me is it's like isn't a fixed thing. To me. That's why I like the idea of a horizon, your always kind of walking towards this beautiful thing, but you're never actually going to quite get there. But you know, like, you're never...you can see it but you can never fully, but so it's this process. And yeah, one other thing When you were speaking, I was reminded of as often I talked about anarchism is, like us together, figuring out different forms of social organization and different forms of social relationships that emphasize, you know, freedom and liberation and that it's impossible without the social, you know, like we we, we are social creatures. We can't possibly do this alone. Casandra 10:20 But I thought anarchism was about chaos. You mean anarchists are organized? Margaret 10:31 Sometimes we spend too much of our time on organization. Milstein 10:34 Or trying to organize. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, another way, another way. I think that's why I like tensions, because another tension to me is the tension between sort of, you know, freedom and spontaneity or how do you know, like, in a way, maybe it's playfully in the, in the, like, the word anarchism and anarchy, you know, you can't...anarchism is like we can make, we can try to figure out ways to like, create, you know, neighborhood assemblies and info shops, and mutual aid societies and all these other things. And then there's all this fun, spontaneous, spontaneous chaos and play and joy that happens that we never even thought of, and that we actually balance both those things we're not you know, just...Yeah, anarchism is like, I also think of anarchism is like being really dynamic and flexible and open, and kind of like, "Oh, that's a cool new idea. Let's try that." Versus like a lot of things like borders: "No, this was the line in the sand." or state: "No, you have to do that." You know, that's really different. Casandra 11:35 I feel like one of my favorite things about anarchism is that there are different ways to do anarchism. And that seems like counter intuitive still, even to a lot of anarchists. I'm thinking about like, I don't know, Twitter anarchists: "No, there's only one way to do this." Margaret 11:57 Yeah, the idea that we're like, gonna find the the one right way is inherently broken. And I really liked the, you know, the quote from the anarchists adjacent, but not anarchistic or not not anarchist Zapatista is that, you know, "A world in which many worlds are possible is the goal." Yeah, and I like that it's, it's not about coming up with easy answers, or providing easy answers to people, which is actually I mean, it certainly limits our recruitment, because we're, we can't just be like, "Oh, well, here we have the answer. Anarchism is the answer." Anarchism, it's said is like a system by which to come up with answers collectively, amongst people, you know, it's like a, it's much easier to tell people what to do than to tell people to become free thinking individuals who work things out with each other, you know? Milstein 12:51 Yeah, yeah. No, like, maybe the emphasis on like experiments and processes and us together. And the way you use the answers as plural is, you know, most other sort of forms of...yeah, like, politically engaging, first of all, are limited to like, one sphere of your life. But you know, anarchism is like, "How can we make the whole of our, of our lives feel whole," and, but to do that, there isn't like, one way to do things. And so you know, actually, when people get...the more, I just find this time and time again, to always is so beautiful, it's like, the more people you get together, the more incredibly beautiful creative solutions you have, or ideas or experiments. And, you can actually try multiple ones of them at once. And that makes for this kind of beautiful ecosystem, which is maybe another thing we didn't talk about anarchism, I think it's very, like, ecological in, not in the sense of necessarily like, you know, environmentalism, or making things, you know, but, like, very holistic, and understands things in ways like complicated ecosystems where it's okay for difference to coexist in an ecosystem, and actually, that makes us more resilient and stronger, is like some of the most, like, I love walking, you know, and observing the world. And when you walk around and just see some of the most like, you know, sort of ecosystems that are thriving, they're thriving, because there's multiple different types of plants and animals and species, and, you know, engagements and interactions and experiments going on. And they all shift and change through that. So, how can we think of that? So? I mean, often when people think about anarchists, and you're like, "Oh, and what kind of anarchists are you?" and you know, "I'm a feminist, anarchist, or queer anarchist, or Jewish anarchist, or, you know, et cetera, et cetera," and like that's like, some sort of problem and anarchism, and I think we're just actually trying to articulate that freedom and that ecosystem has to bring in the fullness of who we are. And the fullness of who we are isn't always the same. And it's that beautiful kind of interplay between what we care about in our own lives and our own, you know, experiences and identities and yeah. So, I'm just kind of rambling, but I don't know, lately, I've just been thinking a lot about the anarchist ecosystem. And that's actually, you know, I mean, so much of, you know, like white Christian supremacy homogenizes everything from calendars to, you know, time, to how we make decisions, to, you know, capitalism gives you the same, you know, type of, you know, hamburger or coffee no matter where you are in the world if you know if it's trying to like flatten out everything or actually destroy all sorts of foods so all we think of this certain foods, you know. And most like large scale forms of hierarchy and domination to succeed, they they flattened, I mean, we're looking at fascism, unfortunately, appearing in a lot of parts of the globe right now. And it's all about an essence creating this, like, pure identity, that's homogeneous identity, that should be able to survive while the rest of us should be killed off. And I mean, ultimately, fascism. If it ever fully succeeded in instituting itself would die because there's no possible way any kind of ecosystem can exist if it has only has one pure sort of being, right? Margaret 16:13 Yeah, I think about the anarchist comicbook author, Alan Moore, makes this argument that the primary axis of politics in this world is not communism versus capitalism. It's not left versus right. It's, it's fascism versus anarchism as you know, these two opposing concepts and what you're talking about, but fascism is the making everything the same, in order to be strong. And then anarchism is about like, celebrating difference and creating....diversity as strength, you know, rather than, like, just unity as strength in this sort of fascistic context. Milstein 16:58 Or, again, life. I mean, fascism, it has to engage in genocide, because there's no other way to get rid of all those things that aren't the one pure right, you know, sort of body you're, and, and, and we're like, you know, okay, we have to try to, like, bring forward life, and in a sense, and I guess one thing, when you're speaking, I was also thinking about with anarchism, it's always hard to sort of explain well what is anarchism is like, sure, some people came up with the, like, a word and applied it to, you know, a specific political philosophy at a specific time period in history. And those people that became anarchist love to travel and they wandered around the world, they, you know, convinced other, you know, through inspiring other people, a lot of people became anarchists. But anarchism is, is, is really this tendency of life unfolding. And when you get to the social realm, it's of people together, unfolding that life together, to create different forms of social relationships that allow people to live in more cooperative, mutualistic mutually interdependent and co-responsible ways. And all the things, you know, solidaristic, carrying all the many ethics we can throw in, but humans have been doing that, since the beginning of time, and continue to do that. And when we look at, you know, uprisings that have happened recently, whether it's, you know, in Iran or the George Floyd uprising, or we can name hundreds and hundreds of others, small scale and large scale. During the pandemic, which is still ongoing when, you know, people formed all sorts of projects in small scale and larger scale forms of solidarity and mutual aid to take care of each other. It's it's like that's anarchistic and I particularly don't really care to turn everybody into an anarchist, or to have everybody even say, "Well, this is about anarchism." This like, we, I think that's why Zapatistas are also super influential to me. And they, they also were like, No, we look for all the places in which we can listen to each other and hear the way we're all engaging. And watch each other and share with each other and borrow from each other and all the ways that we're engaging in creating that life and not worry about the labels. Worry about, and celebrate those places where people are like, throwing off hierarchy and domination, but not just throwing that off, but making their own lives together and going, "This is what we want our lives to be." I really think that's what's so powerful about these moments. It's like, you know, the uprisings, you know, the, all the hierarchical structures will say, "Oh, they don't know what they want. They're just angry. They're just ripping things down. They're just destroying things." And any of us who've been in these moments, or have done a mutual aid project with anyone, or done anything large or small, you know, that's not...sure we're like, you know, a window gets broken or, you know, someone takes the food out of a little library and instead puts some...or books out a little library instead of puts you know masks or food during a pandemic. We, but what you realize is people are creating different forms of social relationships that are around love, and care, and beauty, and they're sharing with each other, and they're acting in profound forms of solidarity. I listened to this beautiful piece recently that was talking about the George Floyd uprising and how, in the first especially few days is like, it was the most like counter to all this sort of conquer divide around race politics in the United States moment. Because suddenly, people...and all sorts of other things class, gender, age, all these people were acting in this beautiful concert, sharing, and helping each other get away from cops, but also sharing food, and knowledge, and joy, and painting murals. And, you know, when...I really remember Unicorn Riot, which is a great like anarchistic news media project, when they were up close filming the precinct being burned down, they walked in and go, "Oh these people are destroying the third precinct, police station," and then they walked in with their camera, and you're inside watching people trash the place, and it being set on fire. And then people's faces were joyous. And people walked outside and had a party basically. And I was like, watching that live. And going, this is why we revolt, we revolt....Why we just, quote, destroy things, destroy police stations that kill people, you know, status structures that are all these things, we're not destroying the...our lives, and we're actually...but that we do it so we can have that joy with each other. I'm rambling now. But I just I feel like that's the thing that gets so lost, but all of us that are part of these moments know it, and we have to....like anarchism asks you, this is a really, I think, a really powerful thing to trust in yourself and those around you to know we can do this. And, you know, there's nothing we have except sort of the trust of the things we promise each other in anarchism, because there's no you know, police force or bureaucracy or anything else. There's just this profound, deep promise and trust in each other. And we actually know that when we do it, we feel it, it feels different. It feels like life. It feels like love. Casandra 22:05 We've talked about that some in terms of community preparedness, when we're talking about things like natural disasters. And my understanding is that they're realizing that when these giant catastrophes happen, whether it's like a social catastrophe, or natural disaster, or something, people tend to band together, and work together,r and help each other in larger degree. It's almost like, it's like a natural way for us to be or something. Margaret 22:33 With the exception of the elites, right, you get that elite panic thing, if you have...I hate using the word elites, but it's, no, it's in the name of the like, the people who have power within a society are the people who don't band together in times of crisis, and instead try to like violently enforce the status quo. And, disaster studies stuff talks about that. That's the name they use. Casandra 22:58 Of course they do. Milstein 22:59 I feel like what's so sad is that we have you know, like, I hope that as an anarchist, I really hope we don't like be like, "Oh, romanticize disaster," as the places that this happens. You know, disasters are happening to us. We are... we want to create a society where, yeah, those moments show us that. But then we're like, "Wow, we can do this all the time. We don't have to just do this in disasters." Although we're pretty much in disaster constantly. We're in disaster always. I don't know, I don't also want to romanticize, Oh, I feel so great that we have this horrible, you know...fascism is getting worse. We're actually helping each other like, you know, provide community self defense in these wonderful ways. You know, it's like, all that does is point to I mean, you know, the point to the sort of, anarchistic dream of you know, autonomous communities or liberated zones, or all these places, in which we would still have arguments and we would still, you know, have behaviors that would harm us and antisocial behaviors, but they would be, I guess, I guess the other thing I want is you know is whenever you do these experiments that are anarchistic things still happen that don't feel great, but they happen to such a lesser degree, and we have so many more beautiful ways of dealing with them that aren't about prisons and police. And...or we try to at least, you know, we aspire to that, again, like going back to the beginning is like, everyone's like, "You know, you have all these, like, abolitionist ways of dealing with conflict, but yet we're not good at it." And I was like, "Well, how would we be, we've been raised in this culture for, you know, hundreds of years now, at this point, sadly, of, you know, police and until we're a few generations, which, again we have the Zapitistas to show us, because I think they've been around long enough to begin to be able to show us this is that, you know, their children and their children's children, I think they're now probably have grandchildren that have come out of them that have lived in autonomous communities, is each new generation is more able to do it better, you know, which is why in a lot of diasporic and long long time traditions that way, precede, you know, states and capitalism and a whole bunch of things. A lot of times the numbers, like seven is really prominent. And we think of, you know, some indigenous cultures talk about seven generations. Jewish, you know a lot of looking back to seven, like cycles of seven, and that it may take, you know, seven generations to be able to actually forget, like, sort of erase the socialization of how you know, and learn better ways to do this. So we're not instantly gonna have...I just want to emphasize you know anarchism is not, "Oh, great, everything's wonderful now," it's just about, we're gonna do things a lot better and more and better and better still, the longer we can hold and sustain these spaces of possibility. Margaret 23:00 Yeah, I want to ask a question for each of us, which is, how did you become an anarchist? Or how did you realize you're an anarchist? Or however you choose to define that? I don't know who wants to go first? It looks like Milstein... Milstein 25:49 Or one of you two? Margaret 25:58 Alright, I'll go first. Can't see, but Casandra opted out by putting their finger on their nose. My story is very, like pithy, but also true, which was that, you know, when I was like, when I was a teenager, I was not excited about any of the political options that were presented to me. I had this like, brief moment where I was a libertarian, because I took a quiz online, and it said, and it had been made by the Libertarian Party. And it was like, "Well, do you like freedom? You must be a libertarian." And my, like, communist girlfriend was like, "No corporations would run everything." And I was like, "Okay, well, that's true." But, I don't want to be a communist, as I understood it, at that time, meaning like, state communist or whatever, right? And still don't. And, so I just kind of didn't care about politics. I was like, vaguely social democrat. And then I went to this protest in New York City on February 2, 2002, it's part of the, you know, gets called the ultra globalization movement, or whatever. And, and the anarchists were like wearing masks despite a mask ban in New York City. And I was like, "That's cool," right. And I didn't know anything about the anarchists, except that they were willing to wear masks, despite being told they weren't allowed. And that was like "That rules." So, I went up to this kid wearing a mask. And I was like, "Hey," and I'm 19, or something...well not 'or' something. I was 19. I said," Hey, what's this anarchism thing?" And he's like, "Well, we hate the state, and capitalism." And I was like, "Well, what are you gonna do about it?" And he's like, "Well, we're gonna build up alternative institutions while attacking the ones that are destroying the world." And I was like, "Well, do you have an extra mask?" And he was like, "Yeah." And he gave me a black bandana and I tied it around my face. And I became an anarchist. And I've not really looked back. Casandra 27:53 That's the initiation, is donning a black bandana. Margaret 27:56 Yeah. And like, you know, that day, I got, like, rounded, I got kettled. And I spent like, I don't know, five hours or something with like, 10 of us surrounded by like, fucking 20 cops or whatever. And, you know, then it was like, this very powerful moment in my life. And then it, it took me a long time to sort of like, become part of the sort of anarchist scene or milieu or whatever. But from that day forth, it was I called myself an anarchist. Casandra 28:30 My story is less exciting. I had a really conservative, really religious upbringing, to the extent that I like, went to seminary and stuff. And when I turned 18, it was the first time I could vote. And, the discrepancies I was seeing between how we were told to vote and what we were taught was theologically sound was too much for me. So, I left, and, like the deconstruction of like, those things I was raised with and my concept of authority, the natural progression was just becoming an anarchist. It also helped that Crimethinc was based out of my hometown. So, I like lived and worked at the Crimethinc house for a while and got you know, exposed to all sorts of baby anarchist ideas through that. Milstein 29:26 Oh, I love you're an anarchist. I love hearing stories because they're all different and great. Yeah, yeah. They're never isn't a form...Yeah, for a while I was there must be a formula to this. But, there are no which is actually yeah, no, it's great. Casandra 29:42 How about you? Milstein 29:44 Yeah, I feel like there was preconditions that made me like sort of like what you're talking about, Margaret that made me like, kind of looking for anarchism for most of my life, including like, my parents were like overgrown kids because of their own trauma. And so they made me their parent from the very beginning. And so they really let me like self determined with me and my friends. And we were always creating our own self organized spaces or going off on adventures. But, so were my parents. And so I also had to be...learn a lot of responsibility and how to take care of people, because otherwise no one else would. So in a way, it's like a traumatic responses, as like, you know, and I think from ancestors, I don't know. I more and more believe that there's, like, ancestral, both trauma and joy that has, like, made me understand that like, to sort of be diasporic, to be not...you know, do you make community where you are with those who are with you, and you take care of each other. And this vague notion of like, our goal, or sort of our aim as humans is to, you know, be as good as we can and try to create as good a world as we can, that just, there's all these preconditions that so I was kind of always looking around going, Oh, maybe this political orientation, or this group or that group? And I was like, nope, nope, nope. And then, you know, and then I met some anarchists in Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, where I was living, and they were like, "Hey, why don't you read this?" And they kept handing me free articles and books. And then they were like, "Hey, why don't you come to this self organized cafe where, you know, everyday, things are mostly free, but you can throw in money in a jar, if you want on, there's events going on." Or, "Hey, why don't you come join us in some of the organizing we're doing." And I just, I, they were just so generous, they kept just gifting me. And it wasn't like they were asking me to be them or to change or they weren't even, you know, they were just like, this kind of like, I guess that's right, come back to the sort of, like trust and faith in anarchism is like, you don't have to like sell it to people, you can gift it, you know, and share it and and then they're like, "Hey, do you want to come here, Murray Bookchin speak at something called the Institute for Social Ecology that was happening then and Murray would, you know, I went to hear him speak and 12 hours later, after his first talk, he because he would just talk during this program. And people came from all over the world, so there were anarchists from all over the world sitting in this room, and it was like, wow, they're anarchists, and multi generational, all different ages listening, you know, and asking him questions and engaging. And I was like, whoa. And then as he came up to afterward, my friends introduced me and they go, "Hey, this is our friend, Cindy, Murray," and Murray's like, you know, "Where do you live?" I go, "Burlington" and he was like, "What's your last name?" And then he goes, "You need to study with me." Margaret 32:25 That's amazing. Milstein 32:26 And then he like, really, like, as he did for many, many people, he's just like, "Come to my house." And we would like, you know, he lived very, very modestly often in like, a studio, and we just, like, would crowd around this room and just read and, you know, so I just started with him and anarchists in that community doing organizing and reading and studying. And, yeah, and also, I never looked back from there, too. And I think it's because Murray, you know, maybe because we had affinity, because we're both like, culturally, really similar. And, but he's, like, you know, "I want to give you, you know, you have to, like, think and act for yourself," and I'm so shaped by him in a way, you know, he was like, he was so interested in what we would do to...what we would, how we would replace the state with what. What would we replace capitalism? You know, what would we, you know, and it's like, and maybe that just, you know, felt like...I felt at home, I guess that's why we know, for the first time, like, "Oh, this is where I should be," you know, so. And that it wasn't, I guess, less than want to say is like that, that group and Murray...yeah. And then I start doing the same thing. There's a, you know, gigantic, you know, movements going on and, you know, I was in at that time period, then started you know, going to New York, Montreal, all these other places, because I love wandering around and there was all sorts of incredible anarchist organizing, and then big movements started, you know, similar the alt globalization, movement and movements were constantly people were like, hey, read my scene. Hey, do you want this Hey, do you want that? Hey, do you need water? Hey, do you need a mask? And that's just generosity of spirit like why would you not want that. I just feel like it's like I just feel like more and more I just into this kind of big social fabric of...which doesn't mean all anarchists have been nice to me or great to each other. It's just yeah, it's just overall it's like far more generous of spirit and yeah. So. Margaret 34:17 Well that that...one of the things that you brought up during that you know, going into this like multi generational meeting and seeing that there's like anarchists from all over the world. I think one of the things you know if the primary target of this particular episode Oh, I guess try and do it with every episode of Live Like the World is Dying is people who are may not know, the things that we're coming into it knowing right like so someone who's listening to this might have only barely heard of anarchists, or only seen I guess what I would kind of say is sort of the tip of the anarchist iceberg, like the most commonly seen or known elements of anarchism change over time. I would actually say I wonder right now if it's not the mutual aid projects, Casandra 34:57 Oh, I was gonna say that crappy documentary. Margaret 35:01 Oh god, I wasn't even trying to think of...we could talk about An-caps [anarcho-capitalists] later, but ya know, like, okay, but of the actual anarchist iceberg...because there's a very...I hate gatekeeping but there's a certain....anyway you know, when I was coming up, the tip of the anarchist iceberg was like the black bloc, you know, people wearing all black and matte...I'm literally wearing a black hoodie as I say this, but but I don't have a bandana over my face. But, that was part of me becoming an anarchist, I guess. But, you know, this, this idea of the people who wear all black and break things, right, is like the tip of the anarchist iceberg. And there's this like presumption that people have that is incorrect about all of those people being young, able bodied, like cis white men, right? It's probably changed enough that some people think that it might, there might be some queer folks in there too, right. But this, like, youthful anger movement, is what people know about. And I think that that's, well, that's what, you know, the media presents us as, and all of these things, but actually finding out that it's this like multi generational movement, and this like multi like, like literally multicultural movement, like different people coming from very different, like cultural ideas of how they want to live, and like how they express themselves, you know, within that is actually the kind of more beautiful part of it. I have nothing against the people....I have nothing against the black bloc, but it is like, only some tiny portion of what anarchists do. I don't know, I don't know why I'm going on that rant. Milstein 36:35 I mean, in a way, I think what like when people go, Oh, anarchists, you know, I wear black bloc and I wear a black mask constantly, every day now. Because, the whole time since the pandemics been going on, it's like how do we be collectively carrying is we wear masks, and which is what the point of the mask were in the first place, which is like a black bloc was a way to take care of each other in moments when the police and the state are trying to target you. And all sorts of social movements around the world have...mask their face to protect each other, in moments of danger from the structures that are trying to kill us and do kill us. So, I think that's what gets lost is like that it's just black bloc is one tactic, you know, wearing masks for variety of reasons in a pandemic, is the similar tactic. And the underlying again, that ethic below it is, you know, you just have to push a little bit, but with anarchism it's about we try generally a lot harder to try to balance like how can we have social relationships structured around taking care of each other when there's like perfect moments of profound abandonment. And so like a lot of people coming into anarchism right now, a lot of the younger folks that I've met lately, and that's why I think multi generational spaces are important is the caveat is like, it's not because Oh, the older you get, the more you know, it's like no, if we're in multi generational spaces, we all...in all sorts of different directions learn from each other. Because I don't know what it's like to be 12 right now. But if I hear a 12 year olds telling me their experience, I'll better understand the world and better understand how they understand, you know, it's like we need each other in these multi generational spaces. So, I would like...folks that have been coming into anarchists in the last couple of years, it's either, you know, been because of the George Floyd...in North American continent at least, the George Floyd uprising, or mutual aid projects and solidarity, you know, disaster relief projects that are kind of structured in anarchistic ways. And, and, yeah, so there's just a different...like what values do people come in at anarchism at different moments to understand and so, you know, I, I think if people at these moments are there in person versus on, you know, Twitter or social media, which sadly, more and more has become, you know, a default, which is another way, you know, sure people find anarchism, but I still don't really think that's anarchism, you know, it's like a flat version, because you'd have to practice it in ways, in embodied ways face to face makes a big difference. But oftentimes, when people are in their spaces, they realize, wow, there's lots of anarchists here, and they don't even like tell me, they're anarchists, but I can kind of, if you're, you kind of look around and start asking people, you know, get to know them or start asking then people go, Yeah, I kind of been doing this for a long time. But you know, I can't run as much now. So like, Yeah, I'm like, I cook food and I bring that or I'm, you know, a legal observer, or, you know, I'm what, you know, I, I can move fast, but I don't want to run right now. So I medic, or all of these different, all these different roles is like, oftentimes, I kind of like think of anarchism now too, is like, we're not huge in number oftentimes, but we're so damned dedicated to being this like infrastructure of self organized, you know, mutual aid and care and solidarity and life making that we're almost always like, there are all sorts of these pivotal moments to be like, Hey, we don't have to, you know, control or tell everybody how to do mutual aid, but if people have questions about kind of how to do it, you know, we can kind of like offer some advice, or we can show you how some like, you know, decentralized yet federated structures worked in the past. And often, if you look around there actually is sort of multi generational anarchism, but sadly, sadly, I think, especially in in the US context, you know, I really, really encourage you, you know, this is another caveat, is like anarchism is this profound, profound, difficult duty, and really think of it as a duty. And it's hard, really hard to stay an anarchist, to continually make the spaces you want, even if it's difficult, and it gets more and more difficult over time. So, you know, I really committed to making all sorts of different kinds of spaces where we experience what it feels like to be the people we want to be for in a in a space we want and that doesn't always end up looking pretty or great sometimes. But often, it's pretty magical. But part of that commitment is bringing together, you know, different genders, and different cultures, and different skin colors, and different bodies of all sorts, and different ages and being really committed as an anarchist, the older I get to not be like I've been there before, it's really boring. I don't want to go to that thing. I don't want to be around young people, blah, blah. Yeah, sure, you know, but I get so tired of "Oh, no, this thing again." Can we learn to at least make better mistakes? Casandra 41:43 Oh, God. I feel that. Milstein 41:45 Yeah, but I don't know. I'm also really committed to that like, creating and being in multi generational spaces. And when I'm in those spaces, myself, and others, encouraging us to all listen to each other, and all tell our stories, and all be curious ,and not think we know everything you know, and like that, to me is part of an anarchist practice. Maybe that's why I say 'aspiring always,' you know, is like, how do we create those spaces where...Yeah, where we see the anarchism isn't the stereotype. We...Yeah, I should go back to like Murray. I was like, when I first met him, he's like, so so well read, like he never went to barely...I mean, he was like, a radical, and he was like, a baby. He was like, never had a childhood. And so but, you know, we moved from, like, sort of Marxism and to anarchism. And then he was just super, super, super well read. And for the first year, he was like, just, you know, never asked for anything, just would like spend hours and hours teaching, engaging conversation. The first year I go, his ideas are just so big and so expansive, and brings into so much beautiful things from all sorts of different historical movements, and philosophies, and tendencies, and logics that you should think of that, you know, are dangerous, like fascism, and all these other things. But also, I know, there's things that don't sit with me, right, but I couldn't, I didn't feel like I could feel my brain like stretching these beautiful growth ways. But I couldn't figure out how to argue with him, like, argue in the sense of like, not angrily, but like wrestle with ideas with him. And even other things I don't think I agree with him points, but I don't know how to articulate it yet. And I was like, I have to just let my brain keep expanding and keep, you know, and he kept saying, "I want you to learn to think for yourself." That's why I'm like, expose, you know, all these ideas, all these different tendencies. And then at one point, I was like, hey, whoa, and then like, you know, and then you reach this point where we could have these, we became good friends, and I could wrestle together with him with things I agreed with or disagreed with, or, you know, or things we both didn't know the answer to, which is even more interesting. And, and how do you how do we create spaces as anarchists that allow for I feel like that was such a gift, you know, to allow for that, that growth and to allow for us to see that there's so many different ways of doing things in the world. And we have to give ourselves the patience, and the time, and the space with each other to do that. And otherwise, it's just going to remain....I mean, there's lots of reasons but you know, I don't want to anarchism just to be you know, 18 year olds who stay anarchists for two years, and then it's, you know, it has to be grounded and so on. Yeah. Yeah. You know, more reasons to stay an anarchist. Well, that I'm kind of all over the place there. Milstein 42:33 But that does tie well into the next question that I have, which is, the title of your book is "Try Anarchism for Life," seems to be addressing that sort of thing. Do you want to talk about your new book? Milstein 44:41 Um, yeah, I mean, I kind of came out as I used to hate hashtags. I used to hate social media. I still I still do. But anyway, I used to roast hash tags...because I really like how can we boil down our ideas to two words or three words in a hashtag? But anyway, I started using "Try Anarchism for Life" at one point, but I was like, Oh, how do I fill that out? Because I guess for me, it was kind of this playful hashtag, but then I really meant like, anarchism has to be something once you embrace it that you you want to act anarchitically for the whole of your life and I don't understand how you can't once you embrace it, because I don't understand. Although I've known plenty of people who have, you know, but how once you've eyes widened to see hierarchy, domination, you kind of go What, whoa, wait, I don't believe that anymore. I just don't understand that. But ,once you know, once, you're sort of like, in anarchism and anarchistic, how, how do you do that for the whole of your life, but in service of life? So, that is kind of like puns play on or like word plays, like, try and anarchism for the whole of your life and for the life of all the ancestors that came before you, and the life of those will come after you, but also in service of life. And that it's trying because we're never actually going to all have to keep experimenting. So yeah, so I whatever, I kept playing with it and writing little little things about it on my plate to do sort of picture posted on Instagram. And then I don't know last winter, especially this time period has been incredibly bleak and traumatizing and horrific, horrifying, depressing. And, I'm not making light of it, it's just been a hellish, hellish, a lot of hellish time periods in history, but there are some that are particularly, yeah, horrific. And this is one of them. Fascism. Ecocide. You know, collapse of all sorts of any kinds of supports systems. Yeah, it's a really horrific time. And so yeah, I don't know, last year, especially last winter, I was like, what if I wrote little prose that really kind of tried to figure out, to kind of answer the thought experiment what are some of the many beautiful dimensions of anarchism? And it came about to talk about this in a little prologue to the book, but it came up on me posting things on Instagram originally, I don't know when I started doing that with the scriptwriter because I'm for life. But I take a lot of pictures of graffiti and street art and write little stories about some. I have thousands I have not yet written stories about on my camera. But uh, but I started just thinking, why is it that we like, mostly, you see a lot of spray painted Circle A's, but they're kind of haphazard? And just what does it say? When someone just the random person looks at a circle, like they might not know what it is. Or they might think oh, those anarchists things, people that break windows or black bloc, you know, like, it's this, we're not, again, doing justice to the beauty of the beauty of activism with Circle A's even though I love to see Circle A's everywhere. So then I, on Instagram was like, hey, who could? Who? What artists, friends of mine can draw Circle A's that, like, embody within the drawing the values and the beauty they find in anarchism. And yeah, I was so struck by how hard it was for so many folks would kept sharing things with me. And a lot of them were just things being set on fire, which is great, you know, police cars, fine, you know, but, you know, hey, we can maybe use those cars and buildings later, maybe, you know, the point is to tear down that world. Who cares? You know, what would we put in the place of others. And so, but then people started drawing them. And I started going, Okay, I'll do a little book of these things, just for fun. And so this book is 24 or 26 of these little stories. They're all very short and compact. They're kind of playful, poetic, lots of sort of puns, there's, they're kind of poignant in places, but they're very compact. I was like how can I say a lot in a small space. So I hope you look, there's a lot of little things in there that if whether you already know about anarchism, or you don't that kind of gesturing toward a bunch of wider things, but I love that forum, and I used 26 of the different drawings that people started creating all over the place. And since then, a lot of artists have been creating a lot more. So, it feels really exciting to see a lot more beautiful Circle A's out in the world. And yeah, I want to inspire people to, you know, I really think part of, you know, we as anarchists were like, Oh, this is this cool club, and we know how great it is, well, you know, we're just going to do Circle A's, you know, scrawl Circle A's, but we're not going to..... I don't know, I've been accused of being a friendly, welcoming anarchist. And I think that's a good thing. So, this book is, is also like, I also want people to act more anarchistically, and I don't want it for I want it because seriously this world, if we don't do that we are it really is a choice between anarchism, fascism or ecocide. And so I hope this book contributes in a small way to encourage all of you who read it or even think about any of the circle's in it, to think about how you can portray the beauty of anarchism more and more through your life, through your practices, through modeling it, through the projects, you do, the art you do, so that other people can find it and embrace it, because sometimes it's really damn hard to find anarchism and it shouldn't be, or to find that beauty and it shouldn't be, you know, and in this moment, we need it and I don't know I was really struck last winter, which was, you know, absurdly bleek, I started writing these prose and was, you know, like, feeling so crappy before I was doing it. And then the more I just was like, I'm just gonna get obsessed in writing these, that's all I'm going to do right now, because the world's going to hell, just I could focus on this for the next couple months. And I was like, it was like, this good medicine from my brain. Like, the more I just was, like, just focus on what's beautiful in anarchism, and try to write about some little practices, and not pie in the sky. Some of them are playful and fanciful, but most of them are things we really do. Also, the more I did it more as like, whoa, wow, I start my brain started remembering that it's not just all fascism and ecocide, and tragedy and depression, despair or death. I like remembered that, that tension that, you know, there is always trauma and joy, there is sorrow and joy there is we're never wholly in collapse or, you know, we're never wholly in disaster. We have. Yeah, so I don't know, I think, even on that level, for us to really stretch our brains to think about and practice that beauty, you know, I don't know, I've, I've done different, like, hospice care and other forms of care around death and grief. And, you know, people think, Oh, this is hard to deal with death. And I don't know something about like, being really open to these moments, when people are experiencing most sort of profound transitions in life, you know, going from this life to whatever after you believe happens. It's a pretty profound, intimate moment that only happens once in your life for each of us. And to accompany someone through that....Wow. It's, I think the sort of, you know, if we're able to do those things well, to take care of each other well, to really intimate moments of grief and or dying, and death is, is we find out all the people that are like, "Oh my god, I should have been living my life, I should have been telling people I love them, I should have been telling people I don't love them," you know, like people become genuine and like actually, strive, oftentimes people become, not everybody, but a lot of people like it calls into question your mortality an you try to be suddenly like recommit to life, which a lot of people I've heard, say, during the pandemic, too, this is just telling me what's important in life, you know, we show the world is in hospice right now, you know, and we don't know if there's going to be a future in the next 10 years, or what humans if humans as a species will survive this time period. And, but we do know, we can treat each other as good as possible and alleviate as much suffering as we can, and make every moment until that last moment, as beautiful as it can be, which is what hospice is, in the best of scenario's goal is, is to alleviate unnecessary suffering, and to accentuate as much beauty and collected care as you can. And so I don't know, I'm not it, I hope this book says, please, you know, all of us can't give up. Too many of us have lost friends to them killing themselves or taking too many substances intentionally or unintentionally, or depression, or, you know, all sorts of other reasons. And, you know, that's, that's there, that's real, right? And I want more of us to be here, you know, and so how can we be there to help alleviate as much suffering as we can and accentuate forms of collective care, even if we only think we have another six months or 10 years, or whatever it is we have, and not give up? Don't give up? Because that's, we might, you know, I don't know, to me as an anarchist, that's always like, I don't know how they always stay an anarchist. Because, you know, that's like a question we could talk about. But part of it is just this belief is like, I don't know what else I'm like, This is what I want to my last breath is to try really hard to be encircled by solidarity and care and love. And, you know, in ways that we do it non hierarchically, you know, in ways that we do together. That's all one sort of can ask for, but one also can try to do. Long winded version of, "Why you're doing this," but the last thing I want to say or not, the last thing cause I can say many things, cause I'm so grateful to all the 26 people who do this incredible beautiful Circle A's and the many other people sent me one that I didn't include because I was like, I can only write so many pieces. And, but, and they've all been really generous with the Circle A's and they're all in the same thought about if people use them for all sorts of things. And again, anarchists we're like cool, take it and turn it into a t shirt, or stencil, or spray paint it, or make a poster. And same with my words. I really love that we give those things to each other. But, I also really want to thank you two, and your whole collective of Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. You've also just really embodied like anarchistic values and how like we collaborate, and you treated me and the whole process. It's been like, you know, learning together, experimenting together. It's been like a really beautiful experience. So, for me books aren't this like thing, this commodity which unfortunately we have to charge for because capitalism, you know, someday and hopefully we won't have to that's the irony, you know? Like, you know, not irony, just the sorrow, right? You know, we can't do the things we love as anarchists completely in ways we would want to. But we can do them as much as we can in the ways we want to. And so everything about this book, for me books are I do them as labors of love. The funds are going back to you all to support your publishing project. But I, I for me, it's the process of them that's anarchistic, like how do we? How do we think through doing them? Why are we doing them? Who are we doing them with? And for? And how do we treat each other while we're doing them? And once it's out in the world, how do others use it? And how do we engage with it? Right? I put books out in the world not to be a commodity and sit on someone's shelf or whatever. I do it because I want people to, to think and engage and transform the world. So, it's part of my way of inspiring and intervening in that, trying to push proof prefigurative politics, which is always my underlying agenda. Come on, we can do this. Margaret 55:55 Well, I like it that you picked 26, because in my mind, it's an alphabet book. It's just you know, a, a, a, a, a, a,a ,a..... Casandra 56:05 There's an alef in there. Milstein 56:07 Oh, I never even thought of that. There's an alef, an alef is the first letter in many different Jewish alphabets and probably other alphabets, too. And so there's a Circle Alef in there. So you have to get the book and read the story. Casandra 56:24 Yeah. And my my plug for it is that I think it was a perfect first book for our collective to tack and I'm just so grateful that you came to us and that this all worked out. And but what...is it really...today's release day? I just realized we're recording this on release day. Is that true? That's true. Margaret 56:42 And people might not be listening for a couple months? We don't know yet. Casandra 56:46 Yeah. But now they know, we're recording this on November 15th. I really appreciate that it's like an intro to anarchism in practice. I think that theory can be really intimidating for people. But, I just find your work immensely approachable. And, I think that's something that'll be really beneficial to people. Milstein 57:11 Yeah, I hope so. I also hope, I feel like I've sent it out to a lot of different folks to read it, like, well, some who are longtime anarchists, and I don't know, I also they're like, Oh, I also really hope that it lends like, you know, love and solidarity. People have been anarchists for a long time. Or it just reminds them why they're anarchists or think through different things, you know? Yeah, it's, I hope it's accessible for folks that don't know about anarchism, which I think it is, and also just like a gift to people who already are, because we also have to keep each other anarchists for life. Because, you can't do that alone. You have to keep reminding each other. Yeah, yeah. We're not just you know, So well, but anyway, you know, I'm really, really grateful to Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness collective.. So if folks listening to this have not checked out their website, and their growing list of projects,they don't just do books, they do all sorts of wacky things. Casandra 58:00 Like podcasts, like this podcast. Fancy that. Milstein 58:06 Baked goods, I don't know. Oh, one stop shop. Margaret 58:13 Well, is there is there any last word on on "What is anarchism?" or anything like that, that anyone wants to touch on? Casandra 58:23 I mean, I feel like we could talk about it forever. But I also feel good about what we've talked about today. Margaret 58:29 Yeah, fair enough. Milstein 58:31 Yeah, yeah. How about you, Margaret, what do you think anything else you want to? Margaret 58:35 I'm willing to give it a shot, I'll try some anarchism. Casandra 58:40 Will you try it for life? Margaret 58:42 So far, so good. I've been an anarchist more than half my life. And nothing's really shaken that, which is funny, because I go through these intentional kind of crises of faith with anarchism every now and then, where I'm like, Wait, really, and I kind of try and like break down the whole thing and like, come to a new conclusion. And the conclusion I keep coming to, I do this every couple of years, usually, because someone in the anarchist scene annoys me so much that I'm like, how am I in the same movement as that person? And then I like go through and I'm like, oh, because I hate the state and capitalism, and like, white supremacy, and you know, all that stuff. And so then I like, come back to it again. But, so yeah, I'm willing, at this point. I'm pretty sure I'm willing to try it for life. I mean, who knows? I'm not, you know, maybe... Casandra 59:27 That's very anarchistic of you to interrogate your anarchism. Margaret 59:31 Thank thanks. Milstein 59:32 Yeah. Which, we actually feel like we need to. I feel like that's a profound anarchist value, like, I don't know, I feel like one reason I've stayed an anarchists for a long time is often because of that, like one of those personal...I really felt them or like going through sort of like I hate all anarchists, but I'm still an anarchist. I don't like...okay. I have to figure out how to keep going in those moments. And...but I don't know like, I think that's the real value of some of the my favorite like projects and collectives, like, oh, we have to, every six months, stop and actually reevaluate if this project makes sense anymore if we, you know, and then end it well, when it doesn't, that was some of my favorite things. Yeah, like, continually reevaluate and reassess. But yeah, I don't know, how do you stay? I'd love to hear how do you think you stay a anarchists for life? Like, as long as you have so far, because I think that's really, it is a challenge when society, everything in the world...it's like right now wearing an N95 or KN95 mask, which I hope most people are doing, or everyone is doing, you know, you walk into spaces, and you can literally be the only one for days on end in public places. And you know, it's a good exercise in building up one's.... Yeah. How do you do things when the whole of society reflects back to you that you shouldn't be doing that? And you're like, "No, I know. This is right. I know this is the ethical thing to do. I know it's the kind of practice I want." Margaret 1:00:57 Go ahead, Casandra. Casandra 1:00:59 I was just ascentinthat is difficult. I was thinking about my child, actually, my kid who's eight and the only one wearing a mask. Which is not related to anarchism, but it's hard to be different. Milstein 1:01:12 Yeah. How do we do...but how? Yeah, so how does, as anarchist, does one you know, to sign up sort of anarchists for life is to sign up for a lot of like, grief and a lot of not seeing the world reflected that you want to see, and knowing that there's a far better world, you know, that dissonance...I always been like, you know, I get depressed a lot. And then I'm like, Why do I get depressed? It's because of that gap between the world that I want to see and the world that I live in. I know where that depression got strong. It's not a mystery, you know? So. Yeah. So, how do you...I was just curious, like, either you how you stay the older and older you get this? How do you stay an anarchist? Casandra 1:01:45 Community, I think. Not being anarcho individualists. Margaret 1:01:51 I, it's funny, because some of my answer is like, kind of, like, I'm used to being the weird one in the room, like, you know, like, like, if I walk into a grocery store, the weird thing about me isn't that I'm wearing a mask. The weird thing about me is that I'm a trans girl, and I exist, you know, and so I'm like, the mask is like, Yeah, whatever. And then, like, in some ways, the anarchism or like, you know, the way that that's like, sort of visually expressed for me, because I still sort of well I dress sub culturally, but that really kind of predates my anarchism, actually, I was just always a goth kid. But like, I'm sort of used to being the weird one in the room. And I'm kind of used to having the ideas that are like, a little bit more out there. But, honestly, in a lot of ways, I actually feel easier and more comfortable about being an anarchist now than I did when I was younger. One, because it's, it's reflexive for me, right? Like, it's, you know, people always say, you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna calm down as you get older. Right? And in some ways, I have calmed down. But, but I've settled into the, the ideological positions that I hold, and they feel more and more concrete to me, like, the idea that capitalism could possibly make sense or that authoritarianism could possibly make sense just completely disagree with everything that I learn and everything that I experience. So, I don't know. And then also, there's just, frankly, more of us than there were 10 years ago. And, the thing that I have more interest in and excitement about is the breaking out of it from subculture. I say this as someone who's sub culturally, I'm involved in music subcultures, and I'm also sort of sub culturally anarchist in terms of that has been like my primary, like friend groups and things like that over the past, like maybe 20 years. But, more and more anarchism is a more mainstream position. And t

