Podcast appearances and mentions of shane burley

On April 27th, 2025, the Sam and Esther Dolgoff Institute (SEDI) hosted journalist and antifascist theorist Shane Burley for a talk titled “The Trump Drive to Fascism.” Drawing from his extensive work on far-right movements, Shane explored the evolving landscape of American authoritarianism, the ideological currents that fuel Trumpism, and the historical stakes for anti-fascist and anarchist resistance. With an eye toward both theory and strategy, Shane examined how contemporary fascist movements operate, the convergence between state power and street-level reaction, and the role that anarchists and other radicals can play in resisting the next phase of far-right resurgence.Shane Burley is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It, a frequent contributor to Truthout, Jewish Currents, and The Baffler, and a leading voice on fascism, white nationalism, and antifascist organizing.This was part of SEDI's ongoing speaker series, where they bring together radical thinkers, organizers, and historians to deepen our understanding of the past and sharpen our interventions in the present. Most talks are not recorded, but they are now working to make more of these critical conversations publicly available.The Sam and Esther Dolgoff Institute:https://www.dolgoffinstitute.com/Shane Burley's Work:Website: https://www.shaneburley.org/Anarchist Library: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/shane-burleySam and Esther Dolgoff Archive:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/sam-dolgoff

"We need to think deeply about cultivating that mindset of collective survival, of needing to understand each other and work together, even if we don't like each other, and would never actually choose each other, because this is the 'us' we've got in an us versus them situation," says Kelly Hayes. In this episode, Kelly and guest Shane Burley discuss the realities of organizing under a federal government that's been captured by the far right. Music: Son Monarcas and David Celeste You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: truthout.org/series/movement-memos/ If you would like to support the show, you can donate here: bit.ly/TODonate If you would like to receive Truthout's newsletter, please sign up: bit.ly/TOnewsletter

In their book, “Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism,” Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, two activist journalists, present a progressive, intersectional approach to the vital question: What can we do about antisemitism? Using personal stories, historical deep-dives, front-line reporting, and interviews with leading change-makers, Burley and Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what's missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Featuring co-authors Ben Lorder and Shane Burley Moderated by Shaul Magid, HDS Visiting Professor of Modern Jewish Studies This is the first event in RPL's Religion, Conflict, and Peace 2024-25 Book Series. Full transcript forthcoming.

Shane Burley, Oregon-based journalist, author and filmmaker, talks about Anti-Zionist Workers Are Being Purged From Jewish Institutions Across the US, his months-long investigation based on interviews with antiZionist Jewish professionals who, since October 7, have been purged and defunded by Jewish educational organizations across America for being even slightly critical of Israel's genocide or supportive […] The post Shane Burley reports on Jewish educational organizations purging their anti-Zionist professional employees appeared first on Hazel Kahan.

A recent conversation we had with the Ben Lorber and Shane Burley, co-authors of the recently published book, Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. For the hour we discuss the roots of antisemitism in the West, pushing back on Zionism in the midst of the genocidal war on Palestinians, a rebirth of Bundism and addressing antisemitism in left spaces. I definitely recommend this book to folks and hope you enjoy the chat! And as always, thanks for supporting this project. If you're a non-Pacifica station looking for this weeks 58 minute radio show, you can find it here. We're hoping Archive.Org will be back online and allow us to upload files there soon. Past interviews with Shane: Fascism Today Why We Fight . … . .. Featured Track: Daloit Politsey by Isabel Frey In Ale Gasn = In Every Street / Hey, Hey, Daloy Politsey! = Hey, Hey Down With The Police! featuring Zalmen Mlotek, Adrienne Cooper, Dan Rous with The New Yiddish Chorale and The Workmen's Circle Chorus from In Love and In Struggle: The Musical Legacy of the Jewish Labor Bund

On October 31st, Ryan hosted a livestream and Q&A with Shane Burley, co-author of "Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism" and author of "Fascism Today: What it is and How to End It", on antisemitism today, antisemitism in the Pagan community, and how Pagan and Jewish communities can resist the conspiratorial Right and rising Christian Nationalism through unity and solidarity.You can also watch the livestream on YouTube here!Shane's article on antisemitism in American Paganism: https://safetythroughsolidarity.substack.com/p/antisemitism-and-the-american-paganYou can purchase Shane's book here!Want to support this podcast and my other work?  Check out my Patreon!You can also help out by scheduling a rune reading with Ryan!

Hey everyone I'm holding a special live online Q&A with Shane Burley this Thursday, October 31st at 5PM PST!Join me, the author of "The Way of Fire & Ice" and "Spinning Wyrd", for a live Q&A with Shane Burley, co-author of "Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism" and author of "Fascism Today: What it is and How to End It", on antisemitism today, antisemitism in the Pagan community, and how Pagan and Jewish communities can resist the conspiratorial Right and rising Christian Nationalism through unity and solidarity.If you would like to participate in this live, online event then please register now using the following form:https://forms.gle/jwPSCqopmp4hCMd69

Young Jewish Americans are playing an outsized role in the movement for Palestine—but not without facing consequences. In a recent article for In These Times, Shane Burley investigates the ways anti-Zionist Jews are facing persecution from community institutions they once called home. Burley joins The Marc Steiner Show for a discussion on the growing divide over Zionism in Jewish communities, and the role of youth in this process.Studio Production: David HebdenPost-Production: Alina NehlichHelp us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Sign up for our newsletterLike us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterDonate to support this podcast

A new investigation finds that employees at some Jewish institutions in the US have lost jobs over support for Palestine in the year since October 7. Many say their support for an end to Israel's war on Gaza is grounded in their Jewish values. How has their dissent changed their communities – and what might it mean for the future? In this episode: Shane Burley (@shane_burley1), Freelance Journalist Episode credits: This episode was produced by Amy Walters, Sonia Bhagat, and Sarí El-Khalili with Phillip Lanos, Duha Mosaad, Hagir Saleh, Cole van Miltenburg, and our host, Malika Bilal.  Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our video editor is Hisham Abu Salah. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Munera Al Dosari and Adam Abou-Gad are our engagement producers. Alexandra Locke is The Take's executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.  Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it's clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk. And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear? In Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House, 2024), Shane Burley and Ben Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what's missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Ben Lorber is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that monitors far-right movements. He tweets at @BenLorber8. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it's clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk. And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear? In Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House, 2024), Shane Burley and Ben Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what's missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Ben Lorber is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that monitors far-right movements. He tweets at @BenLorber8. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it's clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk. And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear? In Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House, 2024), Shane Burley and Ben Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what's missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Ben Lorber is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that monitors far-right movements. He tweets at @BenLorber8. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it's clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk. And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear? In Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House, 2024), Shane Burley and Ben Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what's missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Ben Lorber is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that monitors far-right movements. He tweets at @BenLorber8. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/israel-studies

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it's clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk. And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear? In Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House, 2024), Shane Burley and Ben Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what's missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Ben Lorber is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that monitors far-right movements. He tweets at @BenLorber8. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

Antisemitism is on the rise today. From synagogue shootings by white nationalists, to right-wing politicians and media figures pushing George Soros conspiracy theories, it's clear that exclusionary nationalist movements are growing. By spreading division and fear, they put Jews, along with other marginalized groups and multiracial democracy itself, at risk. And since the outbreak of war in Gaza, debates around antisemitism have become more polarized and high-stakes than ever. How can we stand in solidarity with Palestinians seeking justice, while also avoiding antisemitism — and resisting those who seek to conflate the two? How do we forge the coalitions across communities that we need, in order to overcome the politics of division and fear? In Safety through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism (Melville House, 2024), Shane Burley and Ben Lorber help us break the current impasse to understand how antisemitism works, what's missing in contemporary debates, and how to build true safety through solidarity, for Jews and all people. Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. Ben Lorber is a Senior Research Analyst at Political Research Associates, a progressive think tank that monitors far-right movements. He tweets at @BenLorber8. Schneur Zalman Newfield is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Jewish Studies at Hunter College, City University of New York, and the author of Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple University Press). Visit him online at ZalmanNewfield.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2022, Tucker Carlson produced a documentary called “The End of Men,” his contribution to the so-called “masculinity crisis.” That's when testicle tanning hit the mainstream, which one astute observer dubbed “bromeopathic therapy.” Turns out the former Fox News host isn't done dabbling in conspirituality. This year, he's platformed the QAnon Shaman, Jacob Chansley; lyme disease conspiracist, Kris Newby; the “other” Naomi, Naomi Wolf; brother-sister optimizers, Casey and Calley Means; and he's currently on a 16-city tour with the likes of Russell Brand and Alex Jones. He's also partly responsible for helping usher RFK Jr into Donald Trump's camp. While the former CNN and MSNBC host turned far right provocateur isn't leading wellness retreats (yet), he's certainly being shared by an increasing number of wellness influencers, and we want to know why. Show Notes DOJ Accuses Russia of Sprawling Election Interference Campaign Homeland Violence and Diaspora Insecurity: An Analysis of Israel and American Jewry | Politics and Religion | Cambridge Core  Safety through Solidarity by Shane Burley, Ben Lorber Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For NSP 59 we spoke with Shane Burley about anti-fascism, green anarchism, voting, religion, Israel, and his recent book "Safety Through Solidarity" (co-authored with Ben Lorber) on combatting antisemitism. Shane Burley is the author of several books on the far-right and social movements, and has contributed to places such as NBC News, Jewish Currents, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Haaretz, In These Times, Yes! Magazine, Tikkun, and The Oregon Historical Quarter. Links: https://burlesshanae.medium.com/ https://patreon.com/shaneburley https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741043/safety-through-solidarity-by-shane-burley/ 00:00:00 Introduction 00:05:50 Green Anarchy 00:09:31 Thinking Outside the Possible 00:14:38 What is Fascism? 00:24:44 Countering Fascism 00:30:36 Freedom of Speech 00:37:29 Countering Authoritarianism 00:43:23 Traditions 00:51:51 Fighting Antisemitism 01:04:09 Palestine 01:17:33 Intersectionality 01:25:52 Civic Inequality in Israel 01:37:17 Gaza 01:43:43 The Call to Action 01:49:38 Media Recommendations 01:53:08 Cappuccino 02:00:20 Outro Thanks for listening! Please like, comment, subscribe, and share! --- If you'd like to see more anarchist and anti-authoritarian interviews, please consider supporting this project financially by becoming a patron at https://www.patreon.com/nonserviammedia Follow Non Serviam Media Collective on: Mastodon https://kolektiva.social/@nonserviammedia Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/nonserviammedia.bsky.social As well as Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and X/Twitter. Connect with Lucy Steigerwald via: https://mastodon.social/@LucyStag https://bsky.app/profile/lucystag.bsky.social https://x.com/LucyStag https://lucysteigerwald.substack.com/

Recently, far-right figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson have hitched their anti-Israel politics to blatant antisemitism, platforming Holocaust denial and using decontextualized passages from religious texts like the Talmud to argue for the fundamental immorality of Judaism; in some cases their rhetoric has migrated beyond the right-wing echo chamber. Meanwhile, following a cheeky tweet by conspiracy-minded Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal that attributed the congressional losses of Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush to the “Zionist occupied government,” or “ZOG,” debates raged online about the supposed accuracy or usefulness of the term, which has clear origins in the neo-Nazi movement. In this episode of On the Nose, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel interviews Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, authors of the new book Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, about these trends and how we confront them. They examine the real difficulties of talking about antisemitism—and assessing actual risk—in an alarmist environment where antisemitism is frequently weaponized against Palestinians and their allies, and discuss what it means to build principled movements rooted in mutual self-interest and collective liberation.Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Texts Mentioned and Further Reading:Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism by Shane Burley and Ben Lorber“The Right's Anti-Israel Insurgents,” Ben Lorber, Jewish Currents “Examining the ADL's Antisemitism Audit,” Shane Burley and Jonah ben Avraham, Jewish CurrentsThe Necessity of Exile: Essays from a Distance by Shaul MagidZioness event about campus antisemitism“Jewish settlers stole my house. It's not my fault they're Jewish,” Mohammed El Kurd, MondoweissRafael Shimunov's thread about talking about antisemitism on the left“What Comes Next for the Palestinian Youth Movement,” Mohammed Nabulsi, Hammer & HopeDoppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi KleinStudy on the correlation between antisemitism and Israeli violence against Palestinians"

Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Margaret and Casandra continue their talk with Shane Burley and Ben Lorber about how antisemitism manifests on the left and about Shane and Ben's new book "Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism." Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Guest Info Shane Burley can be found on Twitter @Shane_Burley1, on Instagram @ShaneBurley, on Mastodon @Shane_Burley, and on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ShaneBurley Ben Lorber can be found on Twitter @BenLorber8 or on IG @ben.lorber.18 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.

Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Margaret and Casandra talk with Shane Burley and Ben Lorber about their new book Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Guest Info Shane Burley can be found on Twitter @Shane_Burley1, on Instagram @ShaneBurley, on Mastodon @Shane_Burley, and on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ShaneBurley Ben Lorber can be found on Twitter @BenLorber8 or on IG @ben.lorber.18 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.

Episode Summary This Month on Strangers, we have a special guest interview by Margaret and Casandra with Shane Burley and Ben Lorber to talk about their new book Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. The feature is an abridged transcript of the conversation. Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Guest Info Shane Burley can be found on Twitter @Shane_Burley1, on Instagram @ShaneBurley, on Mastodon @Shane_Burley, and on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ShaneBurley Ben Lorber can be found on Twitter @BenLorber8 or on IG @ben.lorber.18 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.

This week, Max welcomes Ben Lorber and Shane Burley to the program, co-authors of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism. Resources Melville House: Safety through SolidarityA Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism Bookshop: Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism Ben Lorber on Twitter Ben Lorber on Instagram BenLorber.com Shane Burley on Twitter Shane Burley on Instagram Shane Burley Linktree -- If you like the pod version of #UNFTR, make sure to check out the video version on YouTube where Max shows his beautiful face! www.youtube.com/@UNFTR Please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com. Join the Unf*cker-run Facebook group: facebook.com/groups/2051537518349565 Buy yourself some Unf*cking Coffee® at shop.unftr.com. Subscribe to Unf*cking The Republic® at unftr.com/blog to get the essays these episode are framed around sent to your inbox every week. Check out the UNFTR Pod Love playlist on Spotify: spoti.fi/3yzIlUP. Visit our bookshop.org page at bookshop.org/shop/UNFTRpod to find the full UNFTR book list, and find book recommendations from our Unf*ckers at bookshop.org/lists/unf-cker-book-recommendations. Access the UNFTR Musicless feed by following the instructions at unftr.com/accessibility. Unf*cking the Republic® is produced by 99 and engineered by Manny Faces Media (mannyfacesmedia.com). Original music is by Tom McGovern (tommcgovern.com) and Hold Fast (holdfastband.com). The show is written and hosted by Max and distributed by 99. Podcast art description: Image of the US Constitution ripped in the middle revealing white text on a blue background that says, "Unf*cking the Republic®."Support the show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/unftrSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we again speak with antifascist researchers Shane Burley and Ben Lorber, authors of the new book, Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Anti-Semitism. We discuss how the established order has attacked both the the current anti-war movement in solidarity with Palestine, which includes many... Read Full Article

Ben Lorber and Shane Burley, co-authors of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, join me to discuss the absolutely timely moment and context this book is being published in. They raise the need for, and the strong historical legacies of, Jewish anti-Zionist solidarity with pro-Palestine movements, while articulating and bringing forward critical analysis of the shape, character, and histories of antisemitism in primarily Western Christian societies. With antisemitism and Islamophobia on the rise, Shane and Ben articulate a vision and present a radical guide to fight antisemitism and build safety through solidarity for Jewish and non-Jewish peoples and communities alike. Ben Lorber is a researcher, journalist and movement strategist. He works at Political Research Associates, a social movement think tank, as a Senior Research Analyst focusing on antisemitism and white nationalism. Lorber's work has appeared in The Nation, Salon, Jewish Daily Forward, Religion Dispatches and more, and a range of outlets including The Washington Post and Huffington Post turn to him regularly for quotations on antisemitism and the Right. Shane Burley is an author and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2017) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2021), and the editor of No Pasaran: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis (AK Press, 2022). His writing has appeared in places such as NBC News, Al Jazeera, The Daily Beast, The Baffler, Jacobin, Jewish Currents, Haaretz, Oregon Humanities, Protean, Yes Magazine, In These Times, and the Oregon Historical Quarterly. Episode Notes: - Purchase a copy of Safety Through Solidarity from Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/a/24168/9781685890919 - Follow Ben's work: https://benlorber.com - Follow Shane's work: https://linktr.ee/shaneburley - The song featured is “Kodoma” by Nick Vander from the album Kodama (Nowaki's Selection), used with permission by the artist. Listen and purchase at: https://nickvander.bandcamp.com WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast SUBSTACK: https://lastborninthewilderness.substack.com BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

Ben Lorber and Shane Burley, co-authors of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism, join me to discuss the absolutely timely moment and context this book is being published in. They raise the need for, and the strong historical legacies of, Jewish anti-Zionist solidarity with pro-Palestine movements, while articulating and bringing forward critical analysis of the shape, character, and histories of antisemitism in primarily Western Christian societies. With antisemitism and Islamophobia on the rise, Shane and Ben articulate a vision and radical guide to fight antisemitism and build safety through solidarity for Jewish and non-Jewish peoples and communities alike. Support the work and listen to the full interview: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

Researcher (from Political Research Associates) & co-author of Safety through Solidarity, Ben Lorber (@BenLorber8 on Twitter) Joins me for a conversation about the far right in both Israel and more broadly, the Jewish far right. We discuss far-right Israeli ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the rhetoric we are seeing coming from so many Israeli officials, extremist anti-miscegenation groups like Lehava, and American-Israeli extremist rabbi Meir Kahane. We also discuss the ADL and the demonization of solidarity protests and encampments, as well as the concerning new pipelines for liberals to make common cause with the right on the topic of Israel. Christian Zionists, tokenization, and more, right here on episode 4 of The Global Far Right. If you enjoy the show pls consider supporting via patreon.com/nicemangos Thanks to Premium Patrons for making this miniseries possible! —— Links: Find Ben's book, co-authored with Shane Burley, ‘Safety Through Solidarity' here https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741043/safety-through-solidarity-by-shane-burley/ Ben's article on Bronze Age Zionists https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1757871425925333192?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ben's thread on ADL's inconsistent methodology for their antisemitism audit https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1780623385971540469?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw CNN clip on tokenization that came up in our chat https://x.com/abbydphillip/status/1785147804668616941?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL saying “we are not the Jews of trembling knees” https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1787536049465413921?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Greenblatt referring to students, including Jewish groups, as ‘Iranian proxies' https://www.thedailybeast.com/cair-calls-on-msnbc-to-ban-adl-boss-over-iranian-proxies-remark The Atlantic: The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469/ Tom Cotton calls encampments ‘little Gazas' https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2024/05/01/tom-cotton-campus-protests-gaza Former US ambassador to Israel says students are marching in support of Hamas https://x.com/davidm_friedman/status/1719070572083040616?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Columbia Professor Shai Davidai refers to students as terrorists https://x.com/palmena_ic/status/1782361692900384969?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ted Cruz saying these protests are antisemitic while perpetuating antisemitic tropes himself https://x.com/tedcruz/status/1785406268607287383?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ben Shapiro tweet on antisemitism vs support for Israel: https://x.com/benshapiro/status/644505141299671041?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw “.@anncoulter tweets re: Jews awful, nonsensical. @anncoulter is also super pro-Israel, and has always been so, so I won't lose sleep.” Christian Nationalist Sean Feucht enthusiastic about rising antisemitism https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1783539026022006823?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ben Gvir's association with far right leader of extremist group Lehava https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-extremist-benzi-gopstein-said-advising-ben-gvir-on-police-issues/ Isaac Herzog referred to intermarriage as a ‘plague' https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/incoming-jewish-agency-head-walks-back-calling-intermarriage-a-plague/ Meet Lehava, the Israeli Fascists Mounting a Vicious Crusade to Keep their Women Away from Arabs https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/meet-lehava-israeli-fascists-mounting-vicious-crusade-keep-their-women-away-arabs-1466584 Israel's Far-right Finance Minister Says He's 'A Fascist Homophobe' but 'Won't Stone Gays' Israel's Far-right Finance Minister Says He's 'A Fascist Homophobe' but 'Won't Stone Gays' - Israel News - Haaretz.com Extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane's Cousin drove into anti-genocide protesters in NYC https://www.huffpost.com/entry/reuven-kahane-arrested-columbia-gaza-protest-assault_n_663bbd77e4b0c38baf0eacd4

In episode 2082, James Kirchick suggested that being Jewish and being a Zionist should be of all of one thing. Shane Burley reverses this. The co-author of Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Antisemitism, the Portland based, religiously orthodox Burley suggests that being Jewish might actually mean questioning not just Netanyahu, but the very intellectual foundations of the Zionist project. This division between nationalist and internationalist Jews isn't new, of course. But in a world where both antisemites and philosemites equate hatred of Israel with hatred of Jews, it's an important reminder that anti Zionism has a long heritage in the radical Jewish community.Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker based in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017), and the editor of the forthcoming anthology ¡No pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis. His work is featured at places such as NBC News, The Daily Beast, The Independent, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, Haaretz, Tikkun, The Baffler,  Bandcamp Daily, Truthout, and the Oregon Historical Quarterly. He is also the editor of a special issue of the Journal of Social Justice on “Antisemitism in the 21st Century.” Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.Keen On is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Here's another song destined for my next album, which focuses on life in the matrix -- the operation of the rumor mill in its various toxic, destructive forms. The aspect of the disinformation nexus highlighted here are the sectarian cancellation campaigners, and one of them in particular -- author, journalist, and serial liar, Shane Burley, guru of a small local cult that calls itself Rose City Antifa. For more information about Shane, his deep confusion about history, his bizarre obsession with rooting out antisemitism on the left, and the widespread promotion of people with his worldview by the liberal section of the mainstream media, my latest blog post/podcast is titled The Progressive Embrace of the McCarthyite Left and you can find it at davidrovics.com/thisweek.

This week we have a chat with Shane Burley and Ben Lorber about their new book Safety Through Solidarity: A Radical Guide to Fighting Antisemitism.

[This is a SAMPLE of my new Premium Miniseries, pls subscribe to the premium tiers via patreon.com/nicemangos to access the full episode] Researcher (from Political Research Associates) & co-author of Safety through Solidarity, Ben Lorber (@BenLorber8 on Twitter) Joins me for a conversation about the far right in both Israel and more broadly, the Jewish far right. We discuss far right Israeli ministers Ben Gvir and Smotrich, the rhetoric we are seeing coming from so many Israeli officials, extremist anti-miscegenation groups like Lehava, and American-Israeli extremist rabbi Meir Kahane. We also discuss the ADL and the demonization of solidarity protests and encampments, as well as the concerning new pipelines for liberals to make common cause with the right on the topic of Israel. Christian Zionists, tokenization, and more, right here on episode 4 of The Global Far Right. If you enjoy the show pls consider supporting via patreon.com/nicemangos Links: Find Ben's book, co-authored with Shane Burley, ‘Safety Through Solidarity' here https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/741043/safety-through-solidarity-by-shane-burley/ Ben's article on Bronze Age Zionists https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1757871425925333192?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ben's thread on ADL's inconsistent methodology for their antisemitism audit https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1780623385971540469?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw CNN clip on tokenization that came up in our chat https://x.com/abbydphillip/status/1785147804668616941?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL saying “we are not the Jews of trembling knees” https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1787536049465413921?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Greenblatt referring to students, including Jewish groups, as ‘Iranian proxies' https://www.thedailybeast.com/cair-calls-on-msnbc-to-ban-adl-boss-over-iranian-proxies-remark The Atlantic: The Golden Age of American Jews is Ending https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti-semitism-jewish-american-safety/677469/ Tom Cotton calls encampments ‘little Gazas' https://www.axios.com/local/nw-arkansas/2024/05/01/tom-cotton-campus-protests-gaza Former US ambassador to Israel says students are marching in support of Hamas https://x.com/davidm_friedman/status/1719070572083040616?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Columbia Professor Shai Davidai refers to students as terrorists https://x.com/palmena_ic/status/1782361692900384969?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ted Cruz saying these protests are antisemitic while perpetuating antisemitic tropes himself https://x.com/tedcruz/status/1785406268607287383?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ben Shapiro tweet on antisemitism vs support for Israel: https://x.com/benshapiro/status/644505141299671041?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw “.@anncoulter tweets re: Jews awful, nonsensical. @anncoulter is also super pro-Israel, and has always been so, so I won't lose sleep.” Christian Nationalist Sean Feucht enthusiastic about rising antisemitism https://x.com/benlorber8/status/1783539026022006823?s=61&t=w7q_ejvwZ_gCFj9WV50Lqw Ben Gvir's association with far right leader of extremist group Lehava https://www.timesofisrael.com/jewish-extremist-benzi-gopstein-said-advising-ben-gvir-on-police-issues/ Isaac Herzog referred to intermarriage as a ‘plague' https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/incoming-jewish-agency-head-walks-back-calling-intermarriage-a-plague/ Meet Lehava, the Israeli Fascists Mounting a Vicious Crusade to Keep their Women Away from Arabs https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/meet-lehava-israeli-fascists-mounting-vicious-crusade-keep-their-women-away-arabs-1466584 Israel's Far-right Finance Minister Says He's 'A Fascist Homophobe' but 'Won't Stone Gays' Israel's Far-right Finance Minister Says He's 'A Fascist Homophobe' but 'Won't Stone Gays' - Israel News - Haaretz.com

The Wayward Wanderer welcomes Shane Burley back to the pod for a dive into how Richard Spencer of AltRight fame is rebranding by stealing from Dune and Greek myth, fascists ditching Heathenry and the Eddas for highly antisemitic reasons, the infighting plaguing the non-Christian far-right, the Asatru Folk Assembly cannibalizing the Ku Klux Klan, and what Heathens, Pagans, and antifascists can do to fight fascism in 2024.

As we approach International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27th, writer and filmmaker Shane Burley has written a new piece for YES! Magazine called Don't Let Zionists Weaponize Jewish Suffering.

This is a segment of episode 353 of Last Born In The Wilderness, “A Nation For A Nation: Full-Scale Revenge; Antisemitic Zionism w/ Shane Burley.” Listen to the two-part episode: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com/episodes/shane-burley-5 Read Shane's article The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself, published by Religion Dispatches: https://bit.ly/3QAw8JQ Author and journalist Shane Burley examines about the contexts that underlie the dramatic escalation of violence by the State of Israel in the Palestinian territories since Hamas's October 7th attack. We focus on the validity of claims made by pro-Israel Zionists of antisemitism on the part of Palestinian liberation activists in demanding not only a ceasefire, but the ending of apartheid and continual expansion of Israeli Jewish settlements into Palestinian territories, as well as the Christian Right's Zionist antisemitism Shane Burley is known for his work on the far-right and left-wing social movements. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017) and Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021), and editor of the anthology ¡No pasarán!: Readings on Antifascism (AK Press, 2022). His work has been featured in places like NBC News, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, Jacobin, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times, Roar Magazine, Jewish Currents, and others. He provides expert analysis and commentary on these issues for places like PBS, The Guardian, and The Oregonian, and has published extensive academic work, particularly on antisemitism. WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast SUBSTACK: https://lastborninthewilderness.substack.com BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

Welcome, to This Is America, December 9th, 2023. On this episode, first we speak with antifascist journalist, author, and researcher Shane Burley along with Xeno, an anarchist and anti-Zionist Jew about the weaponization of anti-Semitism by groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the far-Right, amidst the growing movement to end apartheid in occupied Palestine.... Read Full Article

In the second part of my two-part interview with author and journalist Shane Burley, we continue our discussion about the contexts that underlie the dramatic escalation of violence by the State of Israel in the Palestinian territories since Hamas's October 7th attack. We focus on the validity of claims made by pro-Israel Zionists of antisemitism on the part of Palestinian liberation activists in demanding not only a ceasefire, but the ending of apartheid and continual expansion of Israeli Jewish settlements into Palestinian territories. Shane examines the Christian Right's Zionist antisemitism, Israeli Leftism, the internal political tensions in Israel before and since the events on October 7th, and how "Jewish safety has always been in the hands of solidarity with other marginalized people." Shane Burley is known for his work on the far-right and left-wing social movements. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017) and Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021), and editor of the anthology ¡No pasarán!: Readings on Antifascism (AK Press, 2022). His work has been featured in places like NBC News, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, Jacobin, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times, Roar Magazine, Jewish Currents, and others. He provides expert analysis and commentary on these issues for places like PBS, The Guardian, and The Oregonian, and has published extensive academic work, particularly on antisemitism. Episode Notes: - Read Shane's article The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself, published by Religion Dispatches: https://bit.ly/3QAw8JQ - Learn more about Shane's work: https://linktr.ee/shaneburley - Sounds by Midnight Sounds: https://www.latenightsknowmystory.com WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast SUBSTACK: https://lastborninthewilderness.substack.com BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