First time host Donald Antenen interviews first time guest Joey Keegin and back by popular demand guest James Pogue. They discuss the Cincinnati Bengals, underappreciated American writers Bernard DeVoto and Henry Bugbee, CrimethInc., and lessons from their anarchist days for navigating the doom of today. Joseph M. Keegin @fxxfy is an editor at The Point and a doctoral student in philosophy at Tulane University. Donald Antenen @riversofeurope lives with his wife and daughters in the Pacific Northwest. He is translating Genesis: Beginning: a Verse Translation of Genesis. James Pogue @jhensonpogue is an American essayist and journalist. He is a contributing editor at Harper's Magazine. His pieces have appeared on the covers of Harper's and The American Conservative. He is the author of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West, a first-person account of conflict over public lands in the American west.

Joined by guests from CrimethInc. and beyond, on this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we discuss climate change, while looking at the events that unfolded over the summer: massive wildfires, record setting heat waves, catastrophic flooding across Pakistan, historic hurricanes, and floods which knocked out infrastructure and water access in cities like Jackson,... Read Full Article

We look back at the revolutionary dropout cultures of 1960s and 2000s, a time when middle class youth fled the suburbs to be free in urban bohemia. We look at the popular anarchist ideas and practices during these times alongside the relationship between counterculture, the left, and liberation movements. Armed Love is a series about the revolutionary subculture of the sixties. Episode one was an interview with Peter Coyote, and episode 2 was a discussion of Charles Manson and the Lyman Family, and episode 3 an interview with Black Mask and Up Against the Wall founder Ben Morea: Part 1, Part 2 More info on the Altlanta Forest: https://defendtheatlantaforest.org/ Follow on Twitter and read their latests essays at Crimethic.com PDF: Jerry Rubin: Do It! Video: Ed Sanders on Firing Line Song: The Spectacle - I, Fail

TW: This week's episode discusses violent events. Listener caution/discretion is advised.In today's episode, I thought I would explore the history of Labor Day, given that the holiday in the USA is approaching. Little did I know, I would end up in yet another rabbit hole of events related to May Day (AKA International Worker's Day) and the USA's intentional suppression of worker organizing all through the end of the 19th century. In this episode, we explore beyond the boundaries of Appalachia and find even more interconnections between the fate of the poor and working class. All in all, we look at the Great Railroad Strikes, the Haymarket Riot, and the government's official recognition of Labor Day in the late 1890s.(Spoiler alert: LABOR DAY WAS ADOPTED AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO INTERNATIONAL WORKER'S DAY TO UNDERMINE TRULY REVOLUTIONARY ORGANIZING EFFORTS !!!!!)Sources for today's episode:1) Reneau, K. (2016, September 5). The history of Labor Day: A holiday born from the working man. West Virginia News. https://www.wvnews.com/theet/news/free/the-history-of-labor-day-a-holiday-born-from-the-working-man/article_ed1bcc78-af07-5b7e-926b-305a51d1bf18.html2) Zraick, K. (2021, September 4). What Is Labor Day? A History of the Workers' Holiday. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/article/what-is-labor-day.html3) Films Media Group. (2013). Labor day: Video culture class - American holidays. Access Video On Demand. Retrieved August 25, 2022, from https://fod.infobase.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?wID=242630&xtid=1110054) Weaver, A. (2011, June 11). Outline of US Labor History with a Focus on the Role of the Left. Libcom. Retrieved August 26, 2022, from https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/adam-weaver-outline-of-us-labor-history-with-a-focus-on-the-role-of-the-left5) Collective, C. I. E.-W. (2017, May 1). The May Days: Stories of Courage and Resistance. CrimethInc. Retrieved August 26, 2022, from https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/crimethinc-the-may-days-stories-of-courage-and-resistance#toc16) Zinn, H. (2015). A people's history of the United States: 1492-present. HarperCollins. Accessed at https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/howard-zinn-a-people-s-history-of-the-united-statesSupport and follow the pod:linktr.ee/rednecksrising

Episode Notes Episode summary Margaret talks with Elle an anarchist and security professional about different threat modeling approaches and analyzing different kinds of threats. They explore physical threats, digital security, communications, surveillance,and general OpSec mentalities for how to navigate the panopticon and do stuff in the world without people knowing about it...if you're in Czarist Russia of course. Guest Info Elle can be found on twitter @ellearmageddon. Host and Publisher The host Margaret Killjoy can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. Show Links Transcript Live Like the World is Dying: Elle on Threat Modeling Margaret 00:15 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 with me at the exact moment is my dog, who has just jumped up to try and talk into the microphone and bite my arm. And, I use 'she' and 'they' pronouns. And this week, I'm going to be talking to my friend Elle, who is a, an anarchist security professional. And we're going to be talking about threat modeling. And we're going to be talking about how to figure out what people are trying to do to you and who's trying to do it and how to deal with different people trying to do different things. Like, what is the threat model around the fact that while I'm trying to record a podcast, my dog is biting my arm? And I am currently choosing to respond by trying to play it for humor and leaving it in rather than cutting it out and re recording. This podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Jingle Margaret 02:00 Okay, if you could introduce yourself, I guess, with your name and your pronouns, and then maybe what you do as relates to the stuff that we're going to be talking about today. Elle 02:10 Yeah, cool. Hi, I'm Elle. My pronouns are they/them. I am a queer, autistic, anarchist security practitioner. I do security for a living now that I've spent over the last decade, working with activist groups and NGOs, just kind of anybody who's got an interesting threat model to help them figure out what they can do to make themselves a little a little safer and a little more secure. Margaret 02:43 So that word threat model. That's actually kind of what I want to have you on today to talk about is, it's this word that we we hear a lot, and sometimes we throw into sentences when we want to sound really smart, or maybe I do that. But what does it mean, what is threat modeling? And why is it relevant? Elle 03:02 Yeah, I actually, I really love that question. Because I think that we a lot of people do use the term threat modeling without really knowing what they mean by it. And so to me, threat modeling is having an understanding of your own life in your own context, and who poses a realistic risk to you, and what you can do to keep yourself safe from them. So whether that's, you know, protecting communications that you have from, you know, state surveillance, or whether it's keeping yourself safe from an abusive ex, your threat model is going to vary based on your own life experiences and what you need to protect yourself from and who those people actually are and what they're capable of doing. Margaret 03:52 Are you trying to say there's not like one solution to all problems that we would just apply? Elle 03:58 You know, I love... Margaret 03:58 I don't understand. Elle 04:00 I know that everybody really, really loves the phrase "Use signal. Use TOR," and you know, thinks that that is the solution to all of life's problems. But it actually turns out that, no, you do have to have both an idea of what it is that you're trying to protect, whether it's yourself or something like your communications and who you're trying to protect it from, and how they can how they can actually start working towards gaining access to whatever it is that you're trying to defend. Margaret 04:31 One of the things that when I think about threat modeling that I think about is this idea of...because the levels of security that you take for something often limit your ability to accomplish different things. Like in Dungeons and Dragons, if you were plate armor, you're less able to be a dexterous rogue and stealth around. And so I think about threat modeling, maybe as like learning to balance....I'm kind of asking this, am I correct in this? Balancing what you're trying to accomplish with who's trying to stop you? Because like, you could just use TOR, for everything. And then also like use links the little like Lynx [misspoke "Tails"] USB keychain and never use a regular computer and never communicate with anyone and then never accomplish anything. But, it seems like that might not work. Elle 05:17 Yeah, I mean, the idea, the idea is to prevent whoever your adversaries are from keeping you from doing whatever you're trying to accomplish. Right? So if the security precautions that you're taking to prevent your adversaries from preventing you from doing a thing are also preventing you from doing the thing, then it doesn't matter, because your adversaries have just won, right? So there, there definitely is a need, you know, to be aware of risks that you're taking and decide which ones make sense, which ones don't make sense. And kind of look at it from from a dynamic of "Okay, is this something that is in my, you know, acceptable risk model? Is this a risk I'm willing to take? Are there things that I can do to, you know, do harm reduction and minimize the risk? Or at least like, make it less? Where are those trade offs? What, what is the maximum amount of safety or security that I can do for myself, while still achieving whatever it is that I'm trying to achieve?" Margaret 06:26 Do you actually ever like, chart it out on like, an X,Y axis where you get like, this is the point where you start getting diminishing returns? I'm just imagining it. I've never done that. Elle 06:37 In, in the abstract, yes, because that's part of how autism brain works for me. But in a, like actually taking pen to paper context, not really. But that's, you know, at least partially, because of that's something that autism brain just does for me. So I think it could actually be a super reasonable thing to do, for people whose brains don't auto filter that for them. But but I'm, I guess, lucky enough to be neurodivergent, and have like, you know, like, we always we joke in tech, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." And I feel like, you know, autism is kind of both sometimes. In some cases, it's totally a bug and and others, it's absolutely a feature. And this is one of the areas where it happens to be a feature, at least for me. Margaret 07:35 That makes sense. I, I kind of view my ADHD as a feature, in that, it allows me to hyper focus on topics and then move on and then not come back to them. Or also, which is what I do now for work with podcasting, and a lot of my writing. It makes it hard to write long books, I gotta admit, Elle 07:56 Yeah, I work with a bunch of people with varying neuro types. And it's really interesting, like, at least at least in my own team, I think that you know, the, the folks who are more towards the autism spectrum disorder side of of the house are more focused on things like application security, and kind of things that require sort of sustained hyper focus. And then folks with ADHD make just absolutely amazing, like incident responders and do really, really well in interrupt driven are interrupts heavy contexts, Margaret 08:38 Or sprinters. Elle 08:40 It's wild to me, because I'm just like, yes, this makes perfect sense. And obviously, like, these different tasks are better suited to different neuro types. But I've also never worked with a manager who actually thought about things in that way before. Margaret 08:53 Right. Elle 08:54 And so it's actually kind of cool to be to be in a position where I can be like, "Hey, like, Does this sound interesting to you? Would you rather focus on this kind of work?" And kind of get that that with people. Margaret 09:06 That makes sense that's.... i I'm glad that you're able to do that. I'm glad that people that you work with are able to have that you know, experience because it is it's hard to it's hard to work within....obviously the topic of today is...to working in the workplace is a neurodivergent person, but it I mean it affects so many of us you know, like almost whatever you do for work the the different ways your brain work are always struggling against it. So. Elle 09:32 Yeah, I don't know. It just it makes sense to me to like do your best to structure your life in a way that is more conducive to your neurotype. Margaret 09:44 Yeah. Elle 09:45 You know, if you can. Margaret 09:49 I don't even realize exactly how age ADHD I was until I tried to work within a normal workforce. I built my entire life around, not needing to live in one place or do one thing for sustained periods of time. But okay, but back to the threat modeling. Margaret 10:07 The first time I heard of, I don't know if it's the first time I heard a threat modeling or not, I don't actually know when I first started hearing that word. But the first time I heard about you, in the context of it was a couple years back, you had some kind of maybe it was tweets or something about how people were assuming that they should use, for example, the more activist focused email service Rise Up, versus whether they should just use Gmail. And I believe that you were making the case that for a lot of things, Gmail would actually be safer, because even though they don't care about you, they have a lot more resources to throw at the problem of keeping governments from reading their emails. That might be a terrible paraphrasing of what you said. But this, this is how I was introduced to this concept of threat modeling. If you wanted to talk about that example, and tell me how I got it all wrong. Elle 10:07 Yeah. Elle 10:58 Yeah. Um, so you didn't actually get it all wrong. And I think that the thing that I would add to that is that if you are engaging in some form of hypersensitive communication, email is not the mechanism that you want to do that. And so when I say things like, "Oh, you know, it probably actually makes sense to use Gmail instead of Rise Up," I mean, you know, contexts where you're maybe communicating with a lawyer and your communications are privileged, right?it's a lot harder to crack Gmail security than it is to crack something like Rise Up security, just by virtue of the volume of resources available to each of those organizations. And so where you specifically have this case where, you know, there's, there's some degree of legal protection for whatever that means, making sure that you're not leveraging something where your communications can be accessed without your knowledge or consent by a third party, and then used in a way that is conducive to parallel construction. Margaret 12:19 So what is parallel construction? Elle 12:20 Parallel construction is a legal term where you obtain information in a way that is not admissible in court, and then use that information to reconstruct a timeline or reconstruct a mechanism of access to get to that information in an admissible way. Margaret 12:39 So like every cop show Elle 12:41 Right, so like, with parallel construction around emails, for example, if you're emailing back and forth with your lawyer, and your lawyer is like, "Alright, like, be straight with me. Because I need to know if you've actually done this crime so that I can understand how best to defend you." And you're like, "Yeah, dude, I totally did that crime," which you should never admit to in writing anyway, because, again, email is not the format that you want to have this conversation in. But like, if you're gonna admit to having done crimes in email, for some reason, how easy it is for someone else to access that admission is important. Because if somebody can access this email admission of you having done the crimes where you're, you know, describing in detail, what crimes you did, when with who, then it starts, like, it gets a lot easier to be like, "Oh, well, obviously, we need to subpoena this person's phone records. And we should see, you know, we should use geolocation tracking of their device to figure out who they were in proximity to and who else was involved in this," and it can, it can be really easy to like, establish a timeline and get kind of the roadmap to all of the evidence that they would need to, to put you in jail. So it's, it's probably worth kind of thinking about how easy it is to access that that information. And again, don't don't admit to doing crimes in email, email is not the format that you want to use for admitting to having done crimes. But if you're going to, it's probably worth making sure that, you know, the the email providers that you are choosing are equipped with both robust security controls, and probably also like a really good legal team. Right? So if...like Rise Up isn't going to comply with the subpoena to the like, to the best of their ability, they're not going to do that, but it's a lot easier to sue Rise Up than it is to sue Google. Margaret 14:51 Right. Elle 14:51 And it's a lot easier to to break Rise Up's security mechanisms than it is to break Google's, just by virtue of how much time and effort each of those entities is able to commit to securing email. Please don't commit to doing crimes in email, just please just don't. Don't do it in writing. Don't do it. Margaret 15:15 Okay, let me change my evening plans. Hold on let me finish sending this email.. Elle 15:23 No! Margaret 15:25 Well, I mean, I guess like the one of the reasons that I thought so much about that example, and why it kind of stuck with me years later was just thinking about what people decide they're safe, because they did some basic security stuff. And I don't know if that counts under threat modeling. But it's like something I think about a lot is about people being like, "I don't understand, we left our cell phones at home and went on a walk in the woods," which is one of the safest ways anyone could possibly have a conversation. "How could anyone possibly have known this thing?" And I'm like, wait, you, you told someone you know, or like, like, not to make people more paranoid, but like... Elle 16:06 Or maybe, maybe you left your cell phone at home, but kept your smartwatch on you, because you wanted to close, you know, you wanted to get your steps for the day while you were having this conversation, right? Margaret 16:19 Because otherwise, does it even count if I'm not wearing my [smartwatch]. Elle 16:21 Right, exactly. And like, we joke, and we laugh, but like, it is actually something that people don't think about. And like, maybe you left your phones at home, and you went for a walk in the woods, but you took public transit together to get there and were captured on a bunch of surveillance cameras. Like there's, there's a lot of, especially if you've actually been targeted for surveillance, which is very rare, because it's very resource intensive. But you know, there there are alternate ways to track people. And it does depend on things like whether or not you've got additional tech on you, whether or not you were captured on cameras. And you know, whether whether or not your voices were picked up by ShotSpotter, as you were walking to wherever the woods were like, there's just there's we live in a panopticon. I don't say that so that people are paranoid about it, I say it because it's a lot easier to think about, where, when and how you want to phrase things. Margaret 17:27 Yeah. Elle 17:28 In a way that you know, still facilitates communications still facilitates achieving whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, but sets you sets you up to be as safe as possible in doing it. And I think that especially in anarchist circles, just... and honestly also in security circles, there's a lot of of like, dogmatic adherence to security ritual, that may or may not actually make sense based on both, you, who your actual adversaries are, and what their realistic capabilities are. Margaret 18:06 And what they're trying to actually accomplish I feel like is...Okay, one of the threat models that I like...I encourage people sometimes to carry firearms, right in very specific contexts. And it feels like a security... Oh, you had a good word for it that you just used...ritual of security theater, I don't remember...a firearm often feels like that, Elle 18:30 Right. Margaret 18:31 In a way where you're like," Oh, I'm safe now, right, because I'm carrying a firearm." And, for example, I didn't carry a firearm for a very long time. Because for a long time, my threat model, the people who messed with me, were cops. And if a cop is going to mess with me, I do not want to have a firearm on me, because it will potentially escalate a situation in a very bad way. Whereas when I came out and started, you know, when I started getting harassed more for being a scary transwoman, and less for being an anarchist, or a hitchhiker, or whatever, you know, now my threat model is transphobes, who wants to do me harm. And in a civilian-civilian context, I prefer I feel safer. And I believe I am safer in most situations armed in that case. But every time I leave the house, I have to think about "What is my threat model?" And then in a similar way, sorry, it's just me thinking about the threat model of firearms, but it's the main example that I think of, is that often people's threat model in terms of firearms and safety as themselves, right? And so you just actually need to do the soul searching where you're like,"What's more likely to happen to me today? Am I likely to get really sad, or am I likely to get attacked by fascists?" Elle 19:57 Yeah. And I think that there is there's an additional question, especially when you're talking about arming yourself, whether it's firearms, or carrying a knife, or whatever, because like, I don't own any firearms, but I do carry a knife a lot of the time. And so like some questions, some additional questions that you have to ask yourself are, "How confident am I in my own ability to use this to harm another person?" Because if you're going to hesitate, you're gonna get fucked up. Margaret 20:28 Yeah. Elle 20:28 Like, if you are carrying a weapon, and you pull it out and hesitate in using it, it's gonna get taken away from you, and it's going to be used against you. So that's actually one of the biggest questions that I would say people should be asking themselves when developing a threat model around arming themselves is, "Will I actually use this? How confident am I?" if you're not confident, then it's okay to leave it at home. It's okay to practice more. It's okay to like develop that familiarity before you start using it as an EDC. Sorry an Every Day Carry. And then the you know, the other question is, "How likely am I to get arrested here?" I carry, I carry a knife that I absolutely do know how to use most of the time when I leave the house. But when I'm going to go to a demonstration, because the way that I usually engage in protests or in demonstrations is in an emergency medical response capacity, I carry a medic kit instead. And my medic kit is a clean bag that does not have any sharp objects in it. It doesn't have anything that you know could be construed as a weapon it doesn't have...it doesn't...I don't even have weed gummies which are totally like recreationally legal here, right? I won't even put weed in the medic kit. It's it is very much a... Margaret 21:52 Well, if you got a federally arrested you'd be in trouble with that maybe. Elle 21:55 Yeah, sure, I guess. But, like the medic bag is very...nothing goes in this kit ever that I wouldn't want to get arrested carrying. And so there's like EMT shears in there. Margaret 22:12 Right. Elle 22:13 But that's that's it in terms of like... Margaret 22:16 Those are scary you know...the blunted tips. Elle 22:21 I know, the blunted tips and the like safety, whatever on them. It's just...it's it is something to think about is "Where am I going...What...Who am I likely to encounter? And like what are the trade offs here?" Margaret 22:37 I remember once going to a demonstration a very long time ago where our like, big plan was to get in through all of the crazy militarized downtown in this one city and, and the big plan is we're gonna set up a Food Not Bombs inside the security line of the police, you know. And so we picked one person, I think I was the sacrificial person, who had to carry a knife, because we had to get the folding tables that we're gonna put the food on off of the top of the minivan. And we had to do it very quickly, and they were tied on. And so I think I brought the knife and then left it in the car and the car sped off. And then we fed people and they had spent ten million dollars protecting the city from 30 people feeding people Food Not Bombs. Elle 23:20 Amazing. Margaret 23:22 But, but yeah, I mean, whereas every other day in my life, especially back then when I was a hitchhiker, I absolutely carried a knife. Elle 23:30 Yeah. Margaret 23:31 You know, for multiple purposes. Yeah, okay, so then it feels like...I like rooting it in the self defense stuff because I think about that a lot and for me it maybe then makes sense to sort of build up and out from there as to say like...you know, if someone's threat model is my ex-partner's new partner is trying to hack me or my abusive ex is trying to hack me or something, that's just such a different threat model than... Elle 24:04 Yeah, it is. Margaret 24:05 Than the local police are trying to get me versus the federal police are trying to get me versus a foreign country is trying to get me you know, and I and it feels like sometimes those things are like contradictory to each other about what isn't isn't the best maybe. Elle 24:19 They are, because each of those each of those entities is going to have different mechanisms for getting to you and so you know, an abusive partner or abusive ex is more likely to have physical access to you, and your devices, than you know, a foreign entity is, right? Because there's there's proximity to think about, and so you know, you might want to have....Actually the....Okay, so the abusive ex versus the cops, right. A lot of us now have have phones where the mechanism for accessing them is either a password, or some kind of biometric identifier. So like a fingerprint, or you know, face ID or whatever. And there's this very dogmatic adherence to "Oh, well, passwords are better." But passwords might actually not be better. Because if somebody has regular proximity to you, they may be able to watch you enter your password and get enough information to guess it. And if you're, if you're not using a biometric identifier, in those use cases, then what can happen is they can guess your password, or watch, you type it in enough time so that they get a good feeling for what it is. And they can then access your phone without your knowledge while you're sleeping. Right? Margaret 25:46 Right. Elle 25:47 And sometimes just knowing whether or not your your adversary has access to your phone is actually a really useful thing. Because you know how much information they do or don't have. Margaret 26:01 Yeah. No that's... Elle 26:03 And so it really is just about about trade offs and harm reduction. Margaret 26:08 That never would have occurred to me before. I mean, it would occur to me if someone's trying to break into my devices, but I have also fallen into the all Biometrics is bad, right? Because it's the password, you can't change because the police can compel you to open things with biometrics, but they can't necessarily compel you...is more complicated to be compelled to enter a password. Elle 26:31 I mean, like, it's only as complicated as a baton. Margaret 26:34 Yeah, there's that XKCD comic about this. Have you seen it? Elle 26:37 Yes. Yes, I have. And it is it is an accurate....We like in security, we call it you know, the Rubber Hose method, right? It we.... Margaret 26:46 The implication here for anyone hasn't read it is that they can beat you up and get you to give them their [password]. Elle 26:50 Right people, people will usually if they're hit enough times give up their password. So you know, I would say yeah, you should disable biometric locks, if you're going to go out to a demonstration, right? Which is something that I do. I actually do disable face ID if I'm taking my phone to a demo. But it...you may want to use it as your everyday mechanism, especially if you're living in a situation where knowing whether or not your abuser has access to your device is likely to make a difference in whether you have enough time to escape. Margaret 27:30 Right. These axioms or these these beliefs we all have about this as the way to do security,the you know...I mean, it's funny, because you brought up earlier like use Signal use Tor, I am a big advocate of like, I just use Signal for all my communication, but I also don't talk about crime pretty much it in general anyway. You know. So it's more like just like bonus that it can't be read. I don't know. Elle 27:57 Yeah. I mean, again, it depends, right? Because Signal...Signal has gotten way more usable. I've been, I've been using Signal for a decade, you know, since it was still Redphone and TextSecure. And in the early days, I used to joke that it was so secure, sometimes your intended recipients don't even get the messages. Margaret 28:21 That's how I feel about GPG or PGP or whatever the fuck. Elle 28:24 Oh, those those.... Margaret 28:27 Sorry, didn't mean to derail you. Elle 28:27 Let's not even get started there. But so like Signal again, has gotten much better, and is way more reliable in terms of delivery than it used to be. But I used to, I used to say like, "Hey, if it's if it's really, really critical that your message reach your recipient, Signal actually might not be the way to do it." Because if you need if you if you're trying to send a time sensitive message with you know guarantee that it actually gets received, because Signal used to be, you know, kind of sketchy on or unreliable on on delivery, it might not have been the best choice at the time. One of the other things that I think that people, you know, think...don't think about necessarily is that Signal is still widely viewed as a specific security tool. And that's, that's good in a lot of cases. But if you live somewhere, for example, like Belarus, where it's not generally considered legal to encrypt things, then the presence of Signal on your device is enough in and of itself to get you thrown in prison. Margaret 29:53 Right. Elle 29:53 And so sometimes having a mechanism like, you know, Facebook secret messages might seem like a really, really sketchy thing to do. But if your threat model is you can't have security tools on your phone, but you still want to be able to send encrypted messages or ephemeral messages, then that actually might be the best way to kind of fly under the radar. So yeah, it again just really comes down to thinking about what it is that you're trying to protect? From who? And under what circumstances? Margaret 30:32 Yeah, I know, I like this. I mean, obviously, of course, you've thought about this thing that you think about. I'm like, I'm just like, kind of like, blown away thinking about these things. Although, okay, one of these, like security things that I kind of want to push back on, and actually, this is a little bit sketchy to push back on, the knife thing. To go back to a knife. I am. I have talked to a lot of people who have gotten themselves out of very bad situations by drawing a weapon without then using it, which is illegal. It is totally illegal. Elle 31:03 Yes Margaret 31:03 I would never advocate that anyone threaten anyone with a weapon. But, I know people who have committed this crime in order to...even I mean, sometimes it's in situations where it'd be legal to stab somebody,like... Elle 31:16 Sure. Margaret 31:16 One of the strangest laws in the United States is that, theoretically, if I fear for my life, I can draw a gun.... And not if I fear for my life, if I am, if my life is literally being threatened, physically, if I'm being attacked, I can I can legally draw a firearm and shoot someone, I can legally pull a knife and stab someone to defend myself. I cannot pull a gun and say "Back the fuck off." And not only is it illegal, but it also is a security axiom, I guess that you would never want to do that. Because as you pointed out, if you hesitate now the person has the advantage, they have more information than they used to. But I still know a lot of hitchhikers who have gotten out of really bad situations by saying, "Let me the fuck out of the car." Elle 32:05 Sure. Margaret 32:06 Ya know?. Elle 32:06 Absolutely. It's not....Sometimes escalating tactically can be a de-escalation. Right? Margaret 32:17 Right. Elle 32:18 Sometimes pulling out a weapon or revealing that you have one is enough to make you no longer worth attacking. But you never know how someone's going to respond when you do that, right? Margaret 32:33 Totally Elle 32:33 So you never know whether it's going to cause them to go "Oh shit, I don't want to get stabbed or I don't want to get shot," and stop or whether it's going to trigger you know a more aggressive response. So it doesn't mean that you know, you, if you pull a weapon you have to use it. Margaret 32:52 Right. Elle 32:53 But if you're going to carry one then you do need to be confident that you will use it. Margaret 32:58 No, that that I do agree with that. Absolutely. Elle 33:00 And I think that is an important distinction, and I you know I also think that...not 'I think', using a gun and using a knife are two very different things. For a lot of people, pulling the trigger on a gun is going to be easier than stabbing someone. Margaret 33:20 Yeah that's true. Elle 33:21 Because of the proximity to the person and because of how deeply personal stabbing someone actually is versus how detached you can be and still pull the trigger. Margaret 33:35 Yeah. Elle 33:36 Like I would...it sounds...it feels weird to say but I would actually advocate most people carry a gun instead of a knife for that reason, and also because if you're, if you're worried about being physically attacked, you know you have more range of distance where you can use something like a gun than you do with a knife. You have to be, you have to be in close quarters to to effectively use a knife unless you're like really good at throwing them for some reason and even I wouldn't, cause if you miss...now your adversary has a knife. Margaret 34:14 I know yeah. Unless you miss by a lot. I mean actually I guess if you hit they have a knife now too. Elle 34:22 True. Margaret 34:23 I have never really considered whether or not throwing knives are effective self-defense weapons and I don't want to opine too hard on this show. Elle 34:31 I advise against it. Margaret 34:32 Yeah. Okay, so to go back to threat modeling about more operational security type stuff. You're clearly not saying these are best practices, but you're instead it seems like you're advocating of "This as the means by which you might determine your best practices." Elle 34:49 Yes. Margaret 34:49 Do you have a...do you have a a tool or do you have like a like, "Hey, here's some steps you can take." I mean, we all know you've said like, "Think about your enemy," and such like that, but Is there a more...Can you can you walk me through that? Elle 35:04 I mean, like, gosh, it really depends on who your adversary is, right? Elle 35:10 Like, if you're if you're thinking about an abusive partner, that's obviously going to vary based on things like, you know, is your abusive partner, someone who has access to weapons? Are they someone who is really tech savvy? Or are they not. At...The things that you have to think about are going to just depend on the skills and tools that they have access to? Is your abusive partner or your abusive ex a cop? Because that changes some things. Margaret 35:10 Yeah, fair enough. Margaret 35:20 Yeah. Elle 35:27 So like, most people, if they actually have a real and present kind of persistent threat in their life, also have a pretty good idea of what that threat is capable of, or what that threat actor or is capable of. And so it, it's it, I think, it winds up being fairly easy to start thinking about things in terms of like, "Okay, how is this person going to come after me? How, what, what tools do they have? What skills do they have? What ability do they have to kind of attack me or harm me?" But I think that, you know, as we start getting away from that really, really, personal threat model of like the intimate partner violence threat model, for example, and start thinking about more abstract threat models, like "I'm an anarchist living in a state," because no state is particularly fond of us. Margaret 36:50 Whaaaat?! Elle 36:51 I know it's wild, because like, you know, we just want to abolish the State and States, like want to not be abolished, and I just don't understand how, how they would dislike us for any reason.. Margaret 37:03 Yeah, it's like when I meet someone new, and I'm like, "Hey, have you ever thought about being abolished?" They're usually like, "Yeah, totally have a beer." Elle 37:10 Right. No, it's... Margaret 37:11 Yes. Elle 37:11 For sure. Um, but when it comes to when it comes to thinking about, you know, the anarchist threat model, I think that a lot of us have this idea of like, "Oh, the FBI is spying on me personally." And the likelihood of the FBI specifically spying on 'you' personally is like, actually pretty slim. But... Margaret 37:34 Me? Elle 37:35 Well... Margaret 37:37 No, no, I want to go back to thinking about it's slim, it's totally slim. Elle 37:41 Look...But like, there's there is a lot like, we know that, you know, State surveillance dragnet exists, right, we know that, you know, plaintext text messages, for example, are likely to be caught both by, you know, Cell Site Simulators, which are in really, really popular use by law enforcement agencies. Margaret 38:08 Which is something that sets up and pretends to be a cell tower. So it takes all the data that is transmitted over it. And it's sometimes used set up at demonstrations. Elle 38:16 Yes. So they, they both kind of convinced your phone into thinking that they are the nearest cell tower, and then actually pass your communications on to the next, like the nearest cell tower. So your communications do go through, they're just being logged by this entity in the middle. That's, you know, not great. But using something... Margaret 38:38 Unless you're the Feds. Elle 38:39 I mean, even if you... Margaret 38:41 You just have to think about it from their point of. Hahah. Elle 38:42 Even if you are the Feds, that's actually too much data for you to do anything useful with, you know? Margaret 38:50 Okay, I'll stop interuppting you. Haha. Elle 38:51 Like, it's just...but if you're if you are a person who is a person of interest who's in this group, where a cell site simulator has been deployed or whatever, then then that you know, is something that you do have to be concerned about and you know, even if you're not a person of interest if you're like texting your friend about like, "All right, we do crime in 15 minutes," like I don't know, it's maybe not a great idea. Don't write it down if you're doing crime. Don't do crime. But more importantly don't don't create evidence that you're planning to do crime, because now you've done two crimes which is the crime itself and conspiracy to commit a crime Margaret 39:31 Be straight. Follow the law. That's the motto here. Elle 39:35 Yes. Oh, sorry. I just like I don't know, autism brain involuntarily pictured, like an alternate universe in which in where which I am straight, and law abiding. And I'm just I'm very... Margaret 39:52 Sounds terrible. I'm sorry. Elle 39:53 Right. Sounds like a very boring.... Margaret 39:55 Sorry to put that image in your head. Elle 39:56 I mean, I would never break laws. Margaret 39:58 No. Elle 39:59 Ever Never ever. I have not broken any laws I will not break any laws. No, I think that... Margaret 40:08 The new "In Minecraft" is "In Czarist Russia." Instead of saying "In Minecraft," because it's totally blown. It's only okay to commit crimes "In Czarist Russia." Elle 40:19 Interesting. Margaret 40:23 All right. We don't have to go with that. I don't know why i got really goofy. Elle 40:27 I might be to Eastern European Jewish for that one. Margaret 40:31 Oh God. Oh, my God, now I just feel terrible. Elle 40:34 It's It's fine. It's fine. Margaret 40:36 Well, that was barely a crime by east... Elle 40:40 I mean it wasn't necessarily a crime, but like my family actually emigrated to the US during the first set of pogroms. Margaret 40:51 Yeah. Elle 40:52 So like, pre Bolshevik Revolution. Margaret 40:57 Yeah. Elle 40:59 But yeah, anyway. Margaret 41:02 Okay, well, I meant taking crimes like, I basically think that, you know, attacking the authorities in Czarist Russia is a more acceptable action is what I'm trying to say, I really don't have to try and sell you on this plan. Elle 41:16 I'm willing to trust your judgment here. Margaret 41:19 That's a terrible plan, but I appreciate you, okay. Either way, we shouldn't text people about the crimes that we're doing. Elle 41:26 We should not text people about the crimes that we're planning on doing. But, if you are going to try to coordinate timelines, you might want to do that using some form of encrypted messenger so that whatever is logged by a cell site simulator, if it is in existence is not possible by the people who are then retrieving those logs. And you know, and another reason to use encrypted messengers, where you can is that you don't necessarily want your cell provider to have that unencrypted message block. And so if you're sending SMS, then your cell, your cell provider, as the processor of that data has access to an unencrypted or plain text version of whatever text message you're sending, where if you're using something like Signal or WhatsApp, or Wicker, or Wire or any of the other, like, multitude of encrypted messengers that you could theoretically be using, then it's it's also not going directly through your your provider, which I think is an interesting distinction. Because, you know, we we know, from, I mean, we kind of sort of already knew, but we know for a fact, from the Snowden Papers, that cell providers will absolutely turn over your data to the government if they're asked for it. And so minimizing the amount of data that they have about you to turn over to the government is generally a good practice. Especially if you can do it in a way that isn't going to be a bunch of red flags. Margaret 43:05 Right, like being in Belarus and using Signal. Elle 43:08 Right. Exactly. Margaret 43:10 Okay. Also, there's the Russian General who used an unencrypted phone where he then got geo located and blowed up. Elle 43:23 Yeah. Margaret 43:24 Also bad threat modeling on that that guy's part, it seems like Elle 43:28 I it, it certainly seems to...that person certainly seems to have made several poor life choices, not the least of which was being a General in the Russian army. Margaret 43:41 Yeah, yeah. That, that tracks. So one of the things that we talked about, while we were talking about having this conversation, our pre-conversation conversation was about...I think you brought up this idea that something that feels secret, doesn't mean it is, and Elle 43:59 Yeah! Margaret 44:00 I'm wondering if you had more thoughts about that concept? It's not a very good prompt. Elle 44:05 So like, it's it's a totally reasonable prompt, we say a lot that, you know, security and safety are a feeling. And I think that that actually is true for a lot of us. But there's this idea that, Oh, if you use coded language, for example, then like, you can't get caught. I don't actually think that's true, because we tend to use coded language that's like, pretty easily understandable by other people. Because the purpose of communicating is to communicate. Margaret 44:42 Yeah. Elle 44:43 And so usually, if you're like, code language is easy enough to be understood by whoever it is you're trying to communicate with, like, someone else can probably figure it the fuck out too. Especially if you're like, "Hey, man, did you bring the cupcakes," and your friend is like, "Yeah!" And then an explosion goes off shortly thereafter, right? It's like, "Oh, by cupcakes, they meant dynamite." So I, you know, I think that rather than then kind of like relying on this, you know, idea of how spies work or how, how anarchists communicated secretly, you know, pre WTO it's, it's worth thinking about how the surveillance landscape has adapted over time, and thinking a little bit more about what it means to engage in, in the modern panopticon, or the contemporary panopticon, because those capabilities have changed over time. And things like burner phones are a completely different prospect now than they used to be. Actually... Margaret 45:47 In that they're easier or wose? Elle 45:49 Oh, there's so much harder to obtain now. Margaret 45:51 Yeah, okay. Elle 45:52 It's it is so much easier to correlate devices that have been used in proximity to each other than it used to be. And it's so much easier to, you know, capture people on surveillance cameras than it used to be. I actually wrote a piece for Crimethinc about this some years ago, that that I think kind of still holds up in terms of how difficult it really, really is to procure a burner phone. And in order to do to do that safely, you would have to pay cash somewhere that couldn't capture you on camera doing it, and then make sure that it was never turned on in proximity with your own phone anywhere. And you would have to make sure that it only communicated with other burner phones, because the second it communicates with a phone that's associated to another person, there's a connection between your like theoretical burner phone and that person. And so you can be kind of triangulated back to, especially if you've communicated with multiple people. It just it is so hard to actually obtain a device that is not in any way affiliated with your identity or the identity of any of your comrades. But, we have to start thinking about alternative mechanisms for synchronous communication. Margaret 47:18 Okay. Elle 47:18 And, realistically speaking, taking a walk in the woods is still going to be the best way to do it. Another reasonable way to go about having a conversation that needs to remain private is actually to go somewhere that is too loud and too crowded to...for anyone to reasonably overhear or to have your communication recorded. So using using the kind of like, signal to noise ratio in your favor. Margaret 47:51 Yeah. Elle 47:52 To help drown out your own signal can be really, really useful. And I think that that's also true of things like using Gmail, right? The signal to noise ratio, if you're not using a tool that's specifically for activists can be very helpful, because there is just so much more traffic happening, that it's easier to blend in. Margaret 48:18 I mean, that's one reason why I mean, years ago, people were saying that's why non activists should use GPG, the encrypted email service that is terrible, was so attempt to try and be like, if you only ever use it, for the stuff you don't want to be known, then it like flags it as "This stuff you don't want to be known." And so that was like, kind of an argument for my early adoption Signal, because I don't break laws was, you know, just be like," Oh, here's more people using Signal," it's more regularized, and, you know, my my family talks on Signal and like, it helps that like, you know, there's a lot of different very normal legal professions that someone might have that are require encrypted communication. Yeah, no book, like accountants, lawyers. But go ahead. Elle 49:06 No, no, I was gonna say that, like, it's, it's very common in my field of work for people to prefer to use Signal to communicate, especially if there is, you know, a diversity of phone operating systems in the mix. Margaret 49:21 Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, it's actually now it's more convenient. You know, when I when I'm on my like, family's SMS loop, it's like, I constantly get messages to say, like, "Brother liked such and such comment," and then it's like, three texts of that comment and...anyway, but okay, one of the things that you're talking about, "Security as a feeling," right? That actually gets to something that's like, there is a value in like, like, part of the reason to carry a knife is to feel better. Like, and so part of like, like anti-anxiety, like anxiety is my biggest threat most most days, personally. Right? Elle 50:00 Have you ever considered a career in the security field, because I, my, my, my former manager, like the person who hired me into the role that I'm in right now was like, "What made you get into security?" when I was interviewing, and I was just like, "Well, I had all this anxiety lying around. And I figured, you know, since nobody will give me a job that I can afford to sustain myself on without a degree, in any other field, I may as well take all this anxiety and like, sell it as a service." Margaret 50:33 Yeah, I started a prepper podcast. It's what you're listening to right now. Everyone who's listening. Yeah, exactly. Well, there's a value in that. But then, but you're talking about the Panopticon stuff, and the like, maybe being in too crowded of an environment. And it's, and this gets into something where everyone is really going to have to answer it differently. There's a couple of layers to this, but like, the reason that I just like, my profile picture on twitter is my face. I use my name, right? Elle 51:03 Same. Margaret 51:04 And, yeah, and I, and I just don't sweat it, because I'm like, "Look, I've been at this long enough that they know who I am. And it's just fine. It's just is." One day, it won't be fine. And then we have other problems. Right? Elle 51:18 Right. Margaret 51:19 And, and, and I'm not saying that everyone as they get better security practice will suddenly start being public like it... You know, it, it really depends on what you're trying to accomplish. Like, a lot of the reasons to not be public on social media is just because it's a fucking pain in the ass. Like, socially, you know? Elle 51:36 Yeah. Margaret 51:36 But I don't know, I just wonder if you have any thoughts about just like, the degree to which sometimes it's like, "Oh, well, I just, I carry a phone to an action because I know, I'm not up to anything." But then you get into this, like, then you're non-normalizing... don't know, it gets complicated. And I'm curious about your thoughts on that kind of stuff. Elle 51:56 So like, for me, for me personally, I am very public about who I am. What I'm about, like, what my politics are. I'm extremely open about it. Partially, because I don't think that, like I think that there is value in de-stigmatizing anarchism. Margaret 52:20 Yes. Elle 52:20 I think there is value in being someone who is just a normal fucking human being. And also anarchist. Margaret 52:29 Yeah. Elle 52:30 And I think that, you know, I...not even I think. I know, I know that, through being exactly myself and being open about who I am, and not being super worried about the labels that other people apply to themselves. And instead, kind of talking about, talking about anarchism, both from a place of how it overlaps with Judaism, because it does in a lot of really interesting ways, but also just how it informs my decision making processes. I've been able to expose people who would not necessarily have had any, like, concept of anarchism, or the power dynamics that we're interested in equalizing to people who just wouldn't have wouldn't have even thought about it, or would have thought that anarchists are like this big, scary, whatever. And, like, there, there are obviously a multitude of tendencies within anarchism, and no anarchist speaks for anybody but themselves, because that's how it works. But, it's one of the things that's been really interesting to me is that in the security field, one of the new buzzwords is Zero Trust. And the idea is that you don't want to give any piece of technology kind of the sole ability to to be the linchpin in your security, right? So you want to build redundancy, you want to make sure that no single thing is charged with being the gatekeeper for all of your security. And I think that that concept actually also applies to power. And so I...when I'm trying to talk about anarchism in a context where it makes sense to security people, I sometimes talk about it as like a Zero Trust mechanism for organizing a society. Margaret 54:21 Yeah. Elle 54:21 Where you just you...No person is trustworthy enough to hold power over another person. And, so like, I'm really open about it, but the flip side of that is that, you know, I also am a fucking anarchist, and I go to demonstrations, and sometimes I get arrested or whatever. And so I'm not super worried about the government knowing who I am because they know exactly who I am. But I don't share things like my place of work on the internet because I've gotten death threats from white nationalists. And I don't super want white nationalists like sending death threats into my place of work because It's really annoying to deal with. Margaret 55:02 Yeah. Elle 55:03 And so you know, there's...it really comes down to how you think about compartmentalizing information. And which pieces of yourself you want public and private and and how, how you kind of maintain consistency in those things. Margaret 55:21 Yeah. Elle 55:22 Like people will use the same...people will like be out and anarchists on Twitter, but use the same Twitter handle as their LinkedIn URL where they're talking about their job and have their legal name. And it's just like, "Buddy, what are you doing?" Margaret 55:37 Yeah. Elle 55:38 So you do have to think about how pieces of data can be correlated and tied back to you. And what story it is that you're you're presenting, and it is hard and you are going to fuck it up. Like people people are going to fuck it up. Compartmentalization is super hard. Maintaining operational security is extremely hard. But it is so worth thinking about. And even if you do fuck it up, you know, that doesn't mean that it's the end of the world, it might mean that you have to take some extra steps to mitigate that risk elsewhere. Margaret 56:11 The reason I like this whole framework that you're building is that I tend to operate under this conception that clandestinity is a trap. I don't want to I don't want to speak this....I say it as if it's a true statement across all and it's not it. I'm sure there's absolute reasons in different places at different times. But in general, when I look at like social movements, they, once they move to "Now we're just clandestine." That's when everyone dies. And, again, not universally, Elle 56:40 Yeah, but I mean, okay, so this is where I'm gonna get like really off the wall. Right? Margaret 56:46 All right. We're an hour in. It's the perfect time. Elle 56:50 I know, right? People may or may not know who Allen Dulles is. But Allen Margaret 56:54 Not unless they named an airport after him. Elle 56:56 They Did. Margaret 56:57 Oh, then i do who he is. Elle 56:59 Allen Dulles is one of the people who founded the CIA. And he released this pamphlet called "73 Points On Spycraft." And it's a really short read. It's really interesting, I guess. But the primary point is that if you are actually trying to be clandestine, and be successful about it, you want to be as mundane as possible. Margaret 57:22 Yep. Elle 57:23 And in our modern world with the Panopticon being what it is, the easiest way to be clandestine, is actually to be super open. So that if you are trying to hide something, if there is something that you do want to keep secret, there's enough information out there about you, that you're not super worth digging into. Margaret 57:46 Oh, yeah. Cuz they think they already know you. Elle 57:48 Exactly. So if, if that is what your threat model is, then the best way to go about keeping a secret is to flood as many other things out there as possible. So that it's just it's hard to find anything, but whatever it is that you're flooding. Margaret 58:04 Oh, it's like I used to, to get people off my back about my dead name, I would like tell one person in a scene, a fake dead name, and be like, "But you can't tell anyone." Elle 58:15 Right. Margaret 58:16 And then everyone would stop asking about my dead name, because they all thought they knew it, because that person immediately told everyone, Elle 58:22 Right. Margaret 58:23 Yeah. Elle 58:24 It's, it's going back to that same using the noise to hide your signal concept, that it...the same, the same kind of concepts and themes kind of play out over and over and over again. And all security really is is finding ways to do harm reduction for yourself, finding ways to minimize the risk that you're undertaking just enough that that you can operate in whatever it is that you're trying to do. Margaret 58:53 No, I sometimes I like, ask questions. And then I am like, Okay, well don't have an immediate follow up, because I just need to like, think about it. Instead of being like, "I know immediately what to say about that." But okay, so, but with clandestinity in general in this this concept...I also think that this is true on a kind of movement level in a way that I I worry about sometimes not necessarily....Hmm, what am I trying to say? Because I also really hate telling people what to do. It's like kind of my thing I don't like telling people what to do. But there's a certain level... Elle 59:25 Really? Margaret 59:25 Yeah, you'd be shocked to know, Elle 59:27 You? Don't like telling people what to do? Margaret 59:31 Besides telling people not to tell me what to do. That's one of my favorite things to tell people. But, there's a certain amount of. Margaret 59:38 Oh, that's true, like different conceptions of freedom. Elle 59:38 But that's not telling people what to do, that's telling people what not to do. Elle 59:44 It's actually setting a boundary as opposed to dictating a behavior. Margaret 59:48 But I've been in enough relationships where I've learned that setting boundaries is the same as telling people to do. This is a funny joke. Elle 59:55 Ohh co-dependency. Margaret 59:58 But all right, there's a quote from a guy whose name I totally space who was an old revolutionist, who wasn't very good at his job. And his quote was, "Those who make half a revolution dig their own graves." And I think he like, I think it proved true for him. If I remember correctly, I think he died in jail after kind of making half a revolution with some friends. I think he got like arrested for pamphleteering or something, Elle 1:00:20 Jesus. Margaret 1:00:21 It was a couple hundred years ago. And but there's this but then if you look forward in history that like revolutionists, who survive are the ones who win. Sometimes, sometimes the revolutionists win, and then their comrades turn on them and murder them. But, I think overall, the survival rate of a revolution is better when you win is my theory. And and so there's this this concept where there's a tension, and I don't have an answer to it. And I want people to actually think about it instead of assuming, where the difference between videotaping a cop car on fire and not is more complicated than people want you to know. Because, if you want there to be more cop cars on fire, which I do not unless we're in Czarist Russia, in which case, you're in an autocracy, and it's okay to set the cop cars on fire, but I'm clearly not talking about that, or the modern world. But, you're gonna have to film it on your cell phone in order for people to fucking know that it's happening. Sure. And and that works absolutely against your best interest. Like, on an individual level, and even a your friends' level. Elle 1:01:25 So like, here's the thing, being in proximity to a burning cop car is not in and of itself a crime. Margaret 1:01:33 Right. Elle 1:01:34 So there's, there's nothing wrong with filming a cop car on fire. Margaret 1:01:41 But there's that video... Margaret 1:01:41 Right. Elle 1:01:41 There is something wrong with filming someone setting a cop car on fire. And there's something extremely wrong with taking a selfie while setting a cop car on fire. And don't do that, because you shouldn't do crime. Obviously, right? Elle 1:01:42 But there's Layers there...No, go ahead. Margaret 1:02:03 Okay, well, there's the video that came out of Russia recently, where someone filmed themselves throwing Molotovs at a recruitment center. And one of the first comments I see is like, "Wow, this person has terrible OpSec." And that's true, right? Like this person is not looking at how to maximize their lack of chance of going to jail, which is probably the way to maximize that in non Czarist Russia... re-Czarist Russia, is to not throw anything burning at buildings. That's the way to not go to jail. Elle 1:02:35 Right. Margaret 1:02:35 And then if you want to throw the thing at the... and if all you care about is setting this object on fire, then don't film yourself. Elle 1:02:41 Right. Margaret 1:02:41 But if you want more people to know that this is a thing that some people believe is a worthwhile thing to do, you might need to film yourself doing it now that person well didn't speak. Elle 1:02:53 Well no. Margaret 1:02:56 Okay. Elle 1:02:56 You may not need to film yourself doing it. Right? Because what what you can do is if, for example, for some reason, you are going to set something on fire. Margaret 1:03:09 Right, in Russia. Elle 1:03:09 Perhaps what you might want to do is first get the thing to be in a state where it is on fire, and then begin filming the thing once it is in a burning state. Margaret 1:03:25 Conflaguration. Yeah. Elle 1:03:25 Right? And that can that can do a few things, including A) you're not inherently self incriminating. And, you know, if if there are enough people around to provide some form of cover, like for example, if there are 1000s of other people's cell phones also in proximity, it might even create some degree of plausible deniability for you because what fucking dipshit films themself doing crimes. So it's, you know, there's, there's, there's some timing things, right. And the idea is to get it...if you are a person who believes that cop cars look best on fire... Margaret 1:04:10 Buy a cop car, and then you set it on fire. And then you film it. Elle 1:04:15 I mean, you know, you know, you just you opportunistically film whenever a cop car happens to be on fire in your proximity. Margaret 1:04:23 Oh, yeah. Which might have been set on fire by the person who owned it. There's no reason to know one way or not. Elle 1:04:27 Maybe the police set the cop car on fire you know? You never know. There's no way to there....You don't have to you don't have to speculate about how the cop car came to be on fire. You can just film a burning cop car. And so the you know, I think that the line to walk there is just making sure there's no humans in your footage of things that you consider to be art. Margaret 1:04:29 Yeah. No, it it makes sense. And I guess it's like because people very, very validly have been very critical about the ways that media or people who are independently media or whatever, like people filming shit like this, right? But But I think then to say that like, therefore no, no cop cars that are on fire should ever be filmed versus the position you're presenting, which is only cop cars that are already on fire might deserve to be filmed, which is the kind of the long standing like film the broken window, not the window breaker and things like that. But... Elle 1:05:29 I think and I think also there's, you know, there's a distinction to be made between filming yourself setting a cop car on fire, and filming someone else setting a cop car on fire, because there's a consent elemenet, right? Margaret 1:05:34 Totally. Totally. Elle 1:05:47 You shouldn't like...Don't do crime. Nobody should do crime. But if you are going to do crime, do it on purpose. Right? Margaret 1:05:55 Fair enough. Elle 1:05:55 Like that's, that's what civil disobedience is. Civil disobedience is doing crime for the purpose of getting caught to make a point. That's what it is. And if you if you really feel that strongly about doing a crime to make a point, and you want everyone to know that you're doing a crime to make a point, then that's, that's a risk calculation that you yourself need to make for yourself. But you can't make that calculation for anybody else. Margaret 1:06:25 I think that's a great way to sum it up. Elle 1:06:27 So unless your friend is like, "Yo, I'm gonna set this cop car on fire. Like, get the camera ready, hold my beer." You probably shouldn't be filming them. Margaret 1:06:38 See you in 30 years. Elle 1:06:39 Right? You probably shouldn't be filming them setting the cop car on fire either. Margaret 1:06:43 No. No Elle 1:06:44 And also, that's a shitty friend because they've just implicated you in conspiracy, right? Margaret 1:06:49 Yeah. Elle 1:06:50 Friends don't implicate friends. Margaret 1:06:53 It's a good, it's a good rule. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, I that's not entirely where I immediately expected to go with Threat Modeling. But I feel like we've covered an awful lot. Is there something? Is there something...Do you have any, like final thoughts about Threat Modeling, and as relates to the stuff that we've been talking about? Elle 1:07:18 I think that you know, the thing that I do really want to drive home. And that honestly does come back to your point about clandestinity being a trap is that, again, the purpose of threat modeling is to first understand, you know, what risks you're trying to protect against, and then figure out how to do what you're accomplishing in a way that minimizes risk. But the important piece is still doing whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish, whether that's movement building, or something else. And so there there is, there is a calculation that needs to be made in terms of what level of risk is acceptable to you. But if if, ultimately, your risk threshold is preventing you from accomplishing whatever you're trying to accomplish, then it's time to take a step back, recalculate and figure out whether or not you actually want to accomplish the thing, and what level of risk is worth taking. Because I think that, you know, again, if if you're, if your security mechanisms are preventing you from doing the thing that you're you set out to try to do, then your adversaries are already winning, and something probably needs to shift. Margaret 1:08:39 I really like that line. And so I feel like that's a decent spot, place to end on. Do. Do you have anything that you'd like to shout out? People can follow you on the internet? Or they shouldn't follow you on the internet? What? What do you what do you want to advocate for here? Elle 1:08:53 If you follow me on the internet, I'm so sorry. That's really all I can say. I'm, I am on the internet. I am a tire fire. I'm probably fairly easy to find based on my name, my pronouns and the things that I've said here today, and I can't recommend following my Twitter. Margaret 1:09:17 I won't put in the show notes then. Elle 1:09:19 I mean, you're welcome to but I can't advocate in good conscience for anyone to pay attention to anything that I have to say. Margaret 1:09:27 Okay, so go back and don't listen to the last hour everyone. Elle 1:09:31 I mean, I'm not going to tell you what to do. Margaret 1:09:34 I am that's my favorite thing to do. Elle 1:09:36 I mean, you know, this is just like my opinion, you know? There are no leaders. We're all the leaders. I don't know. Do do do what you think is right. Margaret 1:09:55 Agreed. All right. Well, thank you so much. Elle 1:09:59 Thank you. I really appreciate it. Margaret 1:10:07 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, you should tell people about it by whatever means occurs to you to tell people about it, which might be the internet, it might even be in person, it might be by taking a walk, leaving your cell phones behind, and then getting in deep into the woods and saying," I like the following podcast." And then the other person will be like, "Really, I thought we were gonna make out or maybe do some crimes." But, instead you have told them about the podcast. And I'm recording this at the same time as I record the intro, and now the