Air Date 11/10/2023 Violence and oppression are destructive and corrosive to both the victim and perpetrator and this goes a long way toward explaining many of the dynamics at play in the holy land between Israelis and Palestinians. Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Transcript BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Clips and Shows + No Ads!) Join our Discord community! SHOW NOTES Ch. 1: Why Hamas Attacked Israel - And What's Next For Gaza - AJ+ - Air Date 10-13-23 On October 7th, Hamas launched one of the deadliest attacks on Israel in years. But why? And what does this mean for the 2.3 million people trapped in Gaza, often called the largest open-air prison on Earth? Ch. 2: 'The possibility of genocide is staring us in the face' in Gaza: Holocaust studies professor - The Mehdi Hasan Show - Air Date 11-3-23 Omer Bartov, an Israeli-American professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University, joins Mehdi to discuss Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Bartov tells Mehdi, “I don't think that what is happening there right now is genocide… Ch. 3: Shock Doctrine Israel with Naomi Klein - The Bitchuation Room - Air Date 10-31-23 Weaponizing trauma to inflict more trauma is Israel's forte. Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, No Logo, and the new book Doppelganger, joins Francesca to discuss the all out assault on the people of Gaza in retaliation for Hamas' attack. Ch. 4: Antisemitism: An Evil, An Enemy Of Peace - Owen Jones - Air Date 10-31-23 Antisemitism is an evil in itself - it is the cause of terrible horrors over many centuries - and it is also a mortal enemy of peace in Palestine. Ch. 5: Far Right Exploiting Gaza War to Spread Antisemitism and Islamophobia / Shane Burley - This Is Hell! - Air Date 11-7-23 Shane Burley on his writing at Waging Nonviolence on white nationalists manipulating the Gaza crisis. Plus 'Rotten History.' Ch. 6: Naomi Klein on 'Selective Information' About Israel and Gaza - Inside the Hive - Air Date 11-2-23 Host Brian Stelter joins Naomi Klein to discuss the challenges of understanding what's happening on the ground in Israel and Gaza as an information war plays out alongside the carnage. Ch. 7: What's Happening in Israel and Why with Nathan Thrall - Factually! with Adam Conover - Air Date 11-1-23 The October 7th attack by Hamas and Israel's subsequent response has left the world in shock. To better understand the context behind this moment, Adam is joined by Nathan Thrall, one of the leading experts on the conflict in Gaza. Ch. 8: Ta-Nehisi Coates Speaks Out Against Israel's "Segregationist Apartheid Regime" After West Bank Visit - Democracy Now! - Air Date 11-2-23 Ta-Nehisi Coates joins us to discuss his journey to Palestine and Israel and learn about the connection between the struggle of African Americans and Palestinians. MEMBERS-ONLY BONUS CLIP(S) Ch. 9: Beyond Settler-Colonialism - Against the Grain - Air Date - 10-31-23 Mahmood Mamdani, the acclaimed scholar of colonialism and anti-colonialism, reflects on the United States, Nazi Germany, South Africa, and Israel — settler-colonial societies built on internment and ethnic cleansing. FINAL COMMENTS Ch. 10: Final comments on an extraordinary case of looking the find the humanity in the inhumane attacks on Israel of October 7th MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions) SHOW IMAGE:  Description: A black and white photo of a street protest in London. An older man holds a large handmade protest sign, which reads "Hamas targetting civilians = war crimes. Israel targetting civilians = war crimes." The greeting "Shalom" is written in Hebrew next to the greeting "Salam" written in Arabic. At the bottom, "End the occupation!" Credit: "No Excuses for War Crimes under any Pretext." by Alisdare Hickson, Flickr | License: CC BY-SA 2.0 | Changes: Cropped and slightly increased contrast   Produced by Jay! Tomlinson Visit us at BestOfTheLeft.com

Journalist and author Shane Burley returns to the podcast to discuss his article The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself, published by Religion Dispatches. He addresses historical traumas and contexts that underlie, in part, the dramatic escalation of violence by the State of Israel in the Palestinian territories since Hamas's October 7th attack. This is part one of a two-part interview. Shane Burley is known for his work on the far-right and left-wing social movements. He is the author of Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017) and Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021), and editor of the anthology ¡No pasarán!: Readings on Antifascism (AK Press, 2022). His work has been featured in places like NBC News, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, Jacobin, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times, Roar Magazine, Jewish Currents, and others. He provides expert analysis and commentary on these issues for places like PBS, The Guardian, and The Oregonian, and has published extensive academic work, particularly on antisemitism. Episode Notes: - Read Shane's article The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself, published by Religion Dispatches: https://bit.ly/3QAw8JQ - Learn more about Shane's work: https://linktr.ee/shaneburley - Sounds by Midnight Sounds: https://www.latenightsknowmystory.com WEBSITE: https://www.lastborninthewilderness.com PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness DONATE: https://www.paypal.me/lastbornpodcast SUBSTACK: https://lastborninthewilderness.substack.com BOOK LIST: https://bookshop.org/shop/lastbornpodcast DROP ME A LINE: Call (208) 918-2837 or http://bit.ly/LBWfiledrop EVERYTHING ELSE: https://linktr.ee/patterns.of.behavior

Shane Burley on his writing at Waging Nonviolence on white nationalists manipulating the Gaza crisis. Plus 'Rotten History.' Check out Shane's article, "How the far right is trying to manipulate the crisis in Gaza": https://wagingnonviolence.org/2023/11/far-right-try-manipulate-gaza-crisis/ Help keep This Is Hell! completely listener supported and access weekly bonus episodes by subscribing to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thisishell

“Ruin someone powerful's afternoon. Our goal is to stop a genocide. We do not have to argue with murderers or appeal to a compassion they do not have. We must make it impossible for them to carry out,” says Palestinian poet and organizer Rasha Abdulhadi. In this episode, Abdulhadi, Nadine Naber, Iman Abid, Mike Merryman-Lotze, Leanne Simpson, Shane Burley, Brant Rosen, and others join Kelly to hold vigil for Palestine, and to talk about what solidarity demands of us in this moment. Music: Son Monarcas and David Celeste You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, you can donate here: bit.ly/TODonate If you would like to receive Truthout's newsletter, please sign up: bit.ly/TOnewsletter

Journalist and author Shane Burley returns to the podcast to discuss his article The Story of a Post-Holocaust Group Seeking Revenge Against Nazis is Part of the Story of Israel Itself, published by Religion Dispatches. He addresses historical traumas and contexts that underlie, in part, the dramatic escalation of violence by the State of Israel in the Palestinian territories since Hamas's October 7th attack. This is a two-part interview. Support the podcast and listen to this interview before the public release: https://www.patreon.com/lastborninthewilderness