Episode Notes Strangers In A Tangled WIlderness can be found at here or on twitter @tangledwild. You can support this show by subscribing to our Patreon. A more reader friendly copy of the story can be found at https://www.tangledwilderness.org/featured/the-great-armored-train Along with amazing art by Robin Savage. This story appeared in Nick Mamatas's collection The People's Republic of Everything, published in 2018 by Tachyon Publications. About the author: Nick Mamatas is the author of seven novels, including Love is the Law, I Am Providence, and the forthcoming Hexen Sabbath. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, and many other venues. Nick is also an anthologist; his books include the Bram Stoker Award winner Haunted Legends (co-edited with Ellen Datlow), the Locus Award nominees The Future is Japanese and Hanzai Japan (both co-edited with Masumi Washington), and Mixed Up (co-edited with Molly Tanzer). His fiction and editorial work has been nominated for the Hugo, Locus, World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, Shirley Jackson, and International Horror Guild Awards. Mamatas lives in Oakland, California. About the interviewer: Margaret Killjoy is a transfeminine author and editor currently based in the Appalachian mountains. Her most recent book is an anarchist demon hunters novella called The Barrow Will Send What it May, published by Tor.com. She spends her time crafting and complaining about authoritarian power structures and she blogs at birdsbeforethestorm.net. The theme music is also by Margaret Killjoy. Show art is by Robin Savage The Host is Inmn Neruin. You can find them on instagram @shadowtail.artificery **Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness 2: The Great Armored Train by Nick Mamatas** Inmn Neruin: Hello and welcome to Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness...the podcast. I'm your host Inmn Neruin and I use They/them pronouns . Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is a collectively run publisher dedicated to producing and curating inclusive and intersectional culture informed by anarchistic ideals. This can include stories, fiction, poetry, memoir, non-fiction, theater pieces, comics, books, pop culture analysis, recipes, music, history, podcasts...and occasionally essays and theory. We are looking for content that doesn't know where it fits in, for people that don't know where they fit in. On this podcast we have audio versions of our monthly featured zine read by a brilliant voice actor along with interviews with the author. If you would like to hold in your hands a hard copy of our monthly feature, please consider subscribing to our Patreon where you will be mailed a lovely zine once a month along with other occasional trinkets to add to your horde. Our Patreon helps make things like this podcast possible as well as supporting other podcasts we put out like Live Like The World Is Dying. It also helps us pay authors of the monthly features, transcribers, artists, editors and translators. So if you like what you hear, please consider subscribing at Patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. If you would like to submit a piece that you think would shine nicely in our little dragon horde, please visit Tangledwilderness.org for our submission guidelines! This month, we are kind of cheating…We bring to you a previously recorded episode of the now on-hold podcast We Will Remember Freedom. In this re-print episode, one of our collaborators, Margaret Killjoy talks with Nick Mamatas about his short story The Great Armored Train. We feel this story is more relevant than usual considering Russia's current invasion of Ukraine. This story pits Trotsky's giant armored train against polish folk magic. I really loved this story mostly because it's simple and I love learning about magic within resistance movements, but I also appreciate a good critique of State Communism. Much like State Communism  paraded this idea of liberating the people, while building a power base for a new oppressive state, Putin claims to be trying to save Ukraine from itself, going so far as to parade that idea that he hopes to de-nazify it. A facist claiming to free people from other fascists. Seems sketchy.  And much like during the  reign of the Bolsheviks or the quarrels of any nation states, the common people are usually who suffer most and are used as pawns. But as in this story, resistance can be…phantasmal and there have always been echos of stateless worlds, tremors of a bell rung long ago, now ever ringing, “Land to the Peasants” as the  Black Army emblazoned on their battle standards as they fought for a free-territory in Ukraine almost exactly one century ago in conflicts with Bolsheviks and Monarchists. Our hearts go out to the Anarchists and anti-authoritarians organizing in  Ukraine and Russia right now, and those of you fighting on the frontlines, organizing evacuations, refugees and medical support, for those who stayed and for those who fled and of course for those who fell. We hope the fantasy and comedy of this story can offer some levity and hope within this ongoing conflict, and those exactly like it happening all over the world, and hope if people can empathize with Ukrainian people right now they can see the similarities between this conflict and those in places like Palestine, Syria, and Rojava to name a few. So remember, sharpen your talons, listen for the echos, and keep fighting.  *For a print version of the story please visit http://tangledwild.org * Inmn Neruin: That was Margaret talking to Nick Mamatas about “The Great Armored Train.” Please check out the online version for this story as well as other content at [http://tangledwild.org](http://tangledwild.org). You can even see some amazing artwork done for the story by our artist Robin Savage. I've heard many stories of Ukrainian women offering sunflower seeds to Russian soldiers, so that when they die at least something beautiful and useful will grow. I hope so much to hear stories in the future of seeds that spontaneously burst to life inside tanks, consuming them and rendering them useless except as homes to wayward critters.  If you would like to learn more about this conflict in Ukraine and those like it, check out our friends at the Final Straw Radio at [https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/](https://thefinalstrawradio.noblogs.org/) for interviews with Ukrainian Anarchists, as well as our friends at [http://Crimethinc.com/](http://crimethinc.com/) for histories and interviews with Russian and Ukrainian Leftists, Anarchists and anti-authoritarians. If you would like to support anarchists and anti-authoritarians in Ukraine right now check out a link tree for Ukranian mutual aid group Operation Solidarity at [https://linktr.ee/operation.solidarity](https://linktr.ee/operation.solidarity) and an Anarchist armed detachment The Black Headquarter at [https://linktr.ee/Theblackheadquarter](https://linktr.ee/Theblackheadquarter) Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast please go tell someone about it. Whisper it in their ear, put it on at work, write a review and feed it to the ocean, cry its name to the gloaming daring an owl to answer. If you would like to support us as well as the authors, translators, editors and artists that we work with please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscribers receive at different levels: access to digital copies of our archived zines and features, digital copies of new work, Patreon-only content, discounts of printed work and monthly printed copies of our featured zine mailed to you along with whatever else we feel like that month. You can find us at Patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness or check out our website for more free content, including blogposts, zines, books, games, comics, how-to guides and other works we have to distribute. We can be found at TangledWilderness.org or check us out on twitter @Tangledwild. And as always, if you don't want to or can't contribute financially please rate and review us, and tell a friend. We like having friends. You do incredible things that we are endlessly marveled by. We would especially like to thank these friends: Mikki, Nicole, David, Dana, Chelsea, Micaiah, Staro, Jenipher, Eleanor, Natalie, Kirk, Hugh, Nora, Sam, Chris, and Hoss the dog for making this podcast and so many other projects possible. If you feel like a stranger that would like to find their story a home in this tangled wilderness consider submitting it; the pages are thirsty.  Next month, we bring to you something a little bit different. I will be talking with Celeste Inez Mathilda of Liminal Spaces about their zine “Taraxacum Officinale: Dandelion. Break the Binary. Migration is Beautiful” as well their views on the ethics of wildcrafting. Stay Well. We hope you come back. Find out more at https://strangers-in-a-tangled-wildern.pinecast.co

So there's this jagoff comedian making videos in his garage… I mean, this millionaire Hollywood guy running his own media venture, employing writers and producers… who is persecuted… I mean, criticised… for bravely standing up to the establishment and the corporations and American imperialism… I mean, for being a reactionary, and platforming fascists, and doing interviews on fascist TV with America's most prominent fascist, and spinning conspiracy theories, and engaging in stealth antivaxx during a deadly pandemic that he downplays and about which he spreads misinformation, and smearing people who point out that he's full of shit, and making covert apologias for Trumpism, and sneakily implying that brutal, murderous, authoritarian, imperialist dictators like Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad are actually not that bad… Content Warnings apply, not least for clips of very shit comedy. Show Notes: Please consider donating to help us make the show and stay ad-free and independent.  Patrons get exclusive access to at least one full extra episode a month plus all backer-only back-episodes. Daniel's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danielharper Jack's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4196618 IDSG Twitter: https://twitter.com/idsgpod Daniel's Twitter: @danieleharper Jack's Twitter: @_Jack_Graham_ IDSG on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/i-dont-speak-german/id1449848509?ls=1 Episode Notes: Jimmy Dore: Jimmy Dore at RationalWiki https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jimmy_Dore Jimmy Dore at Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Dore The Jimmy Dore Show https://www.youtube.com/c/thejimmydoreshow The Dirt: Political Commentator Jimmy Dore Buys Rambling L.A. Compound Jimmy Dore Bought a Charming Los Angeles House – DIRT (1)Jimmy Dore on Twitter: "I interviewed a member of the Boggaloo Boys, I was completely floored when he said he is: -Pro LGBTQ -Pro Black Lives Matter -Anti Police Brutality -Anti Racism -Anti ICE -Anti War WTF?!?! Radicalized Michigan Anarchist Seeks Unity With The Left. https://t.co/nTXQ3gCEg4" / Twitter WSWS: YouTube personality Jimmy Dore Promotes fascist Boogaloo Boy YouTube personality Jimmy Dore promotes fascist Boogaloo Boy - World Socialist Web Site (wsws.org) (1)Matthew Dimitri

Host Alex McHugh interviews one of the founders of the radical humanitarian project Operation Solidarity, which is helping to organize anarchist resistance to the invasion as well as humanitarian support networks. If you're able to support this project with funding or material aid, please click through the linktree below. Support Operation Solidarity: https://linktr.ee/operation.solidarity "War and Anarchists: Anti-Authoritarian Perspectives in Ukraine," CrimethInc: https://crimethinc.com/2022/02/15/war-and-anarchists-anti-authoritarian-perspectives-in-ukraine  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zemlya.volya  Squat Autonomia: https://en.squat.net/2014/07/13/kharkiv-ukraine-opening-of-a-political-squat/ 

In this episode of The Scalpel, Dr. Rose is joined by award-winning journalist Lara Logan for an extended conversation and deep-dive into everything that matters about Ukraine.   This is the most important episode of The Scalpel we have ever published. This is a very complex situation and you will need to pay attention to this conversation and probably listen more than once.   Donald Trump was impeached because of Ukraine. Joe Biden withheld aid money to Ukraine and demanded the firing of a prosecutor. Putin is desperate for war, which is about to escalate.   What is the significance of the Black Sun emblem?   Why is Ukraine so important and what role does Ukraine play in crushing freedom around the world?   You're about to find out.     Ukraine On Fire - 2016 - Oliver Stone https://rumble.com/vwxxi8-ukraine-on-fire.html?mref=2x5ih&mc=23m9z   CrimethInc https://crimethinc.com   Russia Accuses US of Placing Bio-Weapons Labs On Its Borders https://russia-insider.com/en/politics/russia-accuses-us-placing-bio-weapons-labs-its-borders/ri8082   The sad inevitability of Ukraine's measles outbreak https://blogs.unicef.org/blog/sad-inevitability-of-measles-in-ukraine/   Ukraine botulism update: 76 cases this year, anti-toxin received http://outbreaknewstoday.com/ukraine-botulism-update-76-cases-year-anti-toxin-received-67131/   Volunteer Battalions - A Sample of Profiles https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/ukraine/volunteers-bn.htm   Does Ukraine have a Neo-Nazi problem? https://en.as.com/en/2022/03/08/latest_news/1646777690_106699.html   NATO Says It Didn't Notice Ukraine Soldier's Apparent Nazi Symbol in Tweet https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/nato-says-it-didnt-notice-ukraine-soldiers-apparent-nazi-symbol-in-tweet/ar-AAUQXyT   Nazi Symbols and Emblems https://scalpeledge.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/ukraine-emb1.jpg     Walter Cronkite https://youtu.be/OfgFvdSPF70?t=281   CONTACT THE SHOW Website: https://scalpeledge.com Email: KFR@scalpeledge.com Twitter: @TheScalpelEdge Instagram: @TheScalpelPodcast   #TheScalpel

This week, you'll hear my chat with Jon Bigger about the status of the monarchy in the UK, the power it wields, the interventions it makes into parliamentary procedure and where we might see hopes of challenging it from an anarchist approach. Jon is an anarchist who is involved with the Anarchism Research Group, writes a column on UK politics at Freedom News and has been involved in the project Class War. You can find him online at twitter and at his website, jonbigger.uk Further reading: The Black Spider Memos The Pandora Papers If you're interested in some more commentary from politics in the UK, check out Red and Black's bite sized opinion pieces on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RedAndBlackTelly/ Announcements Updates from Ukraine If you missed our conversation from 2/25/22 with Ilya, a Russian anarchist in Ukraine, you should check it out. Crimethinc's Ex Worker podcast just recently two episodes (part 1 or part 2) with perspectives from the region on the war that's worth a listen. We shared a link tree site that contained ways to send international solidarity and keep up with viewpoints of anarchists involved in mutual aid on the ground that can be found at linktr.ee/operation.solidarity . Since that broadcast, an anarchist and anti-authoritarian formation has announced itself and is seeking defensive and offensive support in the form of equipment and volunteers, an important improvement to the situation where fascists and nationalists will find fertile soil for recruitment and have already used the war in the Donbass to train our enemies abroad. You can learn more about the anarchist grouping and follow updates from the ground by checking out linktr.ee/TheBlackHeadquarter Eric King's Trial Begins Soon Anarchist and antifascist prisoner, Eric King, is facing a jury trial beginning on March 14th in Denver, Colorado. His defense crew is headed by the Civil Liberties Defense Center and will be arguing that employees at the US Bureau of Prisons manufactured a scenario to add 20 years to Eric's almost completed term as well as consciously endangered him from facility to facility by putting him in harms way of known white supremacist prisoners. You can learn more about his case and how to support his defense at SupportEricKing.Org and we hope to bring some updates with his legal support in the near future. Bad News February 2022 Members of the A-Radio Network released the Feburary 2022 installment of our monthly, international, English-language podcast roundup with features from Brazil (via Slovenia), repression in Siberia by the Russian security forces, voices from Thessaloniki in Greece on recent police actions against anarchists, and from Poland on the struggle for legal abortion access. Check it out at A-Radio-Network.org or in our show notes. . ... . .. Featured Tracks: God Save The Queen (Instrumental) by The Sex Pistols from The Complete Sex Pistols Sessions '76-'77 Corgi Crap by The Drones from Temptations Of A White Collar Worker Anarchy In The UK by Wild Billy Childish & The Blackhands from Play: Capt'n Calypso's Hoodoo Party

Opponents of vaccine mandates have established protest encampments in Ottawa and elsewhere around Canada, blockading several routes crossing the United States border. Far-right organizers and former police officers have prominent positions in this movement, and police have taken a relatively hands-off approach thus far; it appears likely that the model currently being tested in Canada will appear elsewhere around the world shortly. In this episode, we present an audio version of the article Ill Winds From Ottawa: Thinking Through the Threats and Opportunities as a Far-Right Initiative Gains Momentum, in which our correspondent in Montréal explores the sequence of events that led up to these developments, reviews the agendas of the various forces vying for control, and reflects on what we can do in a situation in which the far right has gained the initiative. {February 17, 2022}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} Preface: A Movement for “Freedom”? {1:56} Ottawa is Just the Tip of the Iceberg {4:36} Timeline {8:47} Update: Trudeau Invokes the Emergencies Act {16:45} Why Has the Situation in Ottawa Gone on So Long?{18:23} By the Way, We Probably Shouldn't Call These People “Truckers” {24:02} Beyond Ottawa: The Movement in the Streets {27:23} Obstacles and Hazards {31:57} Conclusion {52:30} This episode offers an audio version of the CrimethInc. text Ill Winds From Ottawa: Thinking Through the Threats and Opportunities as a Far-Right Initiative Gains Momentum. In lieu of a full transcript, please check out the print article for the text, links, and more information. Since the above article was written, an important development has taken place, which we describe in the episode as such: As we prepare to release this podcast, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has invoked the Emergencies Act, temporarily granting the federal government sweeping powers. Among other things, this enables banks to freeze personal and business accounts suspected of being used to further the blockades—and they can freeze them without obtaining a court order. It is easy to imagine how this precedent could pave the way for the US government to freeze bail funds and other accounts serving protesters in the US, as well—including anti-fascists and anarchists. This drives home that we are in a three-way contest with both far-right nationalists and centrist state authorities, in which the enemy of our enemy is not our friend. Any power that we permit either of these adversaries to gain will ultimately be used against us, as well. If we legitimize any repressive measures that the Canadian state takes against these protesters, it will only be easier for the authorities to take the same measures against us when we try to change society for the better. (We made this same point about liberals who celebrated the repressive measures, ranging from facial recognition software to crowdsourced social media snitching, used against right-wing participants in the January 6th disorder at the US Capitol.) This is why grassroots resistance to fascism is so important: it is the only way to defend ourselves and our neighbors without contributing to the development of an invasive and unaccountable centralized power.

GoFundMe Hasn't Shut Down ‘18 Fundraisers' That Support Crime, Riots, Abortion, And Genital Mutilationhttps://www.spreaker.com/user/9922149/gofundme-hasn-t-shut-down-18-fundraisershttps://gorightnews.com/gofundme-hasnt-shut-down-18-fundraisers-that-support-crime-riots-abortion-and-genital-mutilation/https://rumble.com/vuw42s-gofundme-hasnt-shut-down-18-fundraisers-that-support-evil.htmlhttps://rumble.com/embed/vs9y0aGoFundMe stated that it would take millions of dollars from Canadian truckers opposing the country's forced COVID reaction. Following an outcry, the site declared that contributors refund the money. GoFundMe added, “They now have evidence from law enforcement that the formerly peaceful march has turned into an occupation.”Kyle Rittenhouse's defense efforts on GoFundMe were halted after being cleared of all charges in shooting three individuals in self-defense. According to the company, one of GoFundMe's terms of service “prohibits the advocacy of violence and harassment.” The site has aided some shady left-wing fundraising initiatives, including money for crimes, criminal defense, and the murder of newborns, among other things. Those attempting to shut down the “Freedom Convoy” in Canada use incendiary rhetoric similar to that used to create anger when recounting the event at the US Capitol.Moreover, a $2,000 reward is being sought for a woman accused of bank robbery during the George Floyd disturbance. After her daughter was jailed for criminal mischief and instigating trouble, her mother raised over $3,000. Three self-described “community activists” have raised almost $10,000 for legal bills on GoFundMe.GoFundMe has generated about $245,000 for trespassers who took over a Minneapolis hotel and more than $1.4 million for arrestees in Portland, Oregon. Despite the group's encouragement of violence to the point where Facebook banned it, CrimethInc. Has raised approximately $60,000. After eight “Riot Kitchen” members were jailed near Kenosha, Wisconsin, GoFundMe gave $500 to the Riot Kitchen, a pro-riot food truck.Furthermore, people can use GoFundMe to raise funds to mutate other people's bodies. After “5 years of transformation,” a guy named Lena B. is €35,000 in debt and seeking additional money to conclude his surgical torture. Because she “became pregnant after she skipped a couple of tablets,” one lady has raised $460 to obtain an abortion. GoFundMe also assists people in raising funds to murder their undesired children.[Source: GoFundMe, RedStateofMindDaily https://redstateofminddaily.com/gofundme-hasnt-shut-down-18-fundraisers-that-support-crime-riots-abortion-and-genital-mutilation/]

This time around I talked to Chris Tanner from the Cellar Door Skeptics about the book Work by CrimethInc. then during the Red Reviews segment Justin Clark reviews the book The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton https://skepticalleftistpod.wordpress.com/2021/06/23/work-w-chris-tanner-plus-red-reviews-5/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/skepticalleftist/message

The second and final part of our interview with our comrade from CrimethInc. Rhetoric of civil war on the right and left, the police and the uprising against them, and the spotlight on antifascism are all covered with our comrade's characteristic insightfulness. CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective is a publishing and activist organization based primarily in the US that has been a key figure in the contemporary anarchist scene since the mid-90's. This is The Empire Never Ended, the Antifascist Amerikanski-Balkan podcast about (neo) fascist terror, the (deep) state and the alienation, nihilism and desperation produced by the capitalist system. And how to get rid of all that. Something like that... Subscribe to our Patreon for weekly premium episodes! And check out our social media for updates and whatnot: Twitter + Facebook + Instagram + YouTube

The Empire Never Ended does a cross-over episode with CrimethInc. in the form of an in-depth interview! Our discussion went down some deep holes and in the end, we decided to chop it up into two episodes. In part one, our CrimethInc.er takes us from anarchist adults through that whole Trump era thing to Charlottesville and the question of firearms in the movement.  CrimethInc. Ex-Workers Collective is a publishing and activist organization based primarily in the US that has been a key figure in the contemporary anarchist scene since the mid-90's. This is The Empire Never Ended, the Antifascist Amerikanski-Balkan podcast about (neo) fascist terror, the (deep) state and the alienation, nihilism and desperation produced by the capitalist system. And how to get rid of all that. Something like that... Subscribe to our Patreon for weekly premium episodes! And check out our social media for updates and whatnot: Twitter + Facebook + Instagram + YouTube