We are joined by Shane Burley, Emily Gorcenski, Daryle Lamont Jenkins, and Michael Novick to discuss their personal history in Antifascism, and their new anthology book ‘No Pasaran.'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Inmn is joined by author and activist, Michael Novick. They talk about just how horrible fascism really is. Thankfully, there's a simple solution, antifascism. Michael talks about their work with Anti-Racist Action Network, the Turning The Tide newspaper, and his newest book with Oso Blanco, The Blue Agave Revolution. Host Info Inmn can be found on Instagram @shadowtail.artificery. Guest Info Michael (he/they) and The Blue Agave Revolution can be found at www.antiracist.org If you want to take over the Turning The Tide newspaper, find Michael at antiracistaction_ la@yahoo.com 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: Michael Novick on Antifascism Inmn 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 Inmn Neruin and I use they/them pronouns. This week we are talking about something that is very scary and, in terms of things we think about being prepared for, something that is far more likely to impact our lives than say, a zombie apocalypse. Or I mean, we're already being impacted by this. It is actively killing us. But, if I had to choose between preparing for this and preparing for living in a bunker for 10 years, I would choose this. Oh, golly, I really hope preparing for this doesn't involve living in a bunker for 10 years, though. But the monster of this week is fascism. However, there's a really great solution to fascism...antifascism. And we have a guest today who has spent a lot of their life thinking about and participating in antifascism. But first, we are a proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchist podcasts. And so here's a jingle from another show on that network. Doo doo doo doo doo. [Singing the words like a cheesy melody] Inmn 02:00 And we're back. And I have with me today writer and organizer Michael Novick, co founder of the John Brown Anti Klan Committee, People Against Racist Terror, Anti-racist Action Network, the TORCH Antifa network and White People For Black Lives. Michael, would you like to introduce yourself with your name, pronouns and kind of...I guess like your history in anti-racist, antifascist struggles and a little bit about what you want to tell us about today? Michael 02:34 Sure. Thanks, Inmn. So yeah, Michael Novick. Pronouns he or they. I've been doing anti-racist and antifascist organizing and educating and work for many many decades at this point. I'm in my 70s. I got involved in political activism in kind of anti-war, civil rights, student rights work in the 60s. I was an SDS at Brooklyn College. And I've been doing that work from an anti white supremacist, anticapitalist, anti-imperialist perspective. And I think that particularly trying to understand fascism in the US context, you have to look at questions of settler colonialism. And, you know, people sometimes use the term racial capitalism. I think that land theft, genocide, enslavement of people of African descent, especially is central to understanding the social formation of this country. I was struck by the name of the podcast in terms of "live like the world is ending," because for a long time, I had an analysis that said that the fear of the end of the world had to do with the projection of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie feels that its rule is coming to an end and therefore thinks the world is coming to an end, but the world will get on fire without the bourgeoisie and the rulers and the imperialists. Except that because of the lease on life that this empire has gotten repeatedly by the setbacks caused by white and male supremacy and the way it undermines people's movements, the bourgeoisie is actually in a position to bring the world to an end. I think that's what we're facing is a global crisis of the Earth's system based on imperialism, based on settler colonialism, and exploitation of the Earth itself. And so I think it's not just preparing for individual survival in those circumstances. We have to think about really how we can put an end to a system that's destroying the basis for life on the planet. And so I think that those are critical understandings. And the turn towards fascism that we're seeing across the...you know, Anti-Racist Action's analysis has always been that fascism is built from above and below and that there are forces within society. I think particularly because settler colonialism is a mass base for fascism in this country, as well as an elite preference for it under the kind of circumstances that we're looking at, in which, you know, as I said the basis for life itself has been damaged by imperialism, capitalism, and its manifestations. And so the need for extreme repressive measures, and for genocidal approaches, and exterminationist approaches are at hand. So, I think that, again, I think that the question of preparation is preparation for those kinds of circumstances. I think we're living in a kind of low intensity civil war situation already, in which you see the use of violence by the State, obviously, but also by non state forces that people have to deal with. So I think that that's the overall approach that I think we need to think about. And that comes out of, as I said, decades of doing work. I think that there are a few key things that we have to understand about this system, which is that it's not just issues that we face, but there is an enemy, there is a system that is trying to propagate and sustain itself that is inimical to life and inimical to freedom. And that if we want to protect our lives and the lives of other species and if we want to protect people's freedom going forward, we have to recognize that there's an irreconcilable contradiction between those things and between the system that we live in. So that's kind of a sobering perspective. But, I think it's an important one. Inmn 06:20 Yeah, yeah, no, it is. And it's funny, something that you said, kind of made a gear turn in my head. So, you know, normally, yeah, we do talk about in preparing to live like the world is dying, we do usually come at it from this context of that being a bad thing that we need to prepare for bad things to happen. But, the way you were talking about like fascism and empire and stuff, I suddenly thought, "Wait, maybe we should live like that world is dying and like there is something better ahead." Because, you know, we do like to approach the show from...I feel like we like to talk about the bad things that are happening and could happen but also the hopefulness and like the brighter futures that we can imagine. Michael 07:15 I think that's right. And I think it's really important to have both of those understandings. I think that, you know, people do not actually get well organized out of despair. I think they do, you know, you want to have...You know, there used to be a group called Love and Rage. And you have to have both those aspects. You have to have the rage against the machine and the rage against the system that's destroying people, but you have to have the love, you have to have that sense of solidarity and the idea of a culture of not just resistance but a culture of liberation and a culture of solidarity. And I think that, you know, there's a dialectic between the power of the State and the power of these oppressive forces and the power of the people and to the extent that the people can exert their power and to the extent that we can free ourselves from the, you know, the chains of mental slavery is...[Sings a sort of tune] you hear in reggae, you know, that actually weakens the power of the State and the power of the corporations. And they [the State] understand that sometimes better than we do. So there is, you know, there's some lessons I feel like I've learned and one of them is that every time there is a liberatory movement based out of people's experiences and the contradictions that are experienced in their lives, whether it's the gay liberation movement, women's liberation movement, or Black liberation and freedom struggle, there's always an attempt by the rulers to take that over and to reintegrate it into, you know, bourgeois ways of thinking. And, you know, people talk about hegemony and the idea that ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class, and I think that, you know, I've seen it happen over and over again with different movements. And so, you know, I was involved with the Bay Area gay liberation in the 80s and, you know, one of the things that happened there is that you saw very quickly a different language coming up and different issues coming up. And so suddenly the question of gays in the military was put forward, or we have to be concerned about the fact that gay people have to hide when they're in the military, and the question of normalizing gay relationships in the contract form of marriage came forward. And those were basically efforts to circumscribe and contain the struggle for gay liberation and to break down gender binaries and stuff within the confines of bourgeois conceptions of rights and bourgeois integration into militarism and contractual economic relationships. And you saw that over and over again in terms of the Women's Liberation Movement, and then all of a sudden you've got bourgeois feminism and white white feminism. And I think that that's really important to understand because it means that there's a struggle inside every movement to grasp the contradiction that...and to maintain a kind of self determined analysis and strategy for how that movement is going to carry itself forward in opposition to what the rulers of this society--who rely heavily on, as I say, white supremacy, male supremacy, settler colonialism, and its manifestations--to try to contain and suppress insurrectionary...And you see the same thing within the preparedness movement. There's the dominant politics of the preparedness movement I think that I've seen over many years are actually white supremacist. They're maintaining the homestead of settler colonial land theft. So you have to understand that that's a contradiction in that movement that has to be faced and overcome and struggled with. I think having an understanding is critical to really trying to chart a path forward that will kind of break...create wedge issues on our side of the of the ledger, so to speak, and begin to break people away from identification with the Empire, identification with whiteness, identification with privilege. And, you know, one of the issues I've had over a long time, for example, what I struggle for is people's understanding about the question of privilege. You know, I come out of the...as I said, there were struggles in the 60s and early 70s about what we called white skin privilege. And I think that it's critical to understand that privilege functions throughout the system all the time. It's not a burden of guilt, it's a mechanism of social control. And anything you have as privilege can be taken away. Privilege is a mechanism of actually obtaining consent and adherence to...You know, parents use privileges with their kids to try to get their kids to do what they want. Teachers use privilege with students to get the students to do what they want, Prison guards use privileges with prisoners to get the prisoners to follow the rules and stay incarcerated. And so, you know, that's a mechanism of Imperial domination, of settler colonialism, and certainly within that context. So, it's not an illness or a...It's not something to be guilty about. It's something to contend with and deal with and understand that if there are things you have as privileges that you think are used by right or by merit, you're deluding yourself and you can't actually function facing reality. So when you understand that they are privileges, you understand that they're there to obtain your consent and your adherence, and your compliance, your complicity, your complacency, and then you have to actually resist those privileges or turn those privileges into weapons that you can use to actually weaken the powers that be. And I think that that approach is important to understand that, you know...I used to do a lot of work with people in the Philippines struggle, and they talked about the fact that, you know, on some of the...outside the US Army bases that were imposed in the Philippines, there was a rank order of privilege, like where people could dig in the garbage dumps of the US military to get better quality stuff that was being thrown out by the military. And so that kind of hierarchy and sense of organizing people by by hierarchy, by privilege, is how the system functions at every level. In the workplace they find different privileges that people have to try to divide workers from each other and get people to struggle for privilege as opposed to actually struggle for solidarity and resistance and a different world. And I think that having that understanding begins to free people. Steven Biko was the leader of the Black Consciousness Movement in South Africa that really helped propel it moving forward. One of the things he said is that, "The greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the minds of the oppressed." And, you know, I think to the extent that we can start to free our minds of these structures, we can actually begin to weaken the oppressor and strengthen the struggling and creative powers and energies of people to really build a different world. Inmn 14:00 Yeah, yeah. Sorry, this is gonna seem like a silly question because it feels very basic. But, I love to kind of break things down into their base levels. But, what is fascism? Michael 14:11 Yeah, good question. I think that an important analysis of fascism that I came across is from Cesare Amè. And what he said is that, "Fascism is the application in the metropole (of the colonizing power) of the methods of rule that have been used in the colonies." I think that that has a critical understanding because, as I said, the US is a separate colonial system, so elements of fascism have always been present within the political, economic, and social structure of the United States because they're internally colonized people and stolen land. So, if you're looking at elements of fascism, there's hyper masculinity, there's hyper nationalism, there's obviously slave labor, there's incorporation of a mass base into kind of a visceral identification with a leader. And all of those things really have manifest themselves in US history before we used the term, "fascism." And so, the US is based on land theft, on genocide, on exterminationist policies towards the indigenous people, the enslavement of African people, and also on the incorporation of a mass base based on settler colonialism and the offering of privileges to a sector of the population to say, "Okay, you know, we're going to participate along with the rulers in this system." And so I think that it's important to get that understanding because people often think that fascism is an aberration or it's a particularly extreme form of dictatorial rule or something like that. But I think that it's really a way of trying to reorganize people's personalities around their role within an empire and within, you know, it's trying to control the way people think, and control the way people see themselves in relation to other people. And so, you know, that's why I think that idea that fascism is built from above and below is important because we do see fascist elements that have some contradictions with the state. And we've seen, for example, in January 6th. You know, the government has gone after certain of these elements because they have moved too quickly. Or, the same way that there were premature antifascists during the World War II period and they went after the people in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Sometimes there are sort of premature proto-fascist in this society that have contradictions with the State, and they're operating somewhat independently. So, you know, I think that it's important to understand that and that there are elements in the State and within the different sections of the State that have their own operative plan. So, you know, when you look at the question of police abuse and police brutality, there's one approach to it that certain elements in the State take, which is about command and control. They want to make sure that they control the police forces and that individual officers are not acting independently but are carrying out cohesive state strategies. At the same time, there are elements within law enforcement that are trying to organize individual cops for organized white supremacy. And, it's the same thing in the military. And so there are contradictions there that we have to be aware of, but at the same time, they're operating within a framework of settler colonialism, of organized white supremacy, So, one of the things that's come up recently, for example, is this idea that there...how can there be non-white white supremacists? And, you know, I think it has to do with the fact that it's not just your identity, or your racial identity that's there but who do you...What's your identification? Are you identifying with the Empire? Are you identifying with the bourgeois? Are you identifying with the settler colonial project that has shaped, really, the whole globe over the course of half a millennium? Or, are you identifying with the indigenous? Are you identifying with the struggling people? And it's less a...It's not a question of your particular skin color but which side of the line are you on? Inmn 18:12 How does attempts by the State or by society to kind of like assimilate various oppressed people into the Empire? Like, how does that kind of factor factor into this? Michael 18:24 Well, if you look at the history of, let's say, Central America is one case in point, that there were fascist forces in Central America and their base was not really within their own society. Their base was within the Empire. And so, you had death squads operating, you had mercenaries operating, you had contras [counter revolutionaries] operating in Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, carrying out genocidal policies, in many cases, against indigenous people and people of African descent within their own societies. And so, you know, that's not exactly fascism in the same way, but it certainly is aspects of police state and death squad activity that has to be resisted. So I think that, you know, when you see Enrique Tarrio and some of these people that are, quote unquote, "Hispanic," operating as proto-fascists with the Proud Boys or these other formations in the United States that's a manifestation of the same thing, that there are people who have identified themselves with a system of white supremacy and a system of domination, a system of exploitation, and they're trying to make their own individual piece with it and they have collective mechanisms that reinforce that. And they see...So, you know, I think that the fascism has presented itself at times as a decolonizing element in Latin America and Asia and other places where...For example, when the Japanese Empire was trying to strengthen itself and formed an alliance with Italian fascism and German Nazism, they also presented themselves in Asia as liberators of Asia from European colonialism. And, you know, then they carried out atrocities of their own in China, Indochina, and Korea. So, I think that nobody is exempt from this. It's not a genetic factor. It is what ideology...What's the organizing principle that people are operating under to form their society and generate their power? If that's militaristic, if it's hierarchical, if it's exploitative, then regardless of what the skin tone of somebody carrying that out is, it can be fascistic in its nature. Inmn 20:44 Yeah, I like something that you said earlier, which I think is an interesting frame. So, I feel like people in the United States, you might hear people like, talk about the rise of fascism, or the like, emergence of fascism, as if it's this new thing, you know? And I like how you read it, in the formation of the United States as a nationalistic identity with this idea that fascism has always been here, fascism has always been a part of the settler colonial project of the United States. Michael 21:27 Well, I was gonna follow up that is if you look at the countries in which fascism came to power in Europe, they were mainly countries where they felt they were not adequate empires in their own right. In other words, Spain, even Portugal, France, England, you know, had empires. Germany came late to imperialism. And even to the formation of a German state, the German bourgeoisie was not able to really unify all the Germans into a single nation. Same thing with Italy. Italy was, you know, a bunch of kind of mini states and city states and came late to the formation of a national sense of Italy. And so I think that fascism presented itself as a overarching ideology that could galvanize a nation and launch it into an imperial mode where it could compete with other empires. So the US context is a little different because, as I say, from the very beginning it had that element of settler colonialism and cross-class alliance in which not only the bourgeoisie but even working people could be induced to participate in that project of land theft and genocide. There's a famous book called "How the Irish Became White" by Noel Ignatiev who talked about, you know, how white supremacy affected Irish workers. And what he didn't really look at was that there was some Irish involved right from the very beginning and trying to overturn the land relationships between settlers. They wanted, you know, there was a land theft and a land hunger that they had, and so, for example, even before the question of relation between Irish workers and Black workers came up, there were Irish in the United States that wanted to overturn the agreements that had been reached in Pennsylvania between the Quakers and the indigenous people in Pennsylvania. The Irish wanted land and they wanted to participate in taking that land from the native people. And then that had repercussions back in Ireland itself because that the US Empire and those land thefts then affected the consciousness of the Irish within Ireland itself and weaken the Irish struggle for independence from British colonialism because there was a safety valve of the US Empire. And so I think that it's critical to look at these things because it gives us a sense of what is at stake at different times and what's at issue. And I think that looking at the question of decolonization, looking at the question of solidarity and unity, is the flip sides to this. If we only look at the power of the bourgeois, if we look at the power of the fascists, it can be intimidating or overwhelming or depressing. And I think that that's the...You know, when you talk about preparedness and some of these things, you're talking about what are the generative powers of the people themselves because Imperialism and Capitalism are based on a kind of parasitical relationship. They're extracting wealth from the Earth itself and from the labor of people and turning it into a power over the Earth and over the people. And I think that understanding that actually all that wealth that the system has, all the power that the system has is actually coming out of the people who are oppressed and exploited in the land gives us a sense of what our own powers are and what our own capacity to be creative and generative are. To the extent we exercise those, it weakens them. And I think that that's a critical understanding. Inmn 25:16 Yeah. Are there ways that fascism is currently manifesting that feel different from say, I don't know, like 40 years ago? Michael 25:29 Well, I think the whole phenomenon of social media and the way in which they very effectively organized these Neofascist forces through the gaming...hypermasculine gaming stuff and, you know, I think...We talked a little bit about the..I think the reason that people approached me to do this podcast had to do with my essay in "¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis." And so that's a piece where I talked about, you know, some of this history of different struggles and how they...what lessons to extract from them. But the other book I've been working on and put out recently, is called "The Blue Agave Revolution: Poetry of the Blind Rebel." This was a book...I was approached by Oso Blanco, an indigenous political prisoner here in the United States who was involved with actually robbing banks to support the Zapatistas in Mexico, and he was getting "Turning the Tide," the newspaper I've been working on for many years that we send free to prisoners, and he approached me. He wanted to work on a book and he said he wanted me to work on the book with him. And he had..."The Poetry of the Blind Rebel" is a story arc and poetry arc of his work that is a story about the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century, the 1910s-1920. It's kind of magical realism. But, he asked me to write some fiction. And so I wrote kind of a short story cycle of a three way fight between vampires, zombies, and humans. And the vampires are basically--I mean, it's Dracula--but, you know, there's one point where there's a woman who has been trying to grapple with this and she forms a cross with two wooden tent stakes and he kind of laughs and says, "Oh, you bought that old wive's tale. We totally integrated into the church and into the State," you know. Basically, the vampires represent the bourgeoisie because they [the bourgeoisie] are vampiric and parasitic and they have powers. The zombies in this story are a group of incels that have captured a vampire and they think that they can create a potion from vampire blood that will give them power over women and make them...you know...And instead, they turn themselves into zombies. And so then there's a sort of three way fight between the bourgeoisie on the one hand, these vampires, the fascists from below, these sort of incel zombies that have to eat brains, and then the humans who are trying to deal with both of them. And I think that that's an important understanding that, you know, there are contradictions between the vampires and zombies but they're both our enemy. And so, I think that that's an approach that we have to understand that they're....You know, it's not a simple linear equation that's going on. There's a lot of things happening. I think that the fascists from below have contradictions with the fascists above, and we can take advantage of that. And then...but, we have to understand that their, you know, it's not...I think there are weaknesses...[Trails off] Let me go back to this. You know, historically, people have talked about antifascism and anti-imperialism, and there's been an element in both of those of class collaboration. A lot of people in the anti-imperialist movement think, "Oh, well, there's a sort of a national bourgeoisie that also doesn't like the Empire and wants to exert itself. And we have to ally with them. And a lot of people in antifascist movements have thought, "Oh, well, there's, you know, bourgeois Democrats who also hate fascism," and I think that those have been weaknesses historically. And also the contradiction between people who concentrate mostly antifascism, the people who concentrate mostly on anti-imperialism has weakened people's movements. I think having a kind of overarching understanding that fascism is rooted in Empire, particularly in settler colonialism, and that there isn't a contradiction. We have to find the forces of popular resistance that will overturn both fascism and imperialism...and capitalism. And, that we have to, you know, have a self determined struggle for decolonization and recognize people's self determination in their own struggles and their own capacity to live in a different way and to begin to create, you know, the solidarity forever, we say, you know, "Build a new world from the ashes of the old." And, I think that in terms of my own work, I've tried to--although, you might think I'm aging out at this point, but I've been involved at every point that there's an upsurge in struggle. I've tried to participate in that as part of Occupy LA. And more recently, I've been involved with some of the dual power organizing that's going on. And I don't know how much your people are familiar with that, but it is a conception related to, let's say, Cooperation Jackson, in Mississippi, where they're trying to figure out ways of organizing themselves economically and also resisting the power of the State. And so I was at the Dual Power Gathering that took place in Indiana last summer and there's one on the West Coast that's coming up in the Portland area. Inmn 31:06 Yeah, could you explain what--for our listeners--what is dual power? Michael 31:11 Yeah, so dual power is the concept that we have a power and we can exercise that power, and within the framework of this contemporary society, which is so destructive, we can begin to generate and exercise that power, and that there's, as I said, a kind of dialectic between the power of the people and the power of the State, and the corporations, and the power of the fascist, and that the different prefigurative elements of the kind of society we want to live in in the future can be created now. And, that as we exercise that power, it weakens the power of the State. It weakens the power of the bourgeoisie and the power of the imperialists. I went to that Dual Power Gathering in Indiana--I mean, it's not my bio region, but I did used to live in Chicago--and I felt some affinities with it. You know, they were...To talk about the idea of, you know, what's the relationship between dual power and our three-way fight, with a different conception with what the three-way fight is, that we are having to contend with two different enemies, you know, these fascists from below and the fascist from above, the State, and corporate power, and then also right-wing elements. And I think that in terms of both of those, we have to understand what are the powers that we have to organize ourselves to, as they say, to apply the generative and regenerative powers to...So that people have a sense of what they're fighting for. It's not just anti-this and anti-that. So for example, the newspaper I've worked in for many years, "Turning the Tide," originally, we called it the "Journal of Anti-Racist Action," or "Anti-Racist Action Edcuation & Research," and then we changed the subtitle a few years ago to, "The Journal of Intercommunal Solidarity," in the sense that you have to say what you're fighting for? What are we trying to build? What are we trying to create? What are we creating? And how does that give us the capacity to continue to resist and continue to shape the future, not just react always to what they're doing but actually have a proactive, generative stance. And so, you know, people's creative cultural expressions, people's capacity to do permaculture in urban environments or many other things like that, that say, that we want to restore the biological diversity, you know. We want to restore the capacity of the soil. We want to restore the clarity of the water and the air in the process of struggling for our own liberation. And that, you know, those are things that can happen and must happen now. We can't wait for some revolution that will happen in the future in which you know, we'll create a better world. We have to start in the context and the interstices of the system in the place that people are being pulverized. And so, you know, in Los Angeles, people are involved in various kinds of mutual aid work and working with the homeless, working with people being evicted to take over homes and restore them. And I think all those manifestations, that's the question of dual power there. We're looking at the incapacity of the people ruling this society to actually meet basic human needs and we're trying to figure out how to meet them. So, I think that's where it coincides with this question of preparedness is that I think that is a sense that people have to rely on their own resources, their own energies, and understanding that there's a contradiction between the system, the way it functions, and its implications and impact on us. And it's incapacity, its powerlessness, to really protect people from the kinds of calamities it's creating, whether it's flooding, or firestorms, or, you know, all the other manifestations of this global crisis of the Earth's system that is growing out of Capitalism. We have to deal with that now. We can't wait, you know, till sometime in the future when we have, you know, "power," quote unquote, you know? We have the power to start to deal with it. Inmn 35:17 Yeah, and, I feel like there have been different ways that people have tried to do exactly that in the past. And I don't know, like, I'm thinking of a lot of the stuff that the Black Panthers were doing, like creating communities that they...like, declaring that they had power and that they had the power to build the communities that they wanted and to preserve those communities. And then they faced an incredible amount of repression, like, as much for arming themselves as for giving kids lunch and breakfast. And I'm wondering, in what ways does the State try to like...or in what ways has the State tried to destabilize dual power movements in the past? And what can we kind of expect them to do now? Or what are they doing now? Does that make sense? Michael 36:35 Yeah, I think there's always a two-pronged approach by the state. And, sometimes it's referred to as, "The carrot and the stick." You know, it's co-optation ad coercion. And so they always attempt both to control as they modify people's thinking and try to create bourgeois alternatives to liberatory thinking and liberatory organizing. And then simultaneously, they have the repressive aspects, the criminalization of those efforts. And so in relation to the Black Panther Party, for example, they were simultaneously pushing what they called Black Capitalism, and saying, "Oh, yes, you know, we'll give you, you know, we'll find the sector of Black community that can integrate into the system." And then, along with that, they were carrying out COINTELPRO, which was a war strategy of creating contradictions inside Black Liberation organizations, setting one against the other, trying to execute and/or incarcerate people who were not willing to compromise their principles. So I think we have to be aware that you're seeing the same thing go on around policing issues. You know, they constantly want to put forward different reforms and accountability measures and ways that people can participate in civilian oversight mechanisms that really don't do anything. And at the same time, they're, you know, attacking people who are doing Copwatch or groups like the Stop LAPD Spying Network, which has exposed a lot of stuff about this constantly being targeted. So, I think that those, that the two-pronged approach by the State is something we have to be very aware of. It's not only coercion and criminalization and repression, but it's also co-optation and, you know, giving people individual solutions and mechanisms that are...they call it the nonprofit industrial complex, you know, this whole mechanism of structures that are set up to get people involved in grant writing and looking to philanthropists to somehow support them in their work. And I think that trying..You know, one of the things the Black Panther Party did was it had its own self generated funding by going to the base community they were trying to organize in, talking to small shopkeepers, and talking to churches, and trying to integrate that into these Liberatory efforts. So, I think that, you know, looking at that model, when I started doing, for example, People Against Racist Terror, there were a lot of small anti-racist groups around the country and a lot of them ended up going the route of looking for grants and looking for nonprofit organizations that they could fold themselves into, and I think that that kind of denatured them. They became, you know...As opposed to being grassroots, they became board and staff organizations, and individuals would create careers out of it. And I think that that mechanism of transforming popular movements into nonprofit organizations or nongovernmental organizations that accommodate themselves to existing power structures, existing economic realities, is one of the things that we need to try to avoid happening in this current period. Inmn 40:18 That makes that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, it's, it's funny, because I feel like I'm seeing a lot of groups involved in mutual aid, who are, I think, taking that lesson of the nonprofit industrial complex but are also trying to access larger swaths of money than the communities that they're part of can provide, like this model of, it's important to involve your community base in those things and to generate those things ourselves, but there is this problem sometimes of like, you're passing the hat and the same 20 people are kicking into the bail fund. And I don't know, I think maybe this is just me being hopeful, but I'm seeing a lot of mutual aid groups kind of dip into grant writing or dip into utilizing nonprofit statuses more so than structures in order to access funding and things like that. But what I'm seeing is people coming at it from like, hopefully, what is a different perspective of taking these lessons of the past and being like, "Well, we don't want to become some horrifying, large nonprofit, but we do want the State to give us 10 grand so that we can build infrastructure. Like I guess my question is, are there ways to responsibly interact with that? Or is this a trap? Michael 41:57 I guess I'd have hear more details. I think it's imperative that it has to come from below and from the grassroots. I think that, you know, I've been involved with the opposite, for example, Pacifica Radio, and Pacifica is listener sponsored radio and is a constant struggle about how much can we accept cooperation of broadcasting funding. They cut us off some years ago and we're trying to get it back Or, there's struggles about trying to get some underwriting. It depends who you're accountable to for the money that you're getting. Are you accountable primarily to the funder? Are you accountable primarily to the people who are using that money and the people who are self organizing for community power and community sustainability, and, you know, some of the things we're talking about of self determined strategies. And, you know, I do think that what happened to a lot of the 60s movements is that there was an ebb in the mass movement. And then people made their separate peace. People were like flotsam and jetsam as the tide of people's power movements were negatively impacted because of white supremacy, male supremacy, COINTELPRO, and an inadequate response to deal with it. Then, you know, people ended up in labor unions where they were doing some good work, but basically they became part of a labor bureaucracy where they ended up in government social services/ They were doing some good work, but they became part of that mechanism. So, I think the critical thing is trying to keep control of what's going on in the hands of the people who are actually organizing themselves and their communities. Inmn 43:55 Yeah. No, that makes sense. What are strategies that we should be embracing for countering this current current escalation in fascist tendencies? Michael 44:10 Well, you know, I've done a lot of work over the years, and as I say, "Turning the Tide" is a newspaper, we send a couple of thousand copies almost every issue into the prisons and we're in touch with a lot of stuff that's going on in the prisons. And I think that that's a critical place to look for some understanding about how to deal with this because we do see under what are essentially very naked fascist conditions of domination inside the prisons, which are very hierarchical. There's a lot of negative activity within the prisons themselves. There's the power of the guards and the wardens in the system and yet you find struggles going on against racism, against sexism, for solidarity against the solitary confinement of people who have been victims of torture are organizing themselves. And I think that understanding of that capacity and looking at that, those are some of the leading struggles in the United States. There have been hunger strikes, there have been labor strikes, the Alabama Prisoners Movement [Free Alabama Movement] here in California and elsewhere. And I think that sense that people under the most severe repression are actually capable of making human connections among themselves and beginning to actually, in a self critical way, look at how they incorporated toxic masculinity and racism into their own approach to reality, and by beginning to purge themselves of those things, they can begin to create multiracial solidarity among all prisoners to actually resist the conditions of incarceration and resist enslavement. So I think that that's very important to look at. I think that here in Los Angeles, there are, as they say, organizations like LACAN, that are working among homeless people and with homeless people to organize themselves to have street watches. They have a community garden on the roof of a building. They have cultural expression. They have theatrical groups...coral...You know, it's like all those things connect people's love and rage, as I say, people's ability to generate creative cultural expression and to use that to strengthen their solidarity and their unity and their ability to resist the coercive power of the State or the police sweeps or to expose what's going on and begin to put out a challenge to the way that society is organized. So I think that those are some critical things. I think that having the capacity to defend ourselves, both physically and also legally is very very important. I think that if you look at stuff like the Stop Cop City struggle that the escalation of repression and the use of charges of terrorism on people that are obviously not terrorists is indicates that the State sees this as a very, very serious threat and is trying to eradicate it and is trying to intimidate people. And I think to the extent that we can turn that around and use it to say to people, you know, "Is this the kind of State you want to live in? Is this the kind of society you want to have?" is a way to begin to change minds and hearts of people who have been going along with the system. I lived through a whole period where we freed many many political prisoners. We freed Bobby. We freed Huey. We freed Angela. And, you know, even the Panther 21 in New York, you know, it's like the jury met for about 30 minutes and acquitted them all because the power of those organized forces affected the consciousness of the jurors. And I think that understanding that we actually have the power to begin to shape not just own consciousness, to ways that struggle with people, to, "Which side are you on?" and to give people a sense that there is a side that they can identify with and become part of, and transform their own lives, and transform society in the process of doing that. So, I think, you know, for example, the stuff around preparedness is vital that, you know, we're living in a world in which there are incredibly destructive wildfires, floods, tornadoes, and it's very clear that the state is incapable of even dealing with it after the fact, let alone preventing it. And so I think that gives us an opening to talk to very wide sectors of the population in cities and in rural areas as well. I think that, you know, for example, Anti-Racist Action Network in its heyday had hundreds of chapters around the country in small towns because young people were, in their own high schools and music scenes, were suddenly faced with this threat of fascism and said, "Hey, we have to get organized." And so I think that, you know, we need to see these things as opportunities to really very massively begin to engage with people and begin to offer an alternative way of thinking about the world that gives some hope and some prospect of dealing not just with the crises and the repression but a way forward for people. Inmn 49:48 Yeah, yeah. And that kind of ties into--I love that you use this phrase. We've had this phrase come up lot with Cindy Milstein, who we've interviewed on the podcast before and who we've published their newest book last year, "Try Anarchism For Life," and they talk a lot about prefigurative organizing and prefigurative spaces. And I think this kind of ties into what you're talking about, but I was wondering if you could kind of give us your take on the importance of building prefigurative spaces? Michael 50:31 Yeah, I think that we have to find ways to bring people together and to give people a sense, as I say, of our own power and our own creative and generative capacity. So I think that that says that whether it's free schools, or it's breakfast for children, or any of the things that the Black Panther Party did and that many other people of color movements did in a certain period are here at our disposal. I know that, for example, there's a crisis in childcare and child rearing that's going on and so organizing people into childcare collectives and people jointly taking responsibility for each other's children and creating trust relationships that make people feel comfortable with that would be one example of that. In food deserts, organizing people to break up some sidewalks and grow some food and I think they're...One of the things that I've come to understand from doing this work for a long time is we live in a kind of fractal or holographic world in which the same contradictions are shot all the way through the system. It's at any level of magnification in fractals. If you look at the coast of Norway, something in the fjords, you know, it's the same pattern is reproduced at every level. And, you know, in a holographic image, any piece of the hologram has the whole hologram in it. So, I think that any area that people want to choose to struggle in, I think as long as they understand that they're struggling against the entirety of the system in that area and that there's an enmity built into that relationship between the system and we see what they're trying to do, I think that's the critical understanding. So if people are engaged in, you know, community gardens, as long as they understand that that's a piece of a larger struggle to create a world in which nature has, has space to reassert itself, and that people can eat different food and better food. And any area that you know, whether it's the struggle over transgender, nonbinary, or anything else, once people see that it's the same system throughout that they're struggling with, it lays a basis for solidarity, for unity, and for a struggle on many fronts simultaneously that says, you know, sort of the "War of the Flea," [A book on guerrilla warfare] the system is vulnerable in a million places because the system is in all those places simultaneously and, you know, they have a lot of money, a lot of power to deal with that, and they're organized in these systems of command and control and artificial intelligence and all the rest of it to keep track of everything, but we're in all those places simultaneously as well because we're everywhere. And trying to coordinate those things, I think, is very important. Inmn 53:51 This is a little bit of a backup that I remembered that I wanted to ask you about it. So, like, we're currently seeing like a pretty horrific and intense wave of legislation against against trans people and against queer people, and nonbinary people. And, yeah, I'm wondering what your take on that is as a kind of indicator, if we have to imagine like fascism as a spectrum of where we could be going, like what is that kind of legislation and repression an indicator of? Michael 54:38 Yeah, you know, I think that obviously fascism always tries to target the people they think are the most vulnerable. And also, as I say, I think they want to create what they see as wedge issues that they can use to divide people and segment people off. And so I think, to the extent that we can reverse that and we can try to unite people around a different conception. You know, one of the things that struck me is that you saw that they sort of had this victory with controlling the courts and overturning Roe v. Wade, for example. And, what that revealed was actually how narrow that really was, the forces that were pushing for that. Because then, you know, Nebraska and Kansas and these various states suddenly had electoral reinforcement of abortion rights happening. And I think the same thing can happen here. I think that there's so many families that they're concerned about their own kids or...and the parental rights. It reveals that these fault lines go through the whole system. That's what I'm trying to say is all of their power is based on repression and exploitation, and to the extent that people begin to see that and how it impacts on them, it opens up the vistas of possibility to say, you know, if you're concerned about your child's right to get the medical assistance they need, why is the State coming in to prevent you from doing that? And what are the interests that are trying to pick this as a threat to the stability of society? Inmn 56:46 And, yeah. Michael 56:48 So, you know, I think that since every crisis is an opportunity, I think the other thing I did want to talk about a little bit was the whole Covid pandemic, you know, going back to the prepper thing. I think you saw, again, you know, a lot of right-wing exploitation of that issue. And I think that the extent that we can get out ahead of that and look at...Okay, for example, in a society like Cuba, which had a completely different relationship to this because they're organized in a different way and, you know, they actually have a public health system and they actually created their own vaccines, not the ones from big pharma here in this country, and begin to get people to think about that and why Cuba is stigmatized by this society? Why are they embargoing Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, all these countries? You know, the connection to a global sense of what are the possibilities in the world? What are the prefigurative formations that are happening inside imperialism by countries that are actually resisting it? And so, if you look at, you know, the medical care system in Cuba, for example, you know, they have...Every neighborhood has a doctor that lives in the neighborhood--and nursing staff and other people--and [the doctor] works door to door with the people in that neighborhood to be concerned about their health and their well being not just, you know, responding to a particular medical crisis, and they have that systematized and they...So in that context, they were able to vaccinate people, not through coercive measures but through trusted people that were part of their community that could reassure them about the fact that they developed the vaccines themselves and that the Cuban pharmaceutical industry came out of their effort to deal with chemical and biological warfare by the United States. The US was like putting in swine fever as a way to destroy pigs that every family in Cuba had their own little pig to raise and, you know, supplement their food. And so they developed animal vaccines first to protect those animals and then they work their way up from there. So I think that that sense of, you know...I had a good friend recently who passed away from complications of diabetes and the Cubans have developed treatments for diabetes and to prevent amputation of limbs and other stuff. And all of that is unavailable to us because of the US imperialist embargo on Cuba and blockade. And giving people a sense that, you know, there actually are people living in the world in much better conditions. The United States is number one in incarceration, number one in many social ills, number one in overdose deaths, and, you know, on and on and on...number one in evictions. And we can begin to, you know, really give a sense to people that this system has nothing to offer them but destruction and that we have the capacity to create something different. Inmn 1:00:13 Yeah. Thanks. I have only to say that...yes. Yes to all of that. We are nearing the end...of the recording, not of the world. [Said as a dry joke] And, yeah, is there any any kind of last things that you want to say before--I'll ask you to plug anything that you want to plug at the end--I mean, that was such a beautiful wrap up, I feel like. But, if there's anything else you want to talk about, that we haven't talked about? Michael 1:00:45 Well, you know, years ago, I was part of a group in Berkeley that took over the California College of Arts and Crafts to create an anti-war poster making facility during the Vietnam War. And out of that group, there was a singing group called the Red Star Singers, and they had a song called "The Power of the People's the Force of Life." And I think we really have to have that sense. It's, you know, it is a dialectic. That's what I think the main thing I want to try to convey is that, you know, to the extent that we can build the people's power, it actually weakens that system. And, you know, just that sense that all the power that they have is actually derived from their exploitation and oppression of people. And that's our power, you know, manifest that against us. And if we take our power back, it actually does weaken them and increases our possibilities of struggling to for a different world. So, I will do the plugs. I, for 35 years, I've been working and I actually wanted to sort of break the story here. I'm looking for a collective that will take over "Turning the Tide." I've been putting it out for a long, long time. Volume 35 # 2 is just about to come out. It's up on antiracist.org. You can reach me at antiracistaction_ la@yahoo.com. But, you know, like I say, I'm 76. I'm currently the interim general manager of KPFK radio in Los Angeles and it's a huge time commitment. And I want I want to see the paper, you know, become, in some way or shape, institutionalized, to continue to meet, you know, send out the 1700-1800 copies to prisoners. And so, if anybody's interested in taking over that project and fulfilling that commitment, I'd love to hear from them. And then, as I say, I have a chapter in "¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis" edited by Shane Burley from AK Press. And I contributed a lot of material archival stuff and was interviewed extensively for "We Go Where They Go: The Story of Anti-Racist Action" from PM press. Two really, really important books and well worth reading. And then I did, self published and co-authored "The Blue Agave Revolution: The Poetry of the Blind Rebel" with Oso Blanco, Byron Shane Chubbuck. And you can get that again from Anti-Racist Action. So it's PO Box 1055, Culver City, California 90232. And online, just Antiracist.org. Inmn 1:03:27 Wonderful, in "The Blue Agave Revolution," is that Is that where we can find your short story about the three-way fight between vampires, zombies and humans? Michael 1:03:37 It's a kind of a novella. There's about seven chapters of a longer thing. And there's also a shorter one about a group of teenage mutants called Black Bloc, that they have these kind of minor powers. One of them can, you know, it's Jackpot and Crackpot. Crackpot can kind of break out of anything and Jackpot can just affect the odds slightly in their favor and a bunch of other young people, nonbinary and so on. But they're also some different essays of mine in there and a lot of poetry and, yeah...Just the mathematics of the enormity of social economic inequality. People don't understand exactly what it is, but essentially, about 45% of the US population has the equivalent of 50 cents in assets. You know, people don't understand exactly what the class divide and the contradictions inside the society are, you know. We're we're duped into thinking that this is the richest country on the face of the Earth and the most powerful, you know. There's an enormous, hidden social cost and pain behind that and we have to figure out how to galvanize that into the power that actually those people possess and the creativity that they have. Inmn 1:05:03 Yeah. Great. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Yeah, of course. And I'll we'll drop links to all the things that you mentioned in the show notes for people to find. And yeah, thank you. Michael 1:05:23 Okay. Take care. Have a great day. Inmn 1:05:25 You too. Inmn 1:05:26 Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, then go out and live like the Empire is dying. And then tell us about it. And if you'd like to support this podcast, you can do so by telling people about it. You can support this podcast by talking about it on social media, rating, and reviewing, and doing whatever the nameless algorithm calls for. But, if you'd like to support us in other sillier ways, you can also support us on Patreon at patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness, which is our publisher. Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness is a radical media publishing collective that puts out this podcast as well as a few other podcasts. Our Patreon helps pay for things like transcriptions or our lovely audio editor, Bursts, who is the host of The Final Straw, as well as going on to support Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness and a few of the other podcasts we put out like our monthly anarchist literature podcast Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, as well as the Anarcho Geek Power Hour, which is a podcast for people who love movies and hate cops. 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Summary This month on Strangers, we have a guest interviewer. Shane Burley interviews Anna Elena Torres and Kenyon Zimmer about their book "With Freedom in our Ears: Histories of Jewish Anarchism." Guest Info Shane Burley (he/him) is an author and filmmaker. He is the editor of No Pasarán! Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis. Twitter: @shane_burley1 IG: @ShaneBurley Kenyon Zimmer (he/him) is an Associate Professor of History at the University of Texas at Arlington. He is the author of Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America. You can find him at https://kenyonzimmer.com/ Anna Elena Torres is a professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago and author of Horizons Blossom, Borders Vanish: Anarchism and Yiddish Literature. You can find Anna at https://complit.uchicago.edu/faculty/torres Publisher This podcast is published by Strangers In A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org or on Twitter @tangledwild. You can support this show by subscribing to our Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness Our Kickstarter for Penumbra City can be found here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/penumbra-city/penumbra-city Host The Host is Inmn Neruin. You can find them on instagram @shadowtail.artificery The Reader is Bea Flowers. You can find them here. Reader The reader is Bea Flowers. It can be found at https://www.voices.com/profile/beaflowers Theme music The theme song was written and performed by Margaret Killjoy. You can find her at http://birdsbeforethestorm.net or on twitter @MagpieKilljoy.