In this, the second part of our double-album release, we return to our familiar conversational format to discuss the ideas and diagnoses put forth in CrimthInc's poetic manifesto, To Change Everything. The 48-page pamphlet documents a dizzying array of morbid disorders from the same sick nation-states that give you endless awful B-sides, such as: “Disney's Manifest Destiny,” “Healthcare, Sometimes,” “Bootstraps Best for You,” “Lock'em & Cock'em,” “Student Debt Meets Mr. Ramen,” and finally, “Do the COVID-Collapse.” Many of the threatening obstacles and dangerous injustices diagrammed in CrimethInc's proclamation adhere, like super-glue, to the plastic surface of the U.S. petroleum project. And so, the collective's polemic is always aware that the solutions required must be bigger than one state, one nation or one continent to contemplate, fathom or undertake. The manifesto stirs with telling details and insightful observations about what we know and what we wish to ignore in this, our shared reality that spins like a deranged compass. And while To Change Everything functions as a good primer to anarchist ethics and its attendant traditions, it's worth noting how little it offers in the way of clear, practical, and focused solutions—like The Golden Square—or what Jesse & Matt like to call the “No-Bullshit Blueprint for Socialism” explored in Episode #031. The promise of anarchism is not some grand plan, or some self-righteous political dogma that will magically release us from capitalism's death-grip, but its values demand us to make a clear paradigm shift away from the dizzying maze of domination and violence that perpetually blocks humanity from having any nice things. Anarchism points towards a deep-system critique and an egalitarian ethics of rights and responsibilities that we so desperately need in our institutions and social relations. By flipping the script on a world built on a logic of forced scarcity and do-or-die competition, we can instead design a world of mutual cooperation and shared abundance. As CrimethInc writes, “Every order is founded on a crime against the preceding order—the crime that dissolved it.” But we can't commit that righteous crime with a fetishization of poetic ambiguities; we must work in solidarity to build dual power—abolishing institutions of state violence while we build new institutions of care & freedom at every level. Above all else, if we are going to survive together on this fragile planet, we must decommodify life and democratize society. And to do it now, we must start by changing everything.  Comprehensive Show Notes Can Be Found at thefutureisamixtape.com Feel Free to Contact Jesse & Matt on the Following Spaces & Places: thefutureisamixtape@gmail.com Facebook Twitter Instagram

The Dumpster Fire of 2020 is over, but the song remains the same: capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy rage on in a celebrity-fueled clusterfuck of mass death and ecological collapse. And so it begins: A new calendar unfurls like a blanket to smother or console our traumatized lives. The New Year is a time when Christmas decorations get wanly huffed into garage boxes and when people busy themselves by hatching plans for privatized notions of change; some post their resolutions publicly on social media, while others whisper theirs sheepishly to friends and lovers, almost all of which get thwarted by the exhaustion, depression, and despair of life in this capitalist inferno. But what if real change in our personal lives is contingent upon the collective emancipation of all of us? Let's face it: each and every year comes with the same urgent imperative: everything must change. But yet, too much is expected to come from within ourselves for ourselves. And our relationship with time is too passive. Upon any year that passes, we too often say that this 12-month cycle did us wrong, did a bad thing, crushed our diaphanous dreams to shards of amber. But what if a year was just a random collection of days, and “2021” is only worthy of its name if it inspires us to abolish what's unjust and hurts us all? This year, unlike past furtive ones, we must work collectively toward a global socialist revolution against the dark, driving engine of capitalism, which forever churns out newer hierarchies to grind against older, more ancient ones. We must start anew with a struggle that confronts the onslaught of climate chaos propelled by a capitalist death-cult. So to burst forth in this New Year, The Future Is A Mixtape humbly offers our version of a double-album. In this episode, Jesse will be flying solo by reading To Change Everything: An Anarchist Appeal from CrimethInc, an ex-worker collective that surfaced out of Olympia, Washington, more than two decades ago. Immediately following the reading, the next episode contains Matt & Jesse's conversation about this eminently accessible anarchist manifesto. This international network of anonymous, aspiring revolutionaries declares that we should be free to direct our limitless potential on our own terms, and that no government, market, ideology or sky-daddy should be able to tell us what our lives must be; and that, finally, the world should be arranged by self-determination and mutual aid, just as water from a lake is best collected from two hands rather than one.    Comprehensive Show Notes Can Be Found at thefutureisamixtape.com Feel Free to Contact Jesse & Matt on the Following Spaces & Places: thefutureisamixtape@gmail.com Facebook Twitter Instagram

Anarchists and anti-fascists in general, and CrimethInc. in particular, have been the focus of intense hostile government and right-wing attention and censorship efforts in recent weeks. The latest salvo comes from the New York Times, which on June 30th published “The Truth About Today's Anarchists,” drawing on conspiracy theorists and right-wing talking points to argue that violent anarchists are somehow controlling the ongoing countrywide protests, but don't actually care about Black lives. The article actually calls out The Ex-Worker Podcast by name! While we're flattered for the attention—who knew we were such a threat?—the article is both inaccurate and dangerous; more importantly, it touches on critical issues about today's movements for liberation that we need to clarify. So in this episode, the Ex-Worker lays out the truth about “The Truth About Today's Anarchists”, refuting the article's bogus claims one by one, and offering a more accurate perspective on the relationships between anarchists and the ongoing movement to end white supremacy and police violence. We conclude with an audio version of an article we published with Agency in June called This Is Anarchy: Eight Ways the Black Lives Matter and Justice for George Floyd Protests Reflect Anarchist Ideas in Action. This episode challenges the myths and distortions about anarchism offered across the spectrum from Trump to the New York Times to provide insight into what anarchists today are really fighting for. {October 5, 2020}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} The Truth About ‘The Truth About Today's Anarchists': The Ex-Worker Responds to the New York Times {6:21} This Is Anarchy: Eight Ways the Black Lives Matter and Justice for George Floyd Protests Reflect Anarchist Ideas in Action {40:52} Conclusion {1:02:15} This episode focuses on our response to the wretched New York Times opinion piece “The Truth About Today's Anarchists” by Farah Stockman. We published our rebuttal the following day as “The Truth About ‘The Truth About Today's Anarchists': The Ex-Worker Responds to the New York Times.” Our colleagues at It's Going Down have published a lengthy thread going into many of the specific problems with amateur conspiracy theorist Jeremy Lee Quinn's reporting (which is Stockman's main source) in detail, if you want to dig deeper. For a laugh, you can also check out the appallingly bad Network Contagion Research Institute report “NETWORK-ENABLED ANARCHY: How Militant Anarcho-Socialist Networks Use Social Media to Instigate Widespread Violence Against Political Opponents and Law Enforcement”—which Stockman also uncritically promotes. To offer a different perspective on anarchist participation in the Black Lives Matter rebellions of the past months, we've also included an audio version of a piece co-published with Agency back in June, “This Is Anarchy: Eight Ways the Black Lives Matter and Justice for George Floyd Protests Reflect Anarchist Ideas in Action.” To read our own account of how the uprising spread and why the authorities themselves were chiefly responsible for the widespread adoption of confrontational tactics, check out the CrimethInc. article “Snapshots from the Uprising.” If you want to know more about what anarchists believe and desire, start with To Change Everything: An Anarchist Appeal. On Facebook's decision to ban and censor anarchist pages, including CrimethInc.'s, check out our response, “On Facebook Banning Pages Associated with Anarchism, and the Digital Censorshop to Come.” Also check out the open letter of support signed by hundreds of publuishers, journalists, educators, and activists to show solidarity. Also check out media projects like It's Going Down, who've also been under heavy fire from the right wing, as well as The Final Straw, Rebel Steps, and all the other excellent podcasts from the Channel Zero Network. You can find a reference to CrimethInc. around {2:50:46} during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on “Protecting Speech by Stopping Anarchist Violence”, during testimony by one Kyle Shideler, a staffer for the Center for Security Policy—an anti-Muslim hate group, according to watchdog organizations, moonlighting as experts on violent left-wing extremism. For more information on Black anarchism, check out Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin's Anarchism and the Black Revolution, the recent Anarkata Statement, Vanessa Taylor's excellent Mic.com article “How Black Anarchists Are Keeping the Protest Movement Alive,” and the recent AK Press books As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation by Zoe Samudzi and William Anderson and *Anarcho-Blackness: Notes Toward a Black Anarchism by Marquis Bey. For an articulate portrayal of exactly why government elites and right-wing authoritarians feel so threatened by us these days, check out the recent essay “Why Anarchism Is Dangerous.”

This April 1st, people around the world will go on strike and refuse to pay rent. In the midst of the pandemic, we are confronted not only with a virus, but with the murderous logic of the market. Before COVID–19 hit, millions already struggled to afford rent, mortgage, or loan payments; today, all but the wealthiest face ruin, caught between either sickness or poverty. It's inevitable that most of us will not be able to pay the bills next month—but what we do about it is up to us. This episode offers tools, examples, and history to support you and your neighbors in withdrawing your support from the regime of rent and debt and to devote what resources you have to nourishing yourself and your community through mutual aid. We'll share excerpts from CrimethInc. texts promoting the strike, discuss the 5 Demands framework and anarchist critiques of it, work through concrete tactical suggestions from a rent strike tool kit, present an invitation to a strike from the West Coast and an interview with the radical housing collective Station 40, and offer a condensed version of an inspiring history of rent strikes around the world over the past century. {March 31st, 2020}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} Refuse to Pay! {2:50} The Five Demands, or Actions, or Not {6:20} Toolkit for Rent Strike Organizing {13:20} Invitation to a Strike {21:55} Interview with Station 40: On Rent Strike against Gentrification and the Pandemic {28:10} Rent Strike? A Strategic Appraisal of Rent Strikes throughout History—and Today {37:35} Historic Strikes {42:32} Common Characteristics {1:06:30} Organizations Specializing in Housing {1:11:20} Some Conclusions {1:20:40} Conclusion {1:22:35} This episode draws on recent CrimethInc. texts including Immunity for All —Invitation to Strike and 5 Emergence Actions for COVID–19 Survival, as well as an On Rent Strike against Gentrification and the Pandemic, an interview with Station 40. We also shared a condensed version of Rent Strike? A Strategic Appraisal of Rent Strikes throughout History—and Today, translated from a Spanish-language text published by Editorial Segadores in Catalunya. To learn more about the global rent strike that has been called for April 1 and beyond, start with the 5 Demands Global site and particularly their very useful toolkit. In the US, find a local rent strike organizing effort here—or check out examples from New York City (see their useful FAQ), Olympia, Durham, Chicago, and elsewhere. Our critique of the 5 Demands model emerges from our classic text Why We Don't Make Demands. To promote the strike, check out Keep Your Rent, a promo video collaboratively produced by CrimethInc., SubMedia, and It's Going Down. Also check out It's Going Down's article Between Eviction, Infection, and Refusal: What You Need to Know About the April 1st Rent Strike & How to Plug In. Our friends at the Rebel Steps podcast have released an emergency episode on COVID–19 rent strikes —check it out!  

The COVID–19 crisis presents both extreme dangers and opportunities. As our lives are threatened by a new virus, our freedom is menaced by authoritarians intent on using this opportunity to set new precedents for state intervention and control. On the other hand, the collapse of the global capitalist economy and unprecedented social crisis are opening possibilities for refusal and resistance that we could not have imagined even a month ago. How can we keep ourselves healthy while resisting the intensification of control and pressing our advantage to undo capitalist relations? To open our discussion of life and resistance in the new pandemic landscape, we present the recent CrimethInc. text Surviving the Virus: An Anarchist Guide, which explores how to apply anarchist tools such as affinity groups and security culture to organizing our lives during the pandemic. We discuss the significance of nationalism and xenophobia in political discourse around pandemics today and in history, including the intriguing story of how the so-called “Spanish Flu” of 1918–19 got its name. Comrades in Italy offer us Against the Coronavirus and the Opportunism of the State, their report on the early days of the pandemic and quarantine in and around Milan. The episode concludes with an appeal to our listeners to let us know how we can best support all of you during the challenging times ahead. Please reach out and let us know! Whatever the future brings, we will be with you in solidarity as we confront the challenges and possibilities of pandemic life. {March 31st, 2020}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} Against the Virus, Against the State {6:43} Surviving the Virus: An Anarchist Guide {12:35} On Nationalism, Xenophobia, and COVID–19 {30:20} Against the Coronavirus and the Opportunism of the State {34:23} About the Ex-Worker, and An Appeal {49:45} Conclusion {53:30} This episode draws on the CrimethInc. text Survivng the Virus: An Anarchist Guide, which discusses how we can use anarchist tools including affinity groups and security culture. We also shared excerpts from a report from anarchists in northern Italy on the early days of the quarantine, Against the Coronavirus and the Opportunism of the State. On resistance during the pandemic, check out this Black Rose Federation article on labor strikes and walkouts. Please let us know what you'd like to see from the Ex-Worker in the weeks and months to come! You can email us at podcast at crimethinc dot com, or hit us up on CrimethInc.'s social media. And be sure to check out our fellow anarchist media projects that are covering the politics of the coronavirus and the pandemic life, including The Final Straw, It's Going Down, Rustbelt Abolition Radio, Kite Line, Rebel Steps, and SubMedia. All of these and more projects are part of the Channel Zero Network, where you can find all sorts of excellent anarchist podcasts and radical media efforts.  

In this episode, I spoke with one of the authors of the Crimethinc piece of the same name about the 'logic of the guillotine' on how it is used in online left-wing meme culture, why it is problematic and why we need to have a better logic than that of the guillotine if we truly believe in liberatory politics. "On April 6, 1871, armed participants in the revolutionary Paris Commune seized the guillotine that was stored near the prison in Paris. They brought it to the foot of the statue of Voltaire, where they smashed it into pieces and burned it in a bonfire, to the applause of an immense crowd [...] In these conditions, burning the guillotine was a brave gesture repudiating the Reign of Terror and the idea that positive social change can be achieved by slaughtering people. [...] The guillotine has come to occupy our collective imagination. In a time when the rifts in our society are widening towards civil war, it represents uncompromising bloody revenge. It represents the idea that the violence of the state could be a good thing if only the right people were in charge. Those who take their own powerlessness for granted assume that they can promote gruesome revenge fantasies without consequences. But if we are serious about changing the world, we owe it to ourselves to make sure that our proposals are not equally gruesome." For more information and links click here: https://thefirethisti.me/2020/03/25/againstguillotine/ You can also follow the podcast on Twitter @FireTheseTimes and Instagram @thefirethesetimes and you can also support it on Patreon @firethesetimes or BuyMeACoffee @joeyayoub. Music by Tarabeat.

As the news breaks of a Russian-Turkish alliance determined to stamp out Kurdish autonomy, what's at stake in the international fight to defend Rojava? This episode continues our exploration of the embattled revolution in northeastern Syria through interviews with a variety of anarchists who have engaged in international solidarity work there. One recounts the women's movement and the impact on gender roles of the autonomous social experiments in Rojava, while another provides an inside look at the armed forces and the struggle against ISIS. Participants in the Internationalist Commune describe their educational and ecological projects, and two anarchist combat medics serving with the SDF in the war zone describe their experiences. We hope these will deepen your understanding of this complex effort to remake society from the ground up amidst war and fascism on all sides—and strengthen your solidarity efforts, as we fight to support the resistance in Rojava. As we mentioned last time: even though we're focusing on the crisis in Kurdistan again for this episode, let's not forget that even as the Turkish bombs are falling, other important rebellions are taking place across the world—in Chile, in Catalunya, in Ecuador, in Haiti, in Lebanon, in Hong Kong, and beyond. We'll have more coverage of these and other revolts through the Ex-Worker and on the CrimethInc. blog in the days and weeks to come, so stay tuned! {October 23nd, 2019}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} Interview with the Internationalist Commune {5:29} Interview with Merva {12:13} Interview with Internationalist Volunteer in the YPG {23:22} Interview with Anarchist Combat Medics in Rojava {52:04} Solidarity Song: Go on Home, Turkish Soldiers {1:02:57} Conclusion {1:04:48} This episode includes CrimethInc.'s previously published interview with the Internationalist Commune in Rojava, an excerpt from a Final Straw Radio interview with two anarchist combat medics in Rojava, and this song based on an Irish anti-colonial resistance ballad reworked for Rojava today. One of our interviewees recommends that supporters donate funds to Heyva Sor, a Kurdish medical aid organization that is helping to bring urgently needed medical supplies to the war zone. Want to learn more about the situation in Rojava? Check out podcast episodes from It's Going Down—This is America #92 includes an interview with an Assyrian anarchist in the region—and The Final Straw. We decided not to include this letter from the PKK to the American people, but we're including the link so you can read it if you'd like. Although we're not aligned with all aspects of their perspective, we do think it's important to hear how some Kurdish militants are framing their struggle to an American audience, and to offer folks here who are working to mobilize people in the US against the Turkish invasion and in solidarity with Rojava tools with which to do so. IMPORTANT: over 100 groups and individuals have signed on to the following “Call to Action: Solidarity with Rojava—Against the Turkish Invasion! An Urgent Call from a Network of Organizations”. If you or your organization agree, you can email the organizers to add your names: coordination.for.rojava at protonmail dot com. This list of demonstrations around the US in solidarity with Rojava and against the Turkish invasion will continue to be updated as we learn about more events. For further background on the radical potential of the Rojava experiment, we encourage you to listen to the two previous Ex-Worker engagements with the topic, Episode 36 and Episode 39. Want to take action? Consider organizing a boycott or direct action using this list of businesses and institutions that are complicit with the Turkish war effort.    

The revolutionary social experiments in the Kurdish territories of northeastern Syria remain under attack. As SDF forces mount fierce resistance in Sêre Kaniyê and waves of outraged protest sweep the world, the news in recent days has been full of the “ceasefire” negotiated by Turkey and US Vice President Pence. But what is really going on? And why is it so important to aspiring revolutionaries around the world? In Episode 68 of The Ex-Worker, we begin by deconstructing this so-called ceasefire, drawing on an account and analysis shared by anarchist volunteer currently in the war zone. But the bulk of this episode consists of an in-depth interview with an anarchist from the US who participated in a solidarity education delegation in Rojava this summer. She offers detailed insights into daily life amidst revolution and war, the council system and other social and political institutions, the role of military veterans and martyrs in public life, processes for absorbing criticisms and revising revolutionary praxis, and the lessons learned for organizing back in the US. We conclude with a message from another internationalist volunteer sent days ago as the bombs began to fall in Sêre Kaniyê, appealing for action. This episode continues tomorrow as we release a second installment featuring more interviews exploring armed struggle, gender roles, and daily life in Rojava. Even though we're focusing on the crisis in Kurdistan again for this episode, let's not forget that even as the Turkish bombs are falling, other important rebellions are taking place across the world—in Chile, in Catalunya, in Ecuador, in Haiti, in Lebanon, in Hong Kong, and beyond. We'll have more coverage of these and other revolts through the Ex-Worker and on the CrimethInc. blog in the days and weeks to come, so stay tuned! {October 22nd, 2019}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} The “Ceasefire” Is a Deadly Fraud: Interview with an Anarchist on the Front in Rojava {6:15} Interview with Shannon, Part 1 {18:50} Solidarity Song by Sabrina Melendez {51:25} Interview with Shannon, Part 2 {52:27} Solidarity Song by Sabrina Melendez, Part 2 {1:24:18} Last Message from an Internationalist Volunteer {1:25:42} Conclusion {1:27:09} This episode draws on “The ‘Ceasefire' Is a Deadly Fraud: Interview with an Anarchist on the Front in Rojava.” Here is the Twitter thread in which the French volunteer fighting in Sêre Kaniyê makes a final appeal for action. Want to learn more about the situation in Rojava? Check out podcast episodes from It's Going Down—This is America #92 includes an interview with an Assyrian anarchist in the region—and The Final Straw, whose October 20th episode includes an interview with a couple of anarchists working as combat medics with the SDF in Rojava, and whose October 9th episode is titled “Rojava, War, Imperialism, and Defense: An interview with Gönül Düzer.” IMPORTANT: many groups and individuals have signed on to the following “Call to Action: Solidarity with Rojava—Against the Turkish Invasion! An Urgent Call from a Network of Organizations”. If you or your organization agree, you can email the organizers to add your names: coordination.for.rojava at protonmail dot com. This list of demonstrations around the US in solidarity with Rojava and against the Turkish invasion will continue to be updated as we learn about more events. For further background on the radical potential of the Rojava experiment, we encourage you to listen to the two previous Ex-Worker engagements with the topic, Episode 36 and Episode 39. Want to take action? Consider organizing a boycott or direct action using this list of businesses and institutions that are complicit with the Turkish war effort.    

As the crisis in Rojava deepens and political turmoil spreads across the world, it's critical for us to understand how we got here. Who exactly are the Kurds, and why have so many thousands of them been willing to risk their lives fighting against ISIS and to defend their autonomy? What can we learn from their struggle? In this episode, we examine the historical background to today's conflict by looking at the decades of militant Kurdish resistance that led up to the formation of the autonomous cantons of Rojava. You'll hear an audio version of CrimethInc.'s detailed 2015 essay “Understanding the Kurdish Resistance: A Historical Overview and Eyewitness Report,” which tracks the emergence of the Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK) and its conflicts with Turkish nationalism, waves of insurgency and repression, the evolution of Kurdish radical thought, the Revolutionary Patriotic Youth Movement, the Gezi Park uprising in Istanbul, the siege of Kobane, and lots more. To bring you up to date on developments since then, we also share an interview with one of the authors of the essay, in which we explore the impact of the failed 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, repression of social movements, Erdoğan's goals with the invasion, and prospects for resistance and solidarity. Stay tuned later this week for more interviews with people who've participated in the social revolution in Rojava. {October 16th, 2019}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} Understanding the Kurdish Resistance {4:44} The Early Days of the PKK {5:30} Öcalan's Prison Years and the Peace Process {14:27} Gezi {20:25} The Wild Youth of Kurdistan {23:43} The Revolution in Kurdistan {31:44} The Fighters {36:12} Kobanê {43:47} National Liberation from Borders {47:24} Elections and a Massacre {51:03} Interview on Turkey and Kurdish Resistance Today {59:19} Conclusion {1:09:30} This episode centers on the 2015 CrimethInc. article “Understanding the Kurdish Resistance: A Historical Overview and Eyewitness Report”. IMPORTANT: over 100 groups and individuals have signed on to the following “Call to Action: Solidarity with Rojava—Against the Turkish Invasion! An Urgent Call from a Network of Organizations”. If you or your organization agree, you can email the organizers to add your names: coordination.for.rojava at protonmail dot com. This list of demonstrations around the US in solidarity with Rojava and against the Turkish invasion will continue to be updated as we learn about more events. For further background on the radical potential of the Rojava experiment, we encourage you to listen to the two previous Ex-Worker engagements with the topic, Episode 36 and Episode 39. Want to take action? Consider organizing a boycott or direct action using this list of businesses and institutions that are complicit with the Turkish war effort.  