Episode Summary This week on Live Like the World is Dying, Emily and Margaret talk about organizing against fascists while the Eye of Sauron is upon us. Emily breaks down the history of some far-right groups in the US as well as the history of opposition to them. She talks about how to organize against neo-Nazis, the interconnections of antifascism and transness, the perils of seeking asylum, and how to hunt Nazis and win. Guest Info Emily (she/her) can be found out in the world winning. Or, she can be found on Twitter @EmilyGorcenski or at www.emilygorcenski.com Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. 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: Emily on Antifascist Organizing & Hunting Nazis Margaret: Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcasts what feels like the end times. I'm when your host, Margaret Killjoy, and today I'm excited. I guess I say that every single time that I'm excited. But it's actually true. I really...I wouldn't interview people if I wasn't excited about it. Today, we're going to talk about antifascism. There's going to be a couple of weeks--I don't actually know what order they're gonna come out--And maybe you've already heard me talking about antifascism recently, but nothing feels more important in terms of community preparedness than stopping fascism. So, that's what we're going to talk about today. And today, we're going to talk with someone who was involved in organizing the counter protests in Charlottesville, the anti-Nazi side of Charlottesville, and has had to deal with the ramifications of that. And I think you'll get a lot out of it. But first, we're proud member of the Channel Zero Network of anarchists podcasts and here's a jingle from another show on the network da da duh da da. [humming a made up melody] Margaret: Alright, if you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns, and then I guess, a vague overview of who you are and why I had you on today. Emily: My name is Emily Gorcenski. She and her. And I am an activist from Charlottesville. I had called Charlottesville my home for about eight years before the infamous Unite the Right rally happened. And that sort of called me to anti- fascism. In the wake of all of that, I also started initiatives to digitally hunt Nazis and track them down, expose them, and understand how their networks operate, how their movements form and grow and evolve, and have been involved in sort of organizing against fascism for the last several years. Margaret: Awesome. This is going to be good stuff that we're going to talk about. Well, bad stuff, I suppose. So the Unite the Right rally, what was that? I mean? It's funny because it feels like it was either yesterday or 15 years ago. Emily: Yeah, both of those. It was both of those. Unite the Right was what a lot of people call "Charlottesville." It was the big neo-Nazi rally in August of 2017, August 11th and 12th to be precise, and it was one of several neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville. It was the biggest and got the most news coverage. During that summer...Locally, we call it the "summer of hate." We don't like to use the word "Charlottesville" to describe the moment in time because we are still a community, but it was the moment that you saw everything from the neo-Nazis marching with the swastika, to the terror attack, to Donald Trump saying there were very fine people on both sides. Margaret:Yeah, kind of it feels like the moment that sort of kicked off the modern Nazi-right. Like it feels like their big coming out party, their gender reveal--if Nazis a gender. I don't know if it's...Nazi might not be a gender. I hate to disrespect people's gender, but that might be not on the list. And I don't know what color they would use for fireworks. But it... Okay, so it feels like their coming-out, right, like it was this thing. And I'm kind of curious what your take on it is because from where I'm at it seems like kind of a little different than stuff had gone before and a lot of bad things happened. A lot of very bad things happened and we can talk about some of those things. But, it felt like kind of this like aberration. Everyone was like--I mean, except the president the US--everyone was like, "Oh fuck, that's bad. We don't like this. This is bad when Nazis march down the street with torches chanting, 'Jews will not replace us.'" Clearly this is bad. But it feels like...it does feel like it kind of worked for them to kick them off into the mainstream. Like it. It doesn't feel Like their movement has shrink since then, I guess I will say. Emily: I think it's a complicated. Yeah, that's a complicated topic. If you look at the history of what led up to Unite the Right, there were a number of neo-Nazi rallies, sort of the ascendance of the alt-right throughout the country, right. So we had Richard Spencer growing in prominence and forming the alt-right movement. We had these groups like Identity Europa and Vanguard America, and Traditionalist Worker Party. And all of them were sort of, they're holding these rallies all over the country, right. There were some in Pikeville, and there are some in in Huntington Beach, California, and there was some in in Berkeley, right, the the sort of infamous battles of Berkeley. And all of these events were sort of in the months around, I don't know, anywhere from one month before or two months before to a year, year and a half before, right. And this is sort of aligned with the ascendance of Donald Trump, the sort of hard shift right in American politics, the reaction to a lot of things, including Obergefell, the court case that legalized gay marriage, and two terms of a black man being president, right, there are a lot of factors that kind of started to swirl together and formed this vortex of the alt-right. And what happened in Unite the right was, this was...it was almost like that moment in an orchestra where everything was tuning up beforehand, right? You know, there was like the smaller rallies, there was some violence, there were some, you know, definitely some things that are fairly scary, but it was isolated. And it was easy for people to ignore. What happened in Charlottesville, everything came together. And when we saw on the night of August 11th, at the University of Virginia, the Nazis marching with the torches and chanting, "You will not replace us," and eventually, "Jews will not replace us," all of that started to come together to be like that moment that the orchestra starts playing, right. And I think ironically, August 11th was also their high watermark. Because even though we have seen fascism grow in power since then, the dynamics are much more complicated because those groups that organized and participated in Unite the Right have essentially been destroyed and that movement has essentially been destroyed. And so what we see is actually something that's morphing. And I think that's a much more important thing to understand. Margaret: Okay, that makes sense. That does kind of--because I don't hear people talking about the alt-right anymore, right? And a lot of the individual groups that made up yeah Unite the Right like, died, like the part of the Lord of the Rings, where the orc grabs the barrel of dynamite and runs towards the wall and blows up--maybe that...I think that was Lord of the Rings--to bring down the wall or whatever. Like because we don't talk about the alt-right anymore. We talked about the right wing. And now but it does seem like the right wing is now doing the things that the alt-right used to do. Like, why is it--I'm asking this like half earnestly and half to get a an answer from you--but like, why is it we got rid of, we voted out the far right politician and now things are going further and further right, even though he's gone. Does that relate to all of this? Emily: I think I think it does, right? So it's all about movement and counter-movement. We defeated the alt-right. We killed the alt-right. The alt-right didn't die. It didn't die of its own accord. it was killed. it was killed through through antifascist organizing, it was killed through through criminal charges being brought against key players, it was killed through alt-right people committing mass shootings and the movement being unable to recruit, and it was killed through civil court cases even. So there was a number of factors that killed that movement, but Margaret: I take back my comparison the to the Lord of the Rings guy. Emily: The thing about the alt-right, though, is that it doesn't need to exist anymore. Its purpose was simply to set an anchor point that everything else can be sort of tied around, right? And so actually what you see if you look at, over time. at these dynamics, you know, 2015, 2016, 2017, you had the alt-right movement on its upswing. 2018 It started to die. And by 2020 It was pretty much gone. On sort of that sort of downswing of the alt-right, you had groups like the Proud Boys starting to grow in power. So the Proud Boys existed as early as 2016. They participated in Unite the Right, but they were not a major factor. They didn't really participate in the organizing. They were kind of on the fence of "Should we? Should we not?" But they we're there. Enrique Tarrio was there. Many Proud Boys organizers were there. As the alt-right died, the Proud Boys started to gain in prominence. And the difference between the Proud Boys and the alt-right, is that the Proud Boys had more of a sanitized image in the public eye, right? They were led by a Hispanic man. And they were...they had these members that were like Samoan and Asian and they didn't look like the, you know, dapper Nazi with the fascy haircut and all that stuff. And that kind of...what the alt-right did is it created a foil for the Proud Boys, right? So, it was very easy for everyone to decry the alt-right after they committed a terror attack, murdered Heather Heyer, and did all this awful stuff using images of swastikas and stuff like that, right? It was to set a sort of expectation so far removed from what was acceptable, that as long as you weren't that, as long as you weren't the worst possible thing, you were probably pretty okay. And so now you see the Proud Boys and they got really involved in the electoral politics, right, they were really close to Roger Stone, and they had a really big part in the the J6 [January 6th] insurrection and all of this stuff, right? So, you see this sort of like...it's like a three phase current, right, as one, as one movement starts to decline, another movement starts to pick up, and now the Proud Boys are in the decline now. They're they're facing trial. The trial is currently ongoing. I don't know how it will end up. And you see these other movements start to pick up, right, and this is now more mainstream. Now we have more politicians like Ron DeSantis and they're bringing this explicitly fascist agenda into legislatures and into sort of normie spaces, even though it's the same exact thread that has been going through the alt-right, the Proud Boys, etc, all the way to like the white power movements. It's a lot of the same philosophy, but it presents itself differently. And so even though we elected out Trump, we didn't get rid of that undercurrent. We just changed the face of it. Margaret: Okay, so if we have these three phases, and this is a very--I'm not really saying...is a very convincing argument--that we have these three phases. And I really like focusing on this idea that this the first wave of it, at least, was stopped by antifascism and through a diversity of tactics, both electoral and direct action tactics. I want to come back to that because I want to talk about what those tactics are, but I want to ask about with this current wave, what do you think are effective organizing strategies? Like what can stop this? Because it does seem probably, legally speaking, no one's gonna go fistfight DeSantis in the street, right? No one's going to out him because we know who he is. He lives at Florida's White House. I don't know how governors live. What? Yeah, what do we do? Emily: I think this is why the diversity of tactics is so important, right? Because every movement has a different face. And it has a different way of operating. So you need to be able to confront it with different techniques. And I think that what's important about like the current wave of fascist organizing is that there actually does exist a long activist history of opposing what they're doing, right? This movement is not actually new. Everything that like Ron DeSantis is doing, Ron DeSantis is essentially a product of a decade's long evangelical project to essentially turn America into a theocracy, a christo-fascist theocracy. And so this is like, if you look at the history of how these groups have organized and tried to introduce bills and stuff like that, there's actually a really strong sort of cadre of people who can oppose those things through the systematic means that we have, right? And so some of the direct action, yes, you can go out on the street and you can punch Nazis and that's great. You don't want to go out into the street and punch Ron DeSantis. That's probably going to end really, really, really badly for you. Margaret: I feel like there's different ways of defining the word "want." "Shouldn't," maybe. Emily: Yeah, maybe yes. So I think that what we need to do is we actually need to look to these groups that have been opposing the other sort of things that this group that these these fascists have been focusing on over the last several years, like homeschooling, and parental rights, and the opposition to gay marriage, and, you know, things like the Tebow bill, if you remember the Tebow bill, right? It was this this whole thing about like using federal funds to allow home schooled athletes to participate in public college sports. And all of this is coming from the same core, right, and there are people who have been opposing this for a long time quite successfully. And so I think that what's important is actually to understand how to organize with them and follow their leadership and to try to muster up the resources that they can use to effectively oppose these things in the forms where these things can effectively be opposed. Now, there may come a time when that opposition renders itself ineffective, either the bills pass, or, you know, these groups just don't have enough money to fight all of the bills or whatever it might be, there will probably come a time when that no longer works. And then we have to look at other means, right? Funding battles in the courts, right? Use that system against them, you can protest outside of these people's houses, right, you can protest outside of these offices that our that are responsible for, you know, some of these consulting firms that are like, funding these politicians, right you can do, there's a bunch of direct action campaigns that you can choose to organize around that don't necessarily need to be movement versus movement in the streets type of confrontation, there are a lot of tools in the toolkit. And it's really important for us to be fluent with as many of them as we can, right. Organize boycotts, strikes, right, all of that stuff. Margaret: How do people get involved in that kind of stuff? Like, I mean, this would be true, regardless of the tactic, like one of the main questions that I get asked a lot, and I'm always sort of the wrong person ask because I don't have blanket answers and I can't necessarily speak to individuals and also I'm just not an organizer. If people say like, "Well, how do I get involved?" and whether it's how do I get involved in the groups that are fighting Nazis or doxing Nazis, or whatever, but also, how do you find the sorts of organizations that are fighting these bills? How do you? Yeah, how do you do it? Emily: Yeah, I think that the most important thing is to connect with your local community and see who's been organizing in your local community because they usually know the best, right. And even if they're not the ones that are opposing these things, they usually know who is and how to oppose it and stuff like that, or they usually know what groups are out there. There's also a lot of resources online, right. If you're opposed to like the hateful legislation that is being proposed and debated, there's like the Equality Network that tracks and, and lobbies against it and and they're different in each state--and some of the states are kind of mediocre, and some of them are actually pretty good--but they've been effective, right? And I think that what we forget is that what we're seeing now is not unique. It's barely even noteworthy compared to what we've seen over the last year. So right, there's like, 400 or so like anti-trans bills this year, right. But if you look at the last three years, there's been a thousand anti-LGBT bills that have been introduced, right? So, we know how to fight this stuff. And in these organizations that are putting themselves out there and raising funds and looking for volunteers and stuff like that have been showing leadership. Now, I don't always love equality, right? I don't the Equality Network, right. I love equality. But the Equality Network, right. I'm not always their biggest fan, right? If you don't know...like, you can start there and branch out. And I think that the most important thing is that a lot of people come to activism because they're upset with seeing something, they're hurt, they're feeling marginalized, they're feeling scared, and they feel like they need to do something. And that kind of gets bundled up with a feeling that nobody else is doing something. But it's not really true, right? There are people who are fighting these things. And the most important thing that you can do is actually just start with your local community, see who's doing what, go to your city council meetings, talk to your....you know, find your local Black Lives Matter chapter, find your local immigrant rights chapter, you know, whoever is fighting for....fighting against ICE, fighting against, you know, police violence, right? This exists in almost every community. And if it doesn't exist in your community, look at the neighboring community. Network with these people, because they have the leadership. Even if they're not fighting for the cause that you believe in directly, all of these causes are linked together and they will be able to help you. So that's the first step is just get to know people around you. Margaret: Well, it's good...that actually...you know, most of what we talked about on this show is preparedness, right, like how to store water and all that shit. And the number one thing in all of that is the same. It's literally the same. It's get to know your neighbors. And whether it's get to know your neighbors because you want to share water with them or get to know your neighbors because you want to know who is going to try and murder you as soon as it's legally allowed for them to murder you. getting to know the landscape of what's around you makes them a lot of sense to me. And it ties into something...Okay, so you're like talking about diversity of tactics often is used as this kind of like, way of saying, "Hey, more people should support more radical action." But it's worth also understanding that diversity of tactics also means like supporting action that like, isn't quite as radical seeming or as like revolutionary, like you might want in terms of just actually maintaining a decent platform from which to fight, right? It's like easier to fight for things when you're not in jail. It's easier to fight for things when you're not in the process of being forcibly detransitioned medically. And it's interesting because like, okay, earlier on, you talked about how one of the reasons that all this stuff came up is that people felt so aggrieved by the fact that we had two terms of a black president and we had gay marriage, you know, sanctified in law, or whatever. And it's funny, because in the crowds that I'm part of, two terms of a black president and gay marriage was like, so unimpressive. The left was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah," right? Whereas meanwhile, I guess the right is, like frothing at the mouth that these things are happening, which makes me realize that they were a bigger deal all along, or something, you know, I don't know. Emily: Yeah, I think it's because the left is really good at judging situations as a...in their distance from where we want them to be. Right? So we judge things, as, you know, from how far are they from our ideal. The right doe opposite, right. They judge things as "How far is it from the norm," so things like gay marriage and a black president, those aren't really big things. Like a black president is not a big deal when they actually what you want to do is abolish the presidency, right? But if you're if you're a, you know, white Christian Evangelical that is a racist and, you know, maybe doesn't like openly support the Klan, but doesn't really denounce them either, right, like, that's a huge deal because you actually do believe in this notion that like white Christian men should be in charge of everything. And that means the presidency. And that means everything else, too. So, I think that part of what we have to do as organizers is actually try to look at where things are, and how our sort of political opponents are using change to drum up recruitment, and are using fear mongering and things like that, right. And we're so used to trying to judge based on the outcomes that we want that we miss that picture. Margaret: Now, I really liked that way of framing it. It's an interesting...do you think that relates to...there's there's sort of this cliche that the left will cast you out for one sin and the right will take you in for one virtue? Which I don't think is...doesn't have to be true, but... Emily: It doesn't have to. It doesn't have to be true. And it's not really true, right? Because there's much more complex dynamics on top of that. But I mean, it's really kind of like to same philosophy. Yeah, exactly. It's the right, well, if...they'll overlook a lot of failures if you can move the needle even one degree further, which is why you have things like fairly moderate, otherwise moderate politically women in the UK who are like, supporting the Proud Boys and these anti-trans issues, right? They're just like, "Oh, yeah, I don't care about the fact that you're basically a Nazi organization, as long as you also hate the trannies." Like, that's kind of how that is all working. Margaret: Yeah, and you have this thing that I wanted to be a bigger split than it was--although I think it's something worth holding on to--is that like, there's like Satanists and pagans throwing down alongside evangelical Christians because they're all Nazis together. And it like, it doesn't make any sense to me. I can't imagine--Well, it's hard to imagine being a Nazi period--but it's just like...You know, even like the rise of the Catholic right. I keep wanting to be like, "Y'all know that the evangelical right doesn't even think you're Christians. Like, they want to murder you too." That is the history of the United States. That is the history of large parts of Europe. Like, it's amazing who will decide the Nazis are on their side because they all hate the same people or whatever. Okay, so to tie this into the the trans thing, right? Both of us are in a book called No Pasarán on by Shane Burley, that you can go and get from wherever you get your books--this is really ad, this is a plug--and your piece in that talks about relating antifascism and transness. And when we talk about like a lot of the laws that are right now being challenged, a lot of the stuff that...currently, the Eye of Sauron seems to be on the trans community in particular. It's on lots of communities in particular, but like we're the ones in the news, even more than usual or something right now. I'm wondering if you kind of want to talk about antifascism and transness. And then we can kind of tie that back into this conversation. Emily: Yeah, sure. So the chapter I wrote is about looking at antifascism through the lens of transgender identity. And what I tried to do is to take a walk through the current day to the historical context and then back through to the current day of how fascist and far right movements have used trans people as scapegoats for a larger agenda, part of that agenda being hatred of other people, including hatred of the Jews, but also a power play, right? And I think part of the lesson of the chapter is that we need, we need to be much more careful and thoughtful in how we look at comparative analysis. Because there's sort of two schools of thought that are happening in the left, especially in social media discourse. One is, you know, you you sort of look at historical mapping, and you say, this is basically the same thing as this thing that happened in the past, right, like, the laws that are being passed against trans people now, it's like, just what happened in the Holocaust. And that's kind of a problematic comparison, right? But it's also, it's also like another thing where it's like, you also have people saying, "Oh, don't compare what like the bathroom bills are about to what happened during Jim Crow, because that's a problematic comparison," right? So these are two things, like two different perspectives. Or it's like, don't compare these two groups of people. And then another perspective is like, "Actually, these things are..." you know, because the first is like, "Don't compare these two, these two situations because, you know, people now don't have the same dynamics. There's not a racial element. There's not a history of slavery," for example, right? And the other school is kind of like, "Well, actually, you need to look at the causes. And you need to look at the factors that went into it." And I think that there's a little bit of both of these things that are going on, right. And so when we actually look at historically how trans people were targeted in the Holocaust and how gay people were targeted in the Holocaust--and they were. There were a lot of trans--what we would now, today, call transgender people--they didn't have those words back then and also they were speaking German--And, you know, and queer people. They were targeted in the Holocaust. But it's also impossible to separate the way that they were targeted from the anti-semitism, right. So a lot of trans people talk about, today, talk about like the raids and the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft [Institue for Sexual Science] in Tiergarten, Berlin. So, the Deutsche Studentenschaft, which was like kind of like the Proud Boys of its time, raided the archives of Magnus Hirschfeld, who is a sexual scientist at the time, and they burned those books and a lot of trans people love to focus on these images and say, "You know, these, these books were the archives of the Institute for Sexualwissenschaft, and it's partly true, right? But, it also erases a big part of that history because it wasn't only those books, it was also Jewish authors like Sigmund Freud. It was Carl Jung. It was Jewish scholars,and politicians, and philosophy. Margaret: So all of this homosexuality is all a Jewish plot to destroy the good German people? [said with dry sarcasm] Emily: Right. And if you actually look at the posters that the DST put up to recruit for what they were calling the aktion gegen den undeutschen Geist, the action against the un-German spirit. Their...one of their key like bold faced bullet points was "Our principle enemy is the Jew," and so what they were doing is they were using trans people as a way to attack Jews. It doesn't mean that trans people weren't attacked. What it means is that you have to recognize that, historically, there was an interconnection here. And so if when we're erasing that interconnection, we're losing out a big part of that history. And we're also losing out a big part of how we can fight against these movements. At the same time, when we, when we totally ignore these things, like when we say, "You know, don't compare the trans movement now to the civil rights struggle of before," we're missing out on how the right wing uses these arguments to recruit and to motivate, right. So yes, it's not true that trans people who are denied bathroom use now, they're not in the same position as black people were who were denied bathroom use during Jim Crow, right, but the arguments are very similar. The white Christians back then were saying "These black people are going to like go into the bathrooms and they're going to rape your women," right? They use the like the fragile virginity of the white American woman as this this sort of rallying cry to drum up support for their cause, which is very similar to the arguments that are being made against trans people now. So when we look at this sort of comparative analysis, we have to bring in sort of a two sided perspective. Margaret: Yeah, there's so much there. It's funny because my immediate instinct, and I don't know whether this comes from my position as a white American or something, is to...it would never occur to me to compare the bathroom bill to Jim Crow, right? That just, to me, seems like obvious that the foundation of slavery is so dramatic and so influential. When, as compared to when I think about being targeted by the Holocaust, you know, to me--and maybe it's just like, my Twitter brain or like constantly thinking about what people could say to undermine what I'm saying or find holes in it or whatever--to me, that feels like a not only a safer argument but a more logical argument because it's...I wouldn't compare what's happening to trans people as to what's happened to Jews in the Holocaust. I compare what happens to trans people, to what happened to trans people in the Holocaust. I can make that comparison. But I really, I think this is really useful, this thing that you're talking about because the way I've been talking about it lately, right, like a lot of the anti-trans stuff and the rhetoric right now on the not-far-right, but the middle right, is around trans athletes, right? Specifically, trans feminine people, participating in sports with other feminine people with similar levels of hormones and bone density and shit, or whatever. Whatever the fuck. And it's this wedge issue, right?. And if you take a step back--it's the reason I don't fucking discourse about that--is because it's a wedge issue. It is meant not to talk about trans people in sports but to use trans people in sports as to break off support for trans people in general from the rest of LGBT community with the eventual intention, I believe--I evade anything that seems conspiratorial, but this seems like the strategy that our enemies are taking--to then eventually, you weaken LGBT, you split them off. Homosexuality can be a larger wedge issue to start more and more just like basically dividing and conquering and, you know, with the eventual plan of making us no longer exist. Emily: Yeah, I don't think it's conspiracy, right, I think it's exactly true because they say so much. They say it like that. They say, "Let's split the T off of the LGB." I think that's absolutely true. And you're right, it is a wedge issue, it is a way to get us to fight amongst each other instead of fighting against them. At the same time, the answer to us fighting against each other, is actually to look outside of us and actually to go and seek the solidarity of other groups of people who are marginalized, right. And so I, like I'm really uncomfortable with some of the language. Like I've written about this, like, there's a big movement of like, "How do you apply for asylum?" right? I'm like, screaming at the top of my lungs, "Please do not do this." Because not only do you not understand how bad this process is for people who are actually seeking asylum--and you thinking that you're going to get some sort of preferential treatment to that is really problematic--but it will also ruin your life, and in ways that you don't yet know. And this is like that sort of, there's like a whiteness or an Americanness of the privilege to this, this thing that's being that's being promoted, right? And so I'm like really hesitant to embrace some of this catastrophizing language. Also, because we have seen stuff that is just as bad being done against people like immigrants at the southern border of the US, right, of Muslims during the early days of the Trump administration, right? We've seen this stuff, right. And what we should be doing is we should be banding together with solidarity with these groups and saying, "Look, it doesn't actually matter what our internal dramas are. What matters is that we must be united against this broader front, right? We have to unite against patriarchy, we have to unite against white supremacy, we have to unite against xenophobia, against anti-semitism, against Islamophobia, all of these things. And we have to, we have to come together, right. And so I'm a little uncomfortable with some of the things that have been sort of out there because it's such an internal focus on ourselves. And it's not really doing a great job at saying like, "Actually, you know, what, like, we've been saying, you know, 'First they came for the x...'" And we've been saying that about three different groups, four different groups over the last four years. At some point, you actually have to stop and think, "Actually, wait a second, I'm not the first. They were the first. And before them, or, you know, before them...before us, was them and before them was another group. Why don't we start building those connections? Why don't we start building those networks? Margaret: Right. Well, and that's actually why like, at the beginning, I was like, you know, the Eye of Sauron like currently on us, right? Like, it's not, it didn't start on us. We are not the primary....yeah, like, I guess I'm saying I agree with you. And then even in terms of when I think about the history of splitting up the movement and things like that, like I think about how the first thing that the Gay Liberation Front did after, in 1969, after Stonewall, you know, which was a very diverse crowd of different queer people fighting back against the repression as gay people, it was in this context of the late 60s in which all of these other struggles are happening. And the Gay Liberation Front, at least, and many other people, at least--whether because of their own intersectional marginalization or just out of having some awareness of history and present--worked together, right? Like the first actions of the Gay Liberation Front were to protest the Women's House of Detention where Afeni Shakur, Tupac Shakur's mother, was being held as part of the Panther 23 [Meant 21] trial, right. And the Gay Liberation Front, I don't think was even aware of Shakur's sexuality at this point--I don't actually know if she was at this point, it was around...I believe she had her realizations while she was in the Women's House of Detention--but they were doing that because they were part of the new left. They were part of...like, of course we roll with the Black Panthers, of course we work together with all of these other groups, all of these different marginalizations. And yeah, so in my mind, it's less like...yeah, rather than comparing ourselves one to one with other marginalized groups, yeah, we just need to be fucking working together. Emily: And I think it's also important, like, at the same time, that we don't...like the Eye of Sauron, as you said, it's on us now and it's going to look away. And it's probably going to look away pretty soon, right? The right wing doesn't have the attention span to stay focused on one thing for a long time, right. Like, over the last five years, I've been called a terrorist by a government organization of some sort at least four times, right? And I'm still hearing, I'm still walking free, right? I remember when Antifa was a terrorist organization that Donald Trump was going to like executive order in prisons all, right? I remember all of this stuff. And I've been through so much of this, right? This focus on the trans thing, it's going to go away and it's going to be on somebody else. And what we should be doing is actually preparing for supporting that group, whoever it goes on to next whether it's Muslims, whether it's immigrants, whether it's Asians, right, remember when it was the Asian hate, right? That was at the beginning of the pandemic. All of this stuff, right. It's going to be something else, pretty soon and we just need to be prepared for that. But at the same time, I think we also owe ourselves this look at history to look at how these groups have won and how they have succeeded, even in the face of these, you know, incredible odds, right? Because, we actually owe ourselves a little bit of joy and hope at the same time, right? You don't become an antifascist, because you like, are a cynic, right? antifascism is about creating a better future. Nobody goes out into the street and like maybe gets shot because they don't believe that they can create a better world. So we do need to think about this as a struggle but a struggle that we will win and a struggle that is going to, you know, lead to a better future at the end of the day. So, I think it's really important to like, keep that sort of focus in that perspective. Margaret: That makes sense to me. One thing, I kind of want to push back a little bit on is about the asylum thing, where--and maybe it's just because my standard is that I do not judge people on whether they choose to fight or whether they choose to go, right? Like, I'm a bit of a stay-and-fight person myself, right. But, I think that there's also this thing where I'm coming at this as an adult, right? Like, the state I'm in will probably pass a law this year that will make it illegal for me to go to the grocery store. It probably won't be used against me. And I can put on pants and pass as a weird looking cis man with bangs, you know? And, but like, I have the tools to navigate that, right? But, the children who can't access gender-affirming care or the adults in some states that will no longer be able to access gender-affirming care without breaking the law--and I do think that there is a difference between...I guess you don't seek asylum in Oregon, right. You just moved to Oregon. But, I think that the general...I dunno, frankly, I think that a lot of people should, if they're able to, keep their passports current. Like, I...go ahead. Emily: Absolutely. Like there's nothing wrong with with fleeing, right? Nobody has to fight. I moved to Germany because I had a Nazi that was trying to kill me and like there were multiple attempts on my life. Right. I was SWAT'd. There was all sorts of stuff. Yeah, there's nothing there's nothing shameful about fleeing. Asylum is a very specific word, however. It has a legal meaning and it means a specific thing and a lot of people...like, yes, keep your passports handy. But before you even think about moving overseas and requesting asylum, talk to people who have done this because there's a lot of options out there for how you can do this safely, and not request asylum. Because, the thing that a lot of trans folks who are not organizing in solidarity, or who have not yet organized in solidarity, let's just say, with immigrants with with refugees and stuff like that do not understand how bad this process is. If you apply for asylum in Europe, for example, like some people are like, "I'm gonna go to Europe" First of all, Europe will deny your claim, almost certainly. I'm not a lawyer. Not legal advice. But, they will almost surely deny your claim. But they will only deny after two years, maybe. During those two years, you have to live in a detention center, essentially...not a detention center. It's called an Arrival Center. But it's essentially a camp. You have four square meters to yourself. You cannot work. You cannot travel. You can't leave the city or the state that you're in. Right? The medical care is worse than the medical care that you'll get even under the laws that are being