An urgent crisis is unfolding in northern Syria, with implications for global geopolitics and revolutionary possibilities for years to come. In response to US troop withdrawal and a green light from President Trump, the Turkish military has invaded Rojava, an autonomous Kurdish region within the borders of Syria, killing hundreds and displacing over 100,000 so far. Activists around the world have condemned the invasion as a boon to ISIS, a prelude to ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish population, and an effort to destroy an important experiment in self-organization by an increasingly fascist regime. The Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Forces have just struck a deal with the regime of Bashar al-Assad to bring Russian-backed Syrian government troops into Rojava in hopes of halting the Turkish advance. The experiments in autonomy and democratic confederalism enacted in the cantons of Rojava have been inspiring to many anarchists; but the combination of the dire threat of annihilation by the Turkish military and the painful compromises necessary for survival have put this radical legacy in question. How did this happen? And what can we do? This is the first episode in a series The Ex-Worker will release this week exploring the current crisis. We bring you up to date on the circumstances surrounding the invasion with first-hand reports, analysis, responses to criticisms of solidarity efforts, and more. We conclude with a call to action and info on how to plug in to the global wave of resistance against the invasion. Stay tuned later this week for more historical background, interviews, and more! {October 14th, 2019}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} “The Threat to Rojava: An Anarchist in Syria Speaks on the Real Meaning of Trump's Withdrawal” {4:44} About the Experiment in Rojava {13:10} The Factions {15:40} What Does the Troop Withdrawal Mean? {27:58} What Will Happen Next? {31:04} Looking Forward {35:29} In Search of a Third Way {39:02} Why the Turkish Invasion Matters {43:44} Call to Action: Solidarity with Rojava Against the Turkish Invasion {1:04:08} Conclusion {1:07:53} This episode contains excerpts from a variety of texts published by CrimethInc. on Rojava and the developing crisis there: “The Threat to Rojava: An Anarchist in Syria Speaks on the Real Meaning of Trump's Withdrawal” (December 2018); “The Nationalists and the Jihadists Together—And Against Them, Only Autonomous Resistance” (October 2019); “The Borders Won't Protect You But They Might Get You Killed (November 2015); “Why the Turkish Invasion Matters: Addressing the Hard Questions about Imperialism and Solidarity” (October 2019). IMPORTANT: over 100 groups and individuals have signed on to the following “Call to Action: Solidarity with Rojava—Against the Turkish Invasion! An Urgent Call from a Network of Organizations”. If you or your organization agree, you can email the organizers to add your names: coordination.for.rojava at protonmail dot com. This list of demonstrations around the US in solidarity with Rojava and against the Turkish invasion will continue to be updated as we learn about more events. For further background on the radical potential of the Rojava experiment, we encourage you to listen to the two previous Ex-Worker engagements with the topic, Episode 36 and Episode 39. Want to take action? Consider organizing a boycott or direct action using this list of businesses and institutions that are complicit with the Turkish war effort.    

On August 26th, riot police under orders from the newly elected right-wing government stormed and evicted four squatted social centers in the Exarchia neighborhood of Athens, Greece, in a serious attack on both precarious migrants and the anarchist and anti-authoritarian movements. In response, Greek anarchists have organized assemblies and demonstrations, while solidarity efforts have poured out from across the world. Both shaken and inspired by these events, the Ex-Worker podcast has emerged from hibernation to ask anarchists in Exarchia what's going on and what needs to be done. This episode explores the situation in Exarchia through three interviews with anarchist residents of the renowned radical neighborhood. The first is an audio version of “The New War on Immigrants and Anarchists in Greece,” published on the CrimethInc. blog on August 28th, which gives an in-depth analysis of the evictions with historical context and insight into the dynamics of the Greek anarchist movement, supplemented by an excerpt from the 2015 piece “Syriza Can't Save Greece.” The second is a long discussion with a squatter from the Lelas Karagianni 37 squat in Exarchia, the oldest squat in Greece and a central hub for assemblies and anarchist organizing in Athens; it touches on the role of the media and the previous Syriza regime in paving the way to this wave of attacks; the anarchist movement's strategy for regaining the initiative from the state; and the significance of international solidarity. The third and shortest interview with the Void Network reports back on the September 14th anti-repression demonstration in Athens and reflects on the prospects for ongoing resistance. Tune in to learn more about this critical struggle to defend freedom and autonomy in an inspiring enclave of radical experimentation. {September 18th, 2019}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:01} The New War on Immigrants and Anarchists in Greece: Intro {4:25} Syriza Can't Save Greece (2015) {6:08} The New War on Immigrants and Anarchists in Greece: Interview {17:17} Lelas Karagianni 37 Squat: Interview {41:21} Athens Indymedia Call for September 14 Demonstration {1:23:02} Void Network Interview {1:24:04} Clara's Closing Motivational Speech {1:35:00} Conclusion {1:37:36} In this episode, we present an audio version of “The New War on Immigrants and Anarchists in Greece: An Interview with an Anarchist in Exarchia” and an excerpt from “Syriza Can't Save Greece: Why There's No Electoral Exit From the Crisis”, both which originally appeared on the CrimethInc. blog. We interview a participant from the Lelas Karagianni 37 squat in Exarchia. Here is their “Solidarity Will Win” statement; a video promoting the September 14th demonstration in Athens; some photos from the September 14th demo; the Statement of the Anarchist Political Organization Against the Repressive Campaign of the State, and the No Pasarán! poster. We also interview a participant from the Void Network in Athens; you can read the “Solidarity to squats and all spaces of struggle- ASSEMBLY Announcement” from their website. To stay up to date on developments in Exarchia, consult Athens Indymedia or (although we at the Ex-Worker stubbornly insist on discouraging you from using Facebook) this public “Exarchia” Facebook group. Check out this long interview with another anarchist from Exarchia released through the It's Going Down podcast, which offers more in-depth history and contemporary analysis of the neighborhood and the Greek anarchist movement.    

In the aftermath of Sophie's brutal Twitter ratioing (The Night of the Dirty Legs), Andy decided we should revisit the classic essay "Washing... or Brainwashing" from Crimethinc's in/famous 2000 book Days of War, Nights of Love. We discover that nobles are savage, washing your landlords' blood off your shirt is bourgeois and that deodorant is capitalism negging you. Mostly we are just sober and dumb and talking about eating human shit. To access this bonus and more, become a patron at www.patreon.com/theantifada

The Ex-Worker is back! Over the next three months, we will be releasing an audio version of CrimethInc.'s 2018 book, No Wall They Can Build: A Guide to Borders and Migration in North America, divided into eleven episodes released every week. In this short episode, we reflect on the evolution of the Ex-Worker podcast as a project, and set the scene for the forthcoming audiobook. In the year and a half since the book was released, much attention has focused on the US/Mexico border, and Trump's anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric have prompted widespread resistance. However, the crisis of raids, family separations, inhumane detention, and death and disappearance in the borderlands was in full swing during the Obama administration, and has roots stretching far back in the history of the United States. To provide context for what's been going on around the border since the book was published, a volunteer from the solidarity group No More Deaths joins us to talk about changes and continuities between the Obama and Trump eras, the impact of the administration's efforts to build a wall on communities around the border, updates on state repression against the group's volunteers, and the wave of resistance and solidarity building towards a world of free movement. Want to learn more? We'll be releasing the first installment of No Wall They Can Build later this week—stay tuned! {April 1, 2019}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: The Ex-Worker is Back! {0:01} Migration, Borders, and Resistance in the Trump Era {4:05} Interview with No More Deaths Volunteer {10:29} Conclusion {27:30} We'll be releasing an audiobook of No Wall They Can Build: A Guide to Borders and Migration in North America through eleven weekly episodes over the next three months. You can read the book in PDF or see the Spanish translation; also check out our poster diagramming the North American border regime and immigrant solidarity stickers. Take a moment to learn more about No More Deaths, including their legal defense campaign demanding that the charges be dropped against their volunteers and the [#WaterNotWalls campaign](http://forms.nomoredeaths.org/legal-defense-campaign/waternotwalls/) to ensure their ability to continue to provide humanitarian aid in the desert. Other organizations working to support migrants include Aguilas del Desierto (San Diego, CA), Florence Project, Mariposas Sin Fronteras (Tucson, AZ), People Helping People in the Border Zone (Arivaca, AZ), Protection Network Action Fund, Southside Workers Center (Tucson, AZ), South Texas Human Rights Center, and the Tohono O'odham Hemajkam Rights Network](https://www.facebook.com/tohrn520/). Some useful general resources about the border include the Radiolab podcast “Border Trilogy”, the books Storming the Wall by Todd Miller and The Land of Open Graves by Jason DeLeon, and the Telemundo/Weather Channel documentary “The Real Death Valley”. On “The Wall” and border militarization, see “America's Virtual Border Wall Is a 1,954-Mile-Long Money Pit”, Tohono O'odham elder Ofelia Rivas's Censored News Live Video interview “Welcome to Honduras Migrant Caravan”, and the books Operation Gatekeeper by Joseph Nevins and Border Games by Peter Andreas. - On conceptualizing interior checkpoints as an extension of The Wall, see “The 100 Mile Border Zone” by the ACLU, “Checkpoint America” by the Cato Institute, and “The Cost of Crossing” from the New York Times. On anti-immigrant border militias, see the Al-Jazeera article “Desert Hawks”, the Southern Poverty Law Center Report “Investigating Deaths of Undocumented Migrants on the Border”, and David Neiwart's book And Hell Followed with Her. On the Border Patrol, see the books Migra! by Kelly Lytle Hernandez and Border Patrol Nation by Todd Miller, and the documentary Disappeared: How US Border Patrol is Fueling a Missing Person's Crisis at the Border, part 1 and part 2.      

The government: we all hate it. But what happens if it just decides to go away? Recently Jamie joked on the Majority Report that it would be cool. Others, like the anarchist collective Crimethinc, have argued this point in earnest. We read their article and point out some flaws in their reasoning. While we agree with their vision of a self-organized, stateless society, we have a long way to go. Access the full episode, our Discord commune, and get DR. ANTIFADA'S PROPAGANDA PACK by supporting our show at https://www.patreon.com/theantifada Read the full article here: https://crimethinc.com/2018/01/19/anarchists-government-shutdown-doesnt-go-far-enough-make-the-shutdown-comprehensive-and-permanent Closing music: Zegota - Laika https://crimethinc.bandcamp.com/album/movement-in-the-music

Justin Akers Chacón, a person who actually knows what he's talking about, joins us to discuss the left case for actually knowing that the hell you're talking about. After some opening thoughts on the 'Yellow Vest' movement in France (which Sean mistakenly calls the 'Yellow Jackets' at least 4 times bc he clearly has some unresolved childhood bee issues) we dive into the migration maelstrom. Are borders good for unions? Has appealing to state repression been totally awesome for the labor movement? Does creating a criminalized minority of precarious workers help to bring the socialism? Can we trust Hillary Clinton, Emmanuel Macron and Tony Blair to triangulate us out of this mess we're in? Will the transnational working class ever be able to organize in an era of racial fear-mongering, militarized borders and the unfettered flow of capital? (That last one was a trick question. Justin gives us amazing examples of how transnational organizing can happen, has happened and is an absolute fucking necessity. Enjoy!) Become a patron at www.patreon.com/theantifada Follow us @the_antifada @jamie_elizabeth @spaceprole Good essay on Gilet Jaunes from Lundi Matin, translated by Ill Will Editions: http://ill-will-editions.tumblr.com/post/180774090884/next-stop-destitution-published-on-lundi-matin Textual riot porn and analysis from Crimethinc: https://crimethinc.com/2018/12/06/the-movement-as-battleground-fighting-for-the-soul-of-the-yellow-vest-movement Video of Paris Antifa running Action Francais out of Gilet Jaunes https://twitter.com/enough14/status/1071388684606418949 Check out Justin's work: Ownage https://socialistworker.org/2018/11/27/the-case-against-the-case-against-open-borders 'No One is Illegal' with Mike Davis https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1086-no-one-is-illegal-updated-edition 'Radicals in the Barrio: Magonistas, Socialists, Wobblies, and Communists in the Mexican-American Working Class' https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/987-radicals-in-the-barrio Become a patron at www.patreon.com/theantifada Follow us @the_antifada @jamie_elizabeth @spaceprole Outro: Haircut - Gritona https://haircutva.bandcamp.com/

On the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, liberals and centrists are once more playing right into fascists' hands. Our feature this episode is a reading of the recent CrimethInc. op-ed “Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom; How ‘Nobody Is above the Law' Abets the Rise of Tyranny,” about the outrageously liberal demonstrations over Trump firing Jeff Sessions. We also interview an anarchist who was at the protest outside Tucker Carlson's home in Washington D.C. about what really happened there, Twitter's banning of anti-fascists, and why it's important to take the offensive in the struggle against fascism. Friday, November 9 was the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, and we bring you a round up of fascist, anti-fascist, and centrist actions from the weekend. Send us news, events, or ideas on how our show can better serve anarchist activity in your town by emailing us at podcast@crimethinc.com. {November 14, 2018}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Intro {0:00} Headlines {0:55} Kristallnacht anniversary and #OutliveThem actions roundup {5:55} Interview about Tucker Carlson protest and liberal blowback {10:05} Take Your Pick: Law or Freedom; How ‘Nobody Is above the Law' Abets the Rise of Tyranny {22:10} Repression roundup {32:45} Next Week's News {38:12} Download 29:30 minutes long version. Upcoming events/demos/etc: November 15: in London, England, there will be a queer dance party outside the Brazilian Embassy against Brazilian president elect Bolsonaro and to save the amazon. It will last from 5:30 PM until 8:30. November 16–18: School of the Americas Watch is hosting a border encuentro directly on the US/Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona and Sonora around the theme Dismantle Border Imperialism! November 16: in Portland, Oregon, there's a “We Won't Be Erased” demonstration against transphobia. Meet at 4:30 in the afternoon at City Hall, and follow @WontBeErasedPDX on twitter for more. November 17: In Philadelphia, the Pushback Campaign and anti-fascists are calling for those opposed to Nazis and Proud Boys to gather at 10 AM at the Independence Hall Visitor Center to oppose a planned white supremacist rally. November 17: Anti-fascists are also planning to oppose a misogynistic Patriot Prayer rally in Portland, Oregon. Rose City Antifa are calling for those opposed to rally at 1 PM on Saturday at Terry Schrunk Plaza. November 18: in Aachen, Germany at 3 PM, there is a demonstration planned against the political swing to the right and state repression. November 19: a demonstration against singularity and surveillance in Athens, Greece. Meet at Parko Eleutherias at 11:30 AM. November 25 - December 1: A call for a week of action against the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The 25–27 will have popular education and workshops from different groups; the 28 and 29 will feature a People's Summit, with day one at the Faculty of Social Science of the University of Buenos Aires, and day two in Plaza de los dos Congresos. November 30 is when the big street demonstration will take place. November 26 in London, England: A meeting](https://freedomnews.org.uk/london-callout-for-solidarity-with-russian-anti-fascists/) to plan solidarity events for January 19 in support of anti-fascists facing persecution in Russia. The meeting will take place at Mayday Rooms, located at 88 Fleet St. December 10: There's an international call from anarchists on four continents for a day of action against borders on December 10. The idea is to kick off the 10th of each month being an anti-border day of action. December 17(ish): in Brownsville, Texas, people are planning to Meet the Migrants at the Border, in greeting them food and love! This date is currently tentative, as it is unclear when the migrant caravan will actually arrive. Organizers point out that there are five other points of entry on the Texas border the migrant caravan may try, and are encouraging people to organize more events. Here's a link to their Facebook page. Duluth, Minnesota: Anti-fascist and anti-white supremacy People's General Assemblies will be taking place weekly, Tuesdays at 6 PM in People's Power Plaza Court support for the Vaughn Trial is welcome! Court is ongoing every weekday from 10am–5pm in Courtroom 8B at 500 N King St, Wilmington, DE. For more information, visit itsgoingdown.org. Upcoming anarchist book fairs and gatherings: November 17–18: The Seattle Anarchist Book Fair is taking place at The Vera Project from 10–5 each day. The Vera Project is located at Seattle Center, on the corner of Warren Ave North and Republican St. Here's a map. November 17–18: The Boston Anarchist Book Fair is taking place at 775 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA from 10–8 each day. Here's a map. November 29 - December 2: Anarchists in Umea, Sweden are hosting their first ever bookfair! Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is on tour until late November! This week's dates: November 15: Kansas City, MO. 10:00 am @ Kansas City Public Library Lucile H Bluford Branch 3050 Prospect Ave Kansas City, MO 64128 November 17: Columbia, MO. 6:00 pm CST @ Middlebush Hall, Room 132 University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 November 18: Columbia, MO. 12:00 pm CST @ Middlebush Hall, Room 132 University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211 November 19: Carbondale, IL. 7:00 pm CST @ Flyover Social Center 214 N. Washington St. Carbondale, IL 62901 November 20:Carbondale, IL. 10:00 am CST @ Flyover Social Center 214 N. Washington St. Carbondale, IL 62901 A complete list of tour dates and locations can be found here. Atlanta Anti-Fascists recently had their PayPal shut down, so they're temporarily in need of support to offset some of their costs. They're accepting donations through their fundraising page, or to donate using Bitcoin, their Bitcoin wallet is: 1LdSVFd6Wvj8LeEfux2Xf6Rr2KGKXemiBB (If you prefer to use a single-use address for Bitcoin, you can contact them.) Jace Buras, a prison rebel who helped organize a peaceful protest at Hyde Correctional in North Carolina during the national prison strike, has written Atlanta Anarchist Black Cross to let supporters know that he has been transferred to Bertie Correctional and placed in 180 days of isolation. To show him support, his address is as follows: Jace Buras #1522417 Bertie Correctional PO Box 129 Windsor, NC 27983 Phone zap for prison rebel Dayvon Person! Dayvon was just about to reach his minimum custody requirements in January, when he was charged with inciting a riot at the Craggy Correction Institution in North Carolina. He is asking that people please, please, please call and ask that his appeal against these false accusations is heard. To participate, you can call the Director of the prison, Kenneth Lassiter or call/write the North Carolina Department of Public Safety. Kenneth Lassiter: (919) 838–4000 North Carolina Department of Public Safety: 512 North Salisbury Street Raleigh, NC 27604 (919) 733–2126 Ke Huelga Radio, an anarchist affiliated pirate radio station that has been squatting Mexico City's airwaves for over 19 years, is under threat by both media conglomerates and the federal government. Ke Huelga is refusing to give up 102.9 and is urging folks to listen on their site, kehuelga.net, and to continue to try and pick up their signal if you're in Mexico City. They also are calling for people to protest this interference by the IFT, including call them at 01800 2000 120 and emailing at atencion@ift.org.mx. Visit their website for other means of sending messages of protest! Check out some of our favorites from the Christie Books anarchist film archive: The almighty Class War Federation on reality TV! The incredible story of anarchist counterfeiter Lucio Utah Phillips on Ammon Hennacy The tragic, true story of the Rebellion in Patagonia There is a call out for solidarity actions with anarchists in Russia, who are currently experiencing brutal state repression. You can read more about the situation on [rupression.com.](https://rupression.com/ Use this straightforward guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross to write a birthday message for Cameron Crowley, who is accused of being the anti-racist hacktivist Vigilance. You can write Cameron a letter, or send him a used book! (He especially likes sci-fi.) His address is: Cameron Crowley 855 West 7th Street Saint Paul, MN 55102 {Birthday: November 18} Sales are OPEN for the 2019 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar! The theme of next year's calendar is Health/Care, and it features art and writing from current and former political prisoners like David Gilbert, Mike and Chuck Africa, and Laura Whitehorn. If you buy 10 or more, be sure to use the discount code “BULK” to get 10 or more calendars for $10 each—you can then sell the calendars to fundraise for your own organizing. CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS In Hotwire #44 we named Kevin Garrido, prisoner of the Chilean state who was reportedly murdered by another prisoner, as an anarchist. Comrades in and out of Chile have gotten in touch with us to let us know that that is not true, and that Kevin purposefully did not identify as an anarchist, and has even identified with more eco-extremist currents. Sorry for the lazy reporting, but in our defense we even did additional research beyond where we first got the story and multiple other sources identified him as an anarchist or tagged his story under “anarchist prisoners” or something else of the sort. Kevin did extend solidarity to at least some anarchist prisoners for their struggles, anarchists were present in his funeral caravan that clashed with police, and regardless of his politics, we still uphold what we said about, “While the state may charge [another prisoner] with [his] murder, we know that the police and prisons are responsible for the conditions that led to Garrido's death, and the only kind of justice for his death will come from redirecting any aggression between the oppressed against their oppressors instead, until neither prisons not police can function.”    

We have a flurry of headlines from around the globe, with the migrant caravan from Honduras breaking through the Mexico-Guatemala border, indigenous comrades and their allies building prayer lodges in the path of the line 3 pipeline, London antifascists successfully blocking an anti-Muslim march, anarchists rioting in Barcelona after being evicted from their squat, and accounts of Chilean police attacking student protestors. Water protectors have been hard at work opposing the Mountain Valley Pipeline, and Panama City landlords have begun evicting devastated residents from their homes. You'll hear from Carbondale anarchists mobilizing against Trump and right-wing reaction, and a hotline created by New Orleans antifascists to document Proud Boy activity—plus much more! 
Send us news, events, or ideas on how our show can better serve anarchist activity in your town by emailing us at podcast@crimethinc.com. {October 24, 2018}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:00} D-beat news {4:30} Regular news {7:00} Migrant caravan breaks through the Mexican border {9:25} No Wall They Can Build audiobook preview {14:40} Antifascist assembly in Carbondale, IL {20:00} Anti-Proud Boy alert line in New Orleans {24:30} Repression Roundup {27:35} Next Week's News {32:40} Download 29:30 minutes long version. Upcoming events/demos/etc: October 27: A pro-choice counter demo and march in Munich, Germany. Meet at 1pm at Max-Joseph-Platz in Munich. November 6: an anti-ICE march in Portland, Oregon at 6pm. Meet at City Hall and check out @OccupyICEPDX on twitter for more information. November 16–18: School of the Americas Watch is hosting a border encuentro directly on the US/Mexico border in Nogales, Arizona and Sonora. Upcoming anarchist book fairs and gatherings: - October 26–28: Anarchist Book Fair in Lisbon, Portugal November 17–18: The Seattle Anarchist Book Fair November 17–18: The Boston Anarchist Book Fair November 1–2, Anarchist Book Fair in Santiago, Chile November 10: Anarchist Bookfair Amsterdam Mutual Aid Disaster Relief is on tour until late November! This week's dates: October 26: Portland, OR. 6:30 pm @ Portland State University, 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 October 27: Portland, OR. 11:00 am @ Portland State University, 1825 SW Broadway, Portland, OR 97201 October 30: Olympia, WA. 7:00 pm @ Evergreen State College, 2700 Evergreen Parkway NW, Olympia, WA 98505 October 31: Olympia, WA. 3:00 pm @ Evergreen State College, 2700 Evergreen Parkway NW, Olympia, WA 98505 A complete list of tour dates and locations can be found here. IWOC member and prison rebel, Keith “Malik” Washington is asking for support after being repeatedly strip searched, including while being videotaped. He requests that people call the Texas Department of Corrections executive director, Bryan Collier, at 936–295–6371. 6 pipeline resisters were arrested and are being held on a collective $17k bail — you can donate to their fund here. Visit Appalachians Against Pipelines for more information about this and ongoing/upcoming anti-pipeline actions. It's Going Down, one of our favorite online sources for anarchist and resistance news, is launching a fundraising campaign to ensure they can keep funding all their bad ass (and important!) revolutionary projects. Visit their website to learn more about how you can donate or otherwise support their very important work. CrimethInc output we cited this episode: Alive in the Land of the Dead Music as a Weapon: The Contentious Symbiosis of Punk Rock and Anarchism. No Wall They Can Build: A Guide to Borders & Migration Across North America Also, check out CrimethInc.'s bandcamp for a newly-uploaded selection of all their old hardcore releases, and check out the related essay. Use this straightforward guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross to write a birthday message for Eddie Africa of the MOVE 9, who celebrates a birthday next week: Edward Goodman Africa. #AM4974 SCI Mahanoy Post Office Box 33028 St Petersburg, Florida 33733 {Birthday: October 31} Sales are OPEN for the 2019 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar! The theme of next year's calendar is Health/Care, and it features art and writing from current and former political prisoners like David Gilbert, Mike and Chuck Africa, and Laura Whitehorn. If you buy 10 or more, be sure to use the discount code “BULK” to get 10 or more calendars for $10 each—you can then sell the calendars to fundraise for your own organizing. We have a Twitter! Follow @HotwireWeekly and send us news that we should include in the show.  

Alanis is back! And she reads our feature this episode, an audio version of the recent CrimethInc. text Kavanaugh Shouldn't Be on the Supreme Court. Neither Should Anyone Else. We also interview an anarchist in Portland, Oregon about the #PatrickKimmons actions at the intersection where police killed him. Winter, one of the anarchists in jail defending Germany's Hambach Forest in the last couple of weeks, is refusing to surrender their legal identity to the government. However, they did submit a beautiful letter to Rhineland Anarchist Black Cross, which we also read in this episode. Send us news, events, or ideas on how our show can better serve anarchist activity in your town by emailing us at podcast@crimethinc.com. {October 4, 2018}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:00} Headlines {2:40} Interview about #PatrickKimmons actions and memorials in Portland, OR {4:20} Kavanaugh Shouldn't Be on the Supreme Court. Neither Should Anyone Else {8:45} Repression Roundup {21:40} Next Week's News {30:55} Download 29:30 minutes long version. Upcoming anti-fascist action: October 6 at the Rhode Island State House in Providence at 10 AM to oppose a “Resist Marxism” rally. October 7, Montreal, Quebec: Mass anti-racist demonstration at 3 PM in Berri Square. October 13 in London, England: Unity Demonstration against a far-right football hooligan event. Other CrimethInc. output we cited in this episode: To Our Compas in Buenos Aires: A Full Retrospective on the 2017 G20 Protests in Hamburg The Ex-Worker #37: The Hambacher Forest Occupation Audio documentary about the Hambacher Forest occupation in western Germany Why We Don't Make Demands Kavanaugh Shouldn't Be on the Supreme Court. Neither Should Anyone Else. Fuck Abuse, Kill Power: Addressing the Root Causes of Sexual Harassment and Assault We love this letter from Winter, one of the anonymous anarchists arrested while defending the Hambach Forest, who is refusing to surrender their identity over to the police. A fundraiser for legal costs for Marco, a Food Not Bombs activist in the Phillipines arrested on trumped-up drug charges. Almost there! Contact revolutionaryabolitionistmovement@protonmail.com for information on court support for the Vaughn 17, and/or attend the Revolutionary Abolitionist Movement's orientation to supporting the 17 trial in Brooklyn on Saturday, October 6th. You can check out David Gilbert's book Love and Struggle here. If you're in Europe, go to the demo at Buir Train Station in Germany's Rhineland on October 6 at 12:00 noon to protest the eviction of Hambach forest defenders. A new poster for Greg Curry. You can also write him at this address: Greg Curry #213–159 OSP 878 Coitsville-Hubbard Road Youngstown, OH 44505 Upcoming anarchist book fairs and gatherings: October 13–14: The anarchist book and propaganda gathering in Santiago, Chile October 12–14: Anarchist tattoo and piercing festival in Pelotas, Brazil October 20–21: Anarchist Festival in London, England November 17–18: The Seattle Anarchist Book Fair November 17–18: The Boston Anarchist Book Fair Autonomous Mutual Aid in the wake of Hurricane Florence Mutual Aid Disaster Relief Blue Ridge Autonomous Defense Interfaith Alliance for Climate Justice Mutual Aid Carrboro NC Solidarity Network Tidewater Solidarity Collective Appalachian Medical Solidarity River City Medic Collective Community Advocacy and Healing Project Operation Airdrop Sales are now OPEN for the 2019 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar! The theme of next year's calendar is Health/Care, and it features art and writing from current and former political prisoners like David Gilbert, Mike and Chuck Africa, and Laura Whitehorn. If you buy 10 or more, be sure to use the discount code “BULK” to get 10 or more calendars for $10 each—you can then sell the calendars to fundraise for your own organizing. Orders start shipping September 10! Use this straightforward guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross to write birthday greetings to Jamil Al-Amin, David Gilbert, Michael Davis Africa, and Malik Smith: Jamil Al-Amin #99974–555 USP Tuscon Post Office Box 24550 Tuscon, Arizona 85734 (Birthday: October 4) David Gilbert #83-A–6158 Wende Correctional Facility 3040 Wende Road Alden, New York 14004–1187 (Birthday: October 6) Michael Davis Africa #AM–4973 SCI Phoenix Post Office Box 244 Graterford, Pennsylvania 19426–0244 (Birthday: October 6) Malik Bey (But address envelope to…) Meral Smith #16–024 Tallahatchie Correctional Facility​ 415 US Highway 49N Tutwiler, Mississippi 38963 (Birthday: October 8) Support alleged prison strike organizers by calling the director of North Carolina's Department of Public Safety and telling him to move the prisoners out of segregation and remove the infraction charges against them. Call: 919–733–2126 A sample script: “Hi, my name is ( ), I would like to speak to Kennith Lassiter. I'm calling in regards to four prisoners in the North Carolina DPS system. (If they don't connect you to Lassiter) I would like to leave a message for the director. I have become aware that DPS is punitively holding four prisoners in segregation and charging them with false charges of rioting. Not only have you chosen to disregard the demands of the protesting prisoners but now you continue to infringe on their basic rights to protest. I am demanding that you drop the infraction charges against Jace Buras, Todd Martin, and Randy Watterson and move all of them out of isolation. I will be following up with each of these men's case.” Express solidarity with houseless people in Olympia by calling Cooper Realty/Orca Construction and demand that they cancel their contract with Pacific Coast Security. Call Cooper Realty/Orca Construction: (360) 491–4580 A sample phone call has been provided by Olympia Solidarity Network: “Hello Cooper Realty and Orca Construction. It has come to my attention and the attention of hundreds of concerned community members that you hire Pacific Coast Security to do daily patrols downtown and sweep houseless people from alcoves and alleyways from 8 PM to 12 AM. We believe these practices are discriminatory, unethical, and exacerbate the crisis of houselessness in our community and abroad. It appears that Cooper Realty and Orca Construction care more about maximizing profit and property values than the lives of people in living in poverty. We demand that you cancel your contract with Pacific Coast Security.” For general information on supporting anarchist prisoner Casey Brezik, pop over to supportcasey.org. To help with writing parole board letters for Casey, here's a sample letter: Missouri Board of Probation and Parole 1511 Christy Drive Jefferson City, MO 65101 Regarding: Parole Board Hearing for Casey Brezik #1154765 Dear Honorable Members of the Parole Board, As a concerned citizen who is interested in helping Casey successfully transition into life outside of prison, I am writing to request that you please grant Casey's parole. Casey has been working hard during his incarceration to address his problems with addiction and mental illness and I believe that he has made substantial progress in these efforts. Despite the mistakes he has made, I believe Casey is ready to meet the challenges of daily life and would be a positive contribution to any community. Casey's efforts toward meeting educational and personal goals during his incarceration have been inspiring. Casey is passionate about learning and with the help of his support network he has been studying math and science related topics in preparation for pursuing a college degree upon his release while working to support himself and his wife in the meantime. Casey is well supported by a network of people across the country as well as by his family. I am willing to provide financial, emotional and spiritual support to Casey during his transition back to life outside of prison. Thank you for your consideration in this matter. Sincerely, [Your Name] We have a Twitter! Follow @HotwireWeekly and send us news that we should include in the show.    

The world is a dangerous place in 2018-Botham Jean is murdered in his own home by a Dallas cop and police are actively raiding the rebel encampment in the Hambach Forest. There's inspiring strike resistance in Central and South America where striking dockworkers in Chile caused thousands of dollars in damage and a general strike in taking place in Costa Rica. Hurricane Florence took Wilmington by storm and we interview anarchists on the ground doing disaster relief. There are quite a few prisoners who need support and we read excerpts from a heartfelt statement issued by prisoners at the Burnside Prison in Halifax who are ending their strike. Anarchists in London are trying something new! And there's lots of events coming up! Send us news, events, or ideas on how our show can better serve anarchist activity in your town by emailing us at podcast@crimethinc.com. {September 19, 2018}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:00} Headlines {1:15} Evictions in Hambach Forest {5:42} Strikes! in Costa Rica and Chile {11:10} Interview w Anarchists in Wilmington after Hurricane Florence {13:22} Explosions in Hanover {22:31} Repression roundup {25:45} Next Week's News {34:52} Download 29:30 minutes long version Autonomous Mutual Aid in the wake of Hurricane Florence Donate to Grassroots Hurricane Relief, in Durham, NC, or Mutual Aid Supplies Relief NC You can contact Tidewater IWW in the Norfolk, VA area, Mutual Aid Carrboro, Mutual Aid Disaster Relief or Blue Ridge Autonomous Defense Crew in North Carolina Donate to relief efforts around Andover and Lawrence, Massachusetts after an explosions and fires rocked their communities: Bread And Roses Lawrence, Lazarus House shelter, Elevated Thought , or Greater Lawrence Community Action Council. Upcoming anarchist book fairs and events: September 28–30: The 12th annual Balkan Anarchist Bookfair in Novi Sad, Serbia Anarchist book and propaganda gathering in Santiago, Chile October 13 and 14, encuentroanarquista.org. 20 and 21 in London, England, instead of an anarchist bookfair comrades there are organizing a decentralized anarchist festival! Help defend long term anarchist spaces: On September 29, there is a demo at 6 PM in defense of Liebig34, a self-organized, anarcha-queer-feminist collective house and social center in Berlin! And fund new ones: The Aftonomi Space in Yogyakarta, Indonesia is raising funds to equip their infoshop! Upcoming anti-fascist action: September 29: Oppose the League of the South's rally in Elizabethton, TN. Stay tuned to @HollerNetwork and @knoxradical for updates. Help fund defense for antifa arrested in Newnan, Georgia! In the next episode of Trouble, subMedia explores hiphop as a potent site of revolutionary politics. It drops on September 25th at 8pm on sub.media Other relevant CrimethInc. material: Learn more about the legacy of the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile through the insurrectionary documentary The Chicago Conspiracy Hotwire #3, Hotwire #6, and Hotwire #9 have interviews about mutual aid based, autonomous relief efforts in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Evictions HAVE BEGUN in the Hambach Forest! If you're in Europe, make your way to the Hambach Forest in Germany to help defend it, and the radical Ewok village of forest defenders who live there. Also, check out our audio documentary about the forest and the defense campaign to stop the cutting. Sales are OPEN for the 2019 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar! The theme of next year's calendar is Health/Care, and it features art and writing from current and former political prisoners like David Gilbert, Mike and Chuck Africa, and Laura Whitehorn. If you buy 10 or more, be sure to use the discount code “BULK” to get 10 or more calendars for $10 each—you can then sell the calendars to fundraise for your own organizing. Orders start shipping September 10! Call in to support Imam Hasan, Silenced on Death Row in Ohio! Sample script can be found here. Use this straightforward guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross to write Greg Curry, who was unjustly targeted after the Lucasville uprising: Greg Curry #213–159 OSP 878 Coitsville-Hubbard Rd Youngstown, OH 44505 USA September 26th is his birthday and he's asking people to make T-shirts that say “Free Greg Curry” on them, with “GregCurry.org” on the back and send photos of yourself wearing it to his Facebook page! We have a Twitter! Follow @HotwireWeekly and send us news that we should include in the show. Corrections and Clarifications The looting discussed in our interview took place at a Family Dollar, not at a Dollar General.    

It's 17 years and a day after 9/11 and Iraq is still in shambles, so we rip apart liberals for thinking George W. Bush is somehow “cute”. 2001 pops up again when we compare the current economic crisis in Argentina to the wave of worker-led factory takeovers and anarchist media that resisted the last economic meltdown there. We call for anarchists to incorporate a critique of nationalism itself into our anti-fascist strategy and analysis, we include preliminary information for autonomous relief efforts based in mutual aid for #HurricaneFlorence, and we wrap up the National #PrisonStrike with an action report and a bunch of phone-zaps! Send us news, events, or ideas on how our show can better serve anarchist activity in your town by emailing us at podcast@crimethinc.com. {September 12, 2018}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:00} George W. Bush is not cute {0:50} The other 9/11 {2:45} Economic collapse in Argentina… again {4:00} Bringing back the anarchist critique of nationalism {5:25} Here come the hurricanes—time for mutual aid {11:00} #PrisonStrike ends {14:55} Repression roundup {20:35} Next Week's News {27:40} Download 29:30 minutes long version. Autonomous Mutual Aid in the wake of Hurricane Florence You can contact Tidewater IWW in the Norfolk, VA area or Blue Ridge Autonomous Defense Crew in North Carolina Fundraiser for grassroots hurricane relief after Florence Hurricane Florence prisoner solidarity phone zap Message regarding Hurricane Florence from our comrades in Mutual Aid Disaster Relief. Mutual Aid Disaster Relief will give a brief presentation on September 15th at 10:30am at the Uplift Climate Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Anarchist book fairs this weekend: September 15: The Eastern Connecticut Workers Bookfair in Parade Plaza, New London, Connecticut September 15: The 23rd annual Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair in Oakland, California September 28–30: The 12th annual Balkan Anarchist Bookfair in Novi Sad, Serbia Upcoming anti-fascist action: September 15: Stop the League of the South from disrupting TriPride in Johnson City, TN September 29: Oppose the League of the South's rally in Elizabethton, TN. Stay tuned to @HollerNetwork and @knoxradical for updates. Argentina: The documentary The Take looks at factory takeovers and a little of the abstentionist anti-voting movement in Argentina as a response to the economic crisis of 2001 Keep up with resistance news in Argentina through Indymedia Argentina and the excellent anti-authoritarian TV channel Antena Negra Other relevant CrimethInc. output: Our take on September 11 Learn more about the legacy of the September 11, 1973 coup in Chile through the insurrectionary documentary The Chicago Conspiracy Hotwire #3, Hotwire #6, and Hotwire #9 have interviews about mutual aid based, autonomous relief efforts in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico. Some anarchist critiques of nationalism: Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty by Emma Goldman Peace is Patriotic, and That's the Problem Against Nationalism by Anarchist Federation Donate to the legal defense fund for anti-racists and anti-fascists arrested in relation to the Silent Sam confederate monument in Chapel Hill, North Carolina Check out this guide on experiences and reflections dealing with undercover police infiltration in Toronto Evictions HAVE BEGUN in the Hambach Forest! If you're in Europe, make your way to the Hambach Forest in Germany to help defend it, and the radical Ewok village of forest defenders who live there. Also, check out our audio documentary about the forest and the defense campaign to stop the cutting. Pre-sales are OPEN for the 2019 Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners calendar! The theme of next year's calendar is Health/Care, and it features art and writing from current and former political prisoners like David Gilbert, Mike and Chuck Africa, and Laura Whitehorn. If you buy 10 or more, be sure to use the discount code “BULK” to get 10 or more calendars for $10 each—you can then sell the calendars to fundraise for your own organizing. Orders start shipping September 10! Use this straightforward guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross to write imprisoned American Indian Movement warrior Leonard Peltier. Leonard Peltier #89637–132 USP Coleman I Post Office Box 1033 Coleman, Florida 33521 Phone zap for Jason Walker You can contact the TDCJ Ombudsman at ombudsman@tdcj.texas.gov, as well as the Telford Unit's management at 903–628–3171 and garth.parker@tdcj.texas.gov. You can speak to the Regional Director's office at (903) 928–2623, billy.howard@tdcj.texas.gov and carl.mckellar@tdcj.texas.gov. Contact details for TDCJ head office are (936) 295–6371, Bryan.Collier@tdcj.texas.gov and exec.director@tdcj.texas.gov Script for phone calls: “Hello, I am contacting you as I have been made aware of a pattern of bogus disciplinary cases being issued by CO Renitia T. Davis. In particular, I wish to request that you bring in an appropriate outside investigator to fully investigate the recent cases issued to inmates Jason Renard Walker #1532092 and Logan Newsome #2163761 with an eye to getting these fraudulent cases overturned and expunged immediately, as well as conducting a full investigation into Officer Davis' history. Beyond this, I demand that you cease all forms of harassment and retaliation against Jason Walker, including but not limited to the issuing of bogus cases, the censorship of his correspondence, and the denial of access to heat respite. Please investigate and overturn all recent cases and disciplinary measures issued to Mr. Walker by Telford Unit staff, and investigate the conduct of Lieutenant Estrada, Sergeant Gilstrap, Sergeant Sartin, and Lieutenant Ricks, who have all played a role in the campaign of harassment. Thank you” Phone zap for Kevin Rashid Johnson Monday morning, starting at 9 AM, please phone and email the official in charge of interstate compact: Chief of Corrections Operations David Robinson. You can call the main office number at 804–674–3000 and ask to be transferred to his phone line. Robinson's email address is david.robinson@vadoc.virginia.gov When leaving a message or talking to Mr Robinson, refer to Rashid by his legal name Kevin Johnson. Explain that he is better off in Virginia, that he has been subjected to serious human rights abuses during previous transfers. We have a Twitter! Follow @HotwireWeekly and send us news that we should include in the show.  

This Hotwire we bring you an interview with an anarchist in Managua about the past few weeks of anti-government revolt in Nicaragua. We also report on the arrests of anti-fascists in Georgia, a school bus drivers' strike also in Georgia, a hunger strike in San Diego's jails, and community resistance to ICE raids in North Carolina. Next week we'll bring you our regular episode a day late, but look out for a May Day special we're releasing to tide you over—and don't forget to e-mail us your May Day action reports at podcast@crimethinc.com! {April 25, 2018}   -------SHOW NOTES------   Table of Contents: Introduction {0:00} Headlines {1:30} Interview: A Week of Revolt in Nicaragua {16:40} Repression Roundup {27:10} Next Week's News {32:55} Download 29:30 minutes long version Events this weekend: April 26–29: The Southeast Trans and/or Women Action Camp in the smoky mountains of western North Carolina. Find out more by e-mailing setwac@protonmail.com.   April 26–28: the Anarchist Black Cross solidarity festival at EKH in Vienna, Austria. April 28–29: The Revolutionary Organizing Against Racism Conference (ROAR) returns to Ohlone land, the so-called Bay Area, California, in both Oakland and San Francisco. April 29: MACC in NYC is hosting a pre-May Day gathering in Tompkins Square Park at 1 PM. MAY DAY! In Montreal, anarchists will gather at 6 PM on the corner of Amherst and Sherbrooke. New York City: anarchist contingent in the big May Day march. Durham, NC: autonomous actions and a march starting at the old Durham Police headquarters at 6 PM. Seattle, WA: decentralized, autonomous actions Olympia. WA: decentralized, autonomous actions Portland, OR: coordinated, decentralized actions Eugene, OR: a really free market at the First Christian Church on Oak Street. Los Angeles, CA: a disruptive march Make sure to e-mail your May Day action reports to podcast@CrimethInc.com by May 2 so we can include them in our May Day roundup. Fundraising: Donate to the anti-fascists arrested in Newnan, Georgia on Saturday while protesting against neo-Nazis. Donate to the legal support fund for the four people charged over last year's May Day actions in Olympia. Other podcasts mentioned on this Hotwire: Unicorn Riot and End of the Line podcast are keeping people up to date as the struggle against the Mountain Valley Pipeline unfolds. We sample Alanis' aetheistic rant from The Ex-Worker Holiday Special before we lambast The Church of Satan. Hotwire 19 describes the anti-ICE organizing going on in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Episode 50 of The Ex-Worker has an interview with about the Lucasville prison uprising and how it informs contemporary prison rebellion and organizing We sampled the 99% Invisible episode “Church (Sanctuary, Part 1)” when discussing the sanctuary movement of the 1980s. Part 2 is also great. Get inspired to do something AWESOME for May Day by listening to the very first episode of The Ex-Worker, which is all about Haymarket. Anarchist texts related to this Hotwire: From Confronting Fascists to Facing the Police State: Reflections on the Anti-Fascist Mobilization in Newnan, Georgia God and the State by Mikhail Bakunin June 11: The History of a Day of Anarchist Prisoner Solidarity The May Days: Snapshots from the History of May Day Start gearing up for a summer of anarchy in Quebec! The anarchist film festival (May 17–20 in Montreal) The Montreal International Anarchist Theatre Festival (May 22–23 in Montreal) The Montreal Anarchist Bookfair (May 26–27 in Montreal) The North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference (June 1–3 in Montreal) Anti-G7 mobilization (June 7–9 in Quebec City) Mutual Aid Disaster Relief tour April 25, 26, and 27 at 5:00 PM at Youth Initiative High School 500 East Jefferson St Viroqua, WI 54665 April 28 at 5:30 PM at Menomonie Market Food Co-op 814 Main Street E Menomonie, WI 54751 April 29 at 10:00 AM at Family & Learning Center 523 Cedar Ave. E. Menomonie, WI 54751 May 2 at 6:00 PM at Walker Community Church 3104 16th Ave S Minneapolis, MN 55407 May 3 at 6:00 PM at UROC 2001 Plymouth Avenue North Minneapolis, MN 55411 Use this straightforward guide to writing prisoners from New York City Anarchist Black Cross to write birthday greetings to political prisoner Janine Phillips Africa. Janine Phillips Africa #006309 SCI Cambridge Springs 451 Fullerton Avenue Cambridge Springs, Pennsylvania 16403 {Birthday: April 25} Also, please write a letter to Cedar, a comrade in Ontario who is in jail over conspiracy charges stemming from the March 5 anti-gentrification march in Hamilton, Ontario. Please address the envelope to Peter Hopperton and the letters to Cedar: Peter Hopperton Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre 165 Barton St East Hamilton ON L8L 2W6 Phone zaps: Call the warden of Central Ohio Correctional Facility at 330–743–0700 and use this script: “Hello, my name is _____. I'm calling to demand you reverse Friday's policy changes that imposed new restrictions on prisoners impacted by the Lucasville uprising. None of these prisoners violated any rules and there's no justification for rolling back important policies that help them survive the 25 years of solitary confinement the ODRC has cruelly subjected them to.” Support the 200+ hunger strikers in Santa Clara County Jails by calling the Sheriff Administration at 408–808–4900 or the Board of Supervisors at 408–299–5001 and demanding that they enter into negotiations with the hunger strikers. Call DeKalb County, GA School Superintendent Stephen Green at 678–676–1200 to demand immediate reinstatement, with no pay lost, of all fired drivers. You can use this script: “Hello, my name is ________. I would like to let you know that I support the school bus drivers. I think it is shameful that the immediate reaction in response to the sick- out was to fire drivers, rather than to negotiate with them. The drivers have a right to organize without fear of retaliation, including by withdrawing their labor. I support their efforts to improve their jobs, and demand that the district immediately reinstate all fired drivers, with no pay lost and no other kind of discipline. None of the drivers who participated should be retaliated against. I also demand that the district immediately recognize the drivers committee and begin negotiating with them. Will you agree to rehire the drivers and recognize their committee?” Call the City of Olympia prosecutor's office at 360–753–8449 to demand they drop the charges against the four May Day defendants. J20 support resources: POSTER: The J20 Prosecution—Trumped up Charges J20 Legal Defense Fund Twitter Fed book An Open Letter to Former J20 Defendants, with useful “do”s and “don't”s  Teen Vogue: The J20 Arrests and Trials, Explained Tell the prosecutor's boss to drop the charges by calling (202) 252–7566