passed in the United States. The violence in those centers is off the charts horrible, right. And there are trans people who have tried to apply to asylum. There's a there's a case, that I am not going to name to the person, but this person went to Sweden and applied for asylum and spent like 16 or 18 months there, living on the equivalent of $6 a day. And at the end, her claim was denied and was deported. And now she can't even come back to Europe, most likely. So it's a really, it's a really dangerous thing. And I really want to stress this for anyone that's out there. Talk to people who can help with this because this is...the stuff that's going around is so dangerous that if you don't have an expert supporting you, it's going to ruin your life. Margaret: Okay, now that that makes a lot of sense. I was thinking of it mostly in the context of like, leaving the country versus the specifics of seeking asylum. Emily: It's way easier to move to Minneapolis than it is to move to Madrid. Margaret: Right. And there is kind of a like, "Where we'll stay safe" is a very blurry thing, right? It is unlikely, but not outside the realm of possibility that we'll see federal bans on various things in United States, depending on how power can move. But it's unlikely, right? And, but at the same time, it's like, "Oh, yeah, that place that everyone loves all the trans people, and no one thinks we're horrible monsters who are against the will of God," that place, you know, like, I mean, there are places that are better and worse, don't get me wrong. But okay, so I want to I want to change gears and talk about digitally hunting Nazis because I feel like that's something that you have some experience with, is that fair to say? Emily: I think that I'm a pretty decent Nazi Hunter. I've exposed a few. Margaret: What's, you know, cuz it's funny, because I think about like, Okay, we've talked about how the landscape has changed to where it's no longer doxing and holding physical space in cities as like the two primary...Well, they were never the primary, but they're certainly the most visible and some of the easiest to sort of get involved in in some weird way because you can just...you can't just go fight Nazis, right? It's not a good idea. You should have support networks and all that shit. But it is like...it's like the advantage of direct action, as you can imagine point A to point B fairly easily. But even though the landscape has changed, I feel like a lot of people....his, like, the grassroots Nazis still exist, right? And like, they still, like I have my Nazi doxers who occasionally remind me that they exist and things like that, you know? And like, so it still feels like there is still this territory. And I'm curious about what your experiences has been hunting Nazis, like, what are some of the...what are some of like, the wins, you've gotten out of that and some of the things that you've learned from doing that? Emily: I think that what really makes me proud when I do that work is when I get somebody out of the community that could have done harm to that community. And by exposing these folks and by helping a community defend itself, I think that's the greatest reward. So there's a young neo-Nazi, who with his 17 year old wife, lit a synagogue and fire in Indiana, and I did a lot of work tracking down his case and researching the documents. And in following his case, I found that he was recruited along with his wife into Identity Europa and found evidence of some of the people that recruited him and how they met and how they brought him into the network and her into the network and exposed this information. And as it turns out, this information helped connect to an online presence to a real name, and it turns out that this woman was running a stand in the Farmers Market in Bloomington, Indiana, and was just there in the community every day, and she was a neo-Nazi recruiter. And when the community found out, they mobilized and they organized and they work to get this woman kicked out and pushed out a farmers market and totally disrupted her ability to organize and recruit for that group. And I think for me, that's like the reward of sort of hunting Nazis and exposing them is that you actually get to help a community defend itself. I think the thing that I've learned from doing this is that it's fucking dangerous. Because, what you're doing is actually you're exposing people to shame. And the reason that this sort of--we can call it doxing--the way that this sort of doxing works is that it has to be bad enough for a person to be shamed out of their community, right. We don't do it to harass, we don't do it to intimidate. It's done to give people the tools to say, "I'm not willing to have this person in my midst. I'm not willing to employ them. I'm not willing to go to school. I'm not willing to work with them." Shame has to be a factor, right? And when you shame people, they can react, and they can come after you and yeah, that's why I had like an Atomwaffen hit squad tried to fly to Germany to assassinate me once, so I knew that was always a possibility. Margaret: Aw, that's exciting. Emily: Yeah, that was very strange. It was really strange when the Berlin police, like the Berlin polizei slid into my Twitter, DMs. That's 100% true story. I will show I will show you the DMs if you want some day. Margaret: No, I believe you. The interactions I've had with German police have all been incredibly authoritarian and incredibly polite. Those are the two...whatever, I've only been stopped by the German police twice. And both times, very polite, very stern. Emily: That's, the German dream, that that's Deutschland for you. Very authoritarian and very polite. Margaret: Which, you know, I have feelings about but yeah, it is what it is. I guess...Damn, okay. So wait, tell me more about this hit squad. Like what happened? Emily: Yeah. I don't exactly know what the motivation was. But I got a DM from the Berlin polizei. They were trying to find me. Because apparently--we think it was the CIA because the CIA is responsible for protecting Americans overseas--But somebody had, through whatever surveillance they had on Atomwaffen, the Atomic Division in English, whatever like surveillance they had on this group, they detected that these folks were flying overseas and had intentions to be in Germany and that they had intercepted chats apparently, saying that they're going to try to find me at a demo and stab me. Which is very funny, because I don't really go to demos in Berlin. But anyways, that was their plan. And I think I know who these folks are. They ended up getting arrested and sent to prison at some point, not for trying to murder me but for other things. Margaret: For being an Atomwaffen. So pretty...Yeah. Yeah. I don't feel like that group deter deserves to be pronounced properly in German because I feel like that's like what they want is to be like, "We're good, proper German Nazis," but there's just some fucking...I mean, obviously, I'm not trying to....Well it's interesting, I do want to diminish them and make fun of them, but at the same time, like, there's a weird balance here, where you kind of want to be like, "Oh, you dumb little assholes," you know? Well, not, while still accepting that they're a very serious threat in some ways. You know? Emily: I could always speak actual German around them. And watch them be dumbfounded. Margaret: Yeah. Okay, so one of the things that stands out from what you just said about all this stuff--besides the how complicated of strange times we're in where the CIA is stopping Nazis from murdering antifascists--is the fact that this recruiter was at the farmer's market instead of like...like when I was more actively involved in stuff, it was like metal shows, you know, it was this like, it was a very subcultural milieu, the the Nazi scene. And I feel like this like move to farmer's markets is like worth exploring and talking about, you know, you have the kind of like, the way I usually see it expressed is like the crunchy granola to Nazi pipeline and things like that. And like you talked about how, like homeschooling was like a big avenue. Yeah. Do you want to talk more about that just to the why they're at farmer's markets? Emily: I think it's, you know, there's so many different factions of the far-right. And one of them is sort of this traditionalist faction, right, there's a lot of like homesteading, and there's a lot of prepping, and there's a lot of like live off the land and be independent and have lots of white children and be pregnant and barefoot all the time. That's part of this sort of Christian, this this far-right, like, Christian sort of segment of the far right. And there's also like it's part of this white Christian sort of traditionalist second segment of the far-right. There's also like, Neo-pagan segments of the far-right that are similar. But yeah, I think that there's there's a lot of this like mythology, right? One of the essential elements of fascism is that what differentiates fascism from other far-right, authoritarian ideologies, is that Fascism is fundamentally around sort of this mythos of rebirth, right? So these these mythologies around like folkish culture and traditionalism, and the rebirth of like, return to like proper America, and like, when men were men and women were women and all of that stuff, right? Yeah, this is part of the mythology of it. And so the difference, like the shift between the skinhead Nazi to the traditionalist Nazi, it's as much a matter of ideology and aesthetic as it is the degree to which they understand and embrace those elements of the fascist belief, right? And I think it's dangerous because so much of American identity is also about nuclear family and home values, like you know, good old fashioned values and home cooking, and you know, doing things with your mom and your dad and your 2.7 kids and having a white picket fence, right. So much of American culture is wrapped up into that, fascists have realized that it's really easy to prey on that. That's why you have Nazis at the farmer's market. Margaret:Yeah. Makes me sad, but I get it. So what are what are we...we're coming up on an hour, and I'm kind of wondering what's the question I should have asked you? What else do you think? Do you have any, any final thoughts or any like, you know, rousing "How do we solve all of this?" not to put you in, not to give you an awkward question. Emily: I would have asked me about what it's like beyond the activism? Right, because I've actually kind of retired from the activism. And I think that a lot of my perspective now, is about what it feels like to be in the middle of this whole milieu of the shit. And then to walk away from it. Margaret: Yeah. Alright. What's that like? Emily: So I don't know. I think that there's a few years where like, I spent almost every day looking through Discord logs, doing alt-right research, tracking their cases. I was spending thousands of dollars on pacer fees, downloading and court documents and all this shit, right. And I would end my workday, and I would go home and I wouldn't play video games, I would start hunting Nazis. And I would wake up in the weekends and I would update my website where I tracked Nazis and I did this and this was my life. And it was a way of dealing with trauma. There was also a time, still today, probably a week doesn't go by that I don't see the torches from from the rally from August 11th, right? So that trauma is still very present. And it was a response to it was my way of coping with it and dealing with it. And then when the insurrection happened, I kind of saw that as a passing of the torch. The insurrection was the moment that the alt-right stopped being relevant and the Republican-right started being relevant in this discussion of "Extremism," right? And I realized pretty quickly that I wasn't going to...one, I wasn't going to be able to keep up with it and two, my work was done. My goal was always to try to give tools to mainstream journalists so that they could write more effectively about what we were seeing in the world from the position of an antifascist, right? antifascist often have a really antagonistic relationship with the media and for very good reasons. At the same time, if you don't have relationships with the media, nobody's going to tell your story to that forum for you. You have to have some sort of ability to work with these groups of people in order to help get your message out. With these reporters and stuff, right. And I feel like since 2016 up until 2021 there were a lot of folks that actually started to figure out how to write about the far-right. They're not always perfect at it, they don't always do a good job, they sometimes fail to credit and stuff like that. All of those things are annoying, but I think that they covered substantively a lot of this much better. And I decided to retire from public activism. And now that I stepped back, and I can look at this, and I'm not on Twitter day to day, and I'm not, you know, in every debate and having every argument, I can actually sort of zoom out and feel like I can have a much broader picture. And it helps helps with like my mental health. And I think that's actually...I think it's actually important to also take breaks from this work. Because if you're just in the day after day, you're going to be fucking miserable. And it's, and you're not going to be able to change anything, you're not going to fix anything if you don't give yourself breaks. Margaret: That makes a lot of sense to me. I feel like there's a lot of cycling in and out. And I don't know, I do think that there's a difference between...I think that sometimes people and you're not necessarily doing it here, but sometimes people refer to it as sort of like leaving a thing, right, and being like done with it. Or like, sometimes people burn out so hard that they're like, "Now I'm apolitical," or, "Now I don't care," or whatever. And I think there's a very big difference between like, "My time in the front line of this particular struggle is done. And now I'm in this like, support role where mostly I'm living my life," you know, and I feel like--and maybe I say that, because that's what I do, right? Like, I'm no longer in the streets to the degree that I was when I was younger. But and I actually think it's useful for people to see folks like you, who are no longer doing something full time but still still existing in this. Like, I don't know how to say this. But it's just like, I think it's useful for people to see that it's like, this isn't everything. This is not the entire life, one's entire life is not the struggle and things like that, you know? Emily: Yeah. And I think one, people are doing it better than I ever have done it. The people, the work that's being done now is such high quality, like the antifascist groups that are out there, they're so good at what they do that I'm embarrassed to even be in the same breath as them, right? They're so much better. They're so much more rigorous, they're so much more careful, they're' so much more impersonal egoless, right, that I like, stand in awe watching what they do. And I don't even want to consider myself part of that because they're just on another plane. I think that when I started this, we didn't have enough people doing the work. And I'm happy that I was able to contribute. And I think that that's my chapter of it. antifascism is shift work, right? You can't work in solid...like part of solidarity work is knowing when to step up and knowing when to step back. I'm still writing, you know, I think I know that not everyone agrees with some of my takes. My goal is not to get everyone to agree with me. Right? I think that's also something that I'm trying to take away getting away from Twitter, right, is I don't actually necessarily need to convince you or to sell you or to get you to agree with me. What I want to do is actually give you something to think about. And I want to try to give you a lot of tools to view a problem from a variety of perspectives, knowing that we're all on the same side. Right. And so, I don't know, I'm just sort of hoping that that I can add, if there's anything that I still have to add to this fight, it's that there's a little bit of to add depth and sort of dimensionality to it, rather than just being front lines, whether it's digital front lines or physical front lines, just to try to add some...to broaden the spectrum. Margaret: That makes sense. Yeah, go ahead. Emily: And also, just to kind of live a good life. Like I was targeted by Andy Ngo for how long....I was like...Seb Gorka once followed me on Twitter, right, while he was in the White House, you know. There was like, Milo Yiannopoulos was targeting me, right. I went through all of this stuff. I had Atomwaffen trying, you know, flying overseas and threatening to execute me and all this stuff. It's like...none of them succeeded. None. Like Chris Danwell spent, has spent five years trying to put me in jail and has never succeeded. These folks, they're not winning. I won. Yeah. And what allowed me to say that I won is I can close my laptop whenever I want, I can walk out the door, I can breathe free air. And even though I will face oppression in everything that I do because I'm not white and because I'm trans, I still had the freedom of that choice. And that is something that the fascists can never take away from me. And I think that that is an act of defiance and antifascism too. Margaret: That makes a lot of sense. And that feels like maybe a good note to end on. If people want to find more of your work, or in a nice way, if people want to follow you do or....I mean, it sounds like you...do you want people to find your work? And if so, how can they do so? Emily: Um, you can you can google my name. I still syndicate stuff through Twitter, right? So you'll still see the links and the stuff that I do when I post, right. So you can twitter @EmilyGorcenski, you can go to emilygorcenski.com and see what I'm posting and half of it is about my day job working in technology and half of it is about trans issues or antifascism or politics and half of it is shitposting. And I know that that's three halves. But I'm a mathematician, so I get to make the rules with numbers. And yeah, I think that, you know, I'm on Mastodon as well, but it sounds complicated. So just like Google my name and figure it out. Margaret: Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much for coming on. And keep winning. It makes me happy. Emily: Thank you for having me and keep doing what you're doing because I couldn't be winning if it weren't for people like you. Thanks. Margaret: Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, you got something out of it then well, the main thing to do is to think about how to be in solidarity with different groups when the Eye of Sauron passes upon each of us, because it does stay in motion for better and worse. You can also, if you like this podcast, tell people about it. You can tell people about it on the internet. You can tell people about it in real life. You can tell your dog about it. Kind of the only person I'd be able to tell about it right now. Hey, Rintrah, I like this podcast. Rintrah doesn't care. I recommend telling people. Animals are great but people are most of our listeners as far as I'm aware. I'm about to shout out Hoss the Dog. Shout out to Hoss the Dog, our like longest standing Patreon backer. If you want to support us as well as Hoss the Dog has supported us, you can go to patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness. And there you will see that we put out new content every month that actually anyone can access for free at tangledwilderness.org But, if you want it mailed to your house support us there. And also you get a discount on everything we do in the store. You can also check out our other podcasts. At the moment...well, there might even be a new one by the time this comes out because I'm recording this a little bit before this one comes out--but at the moment, there's Anarcho Geek Power Hour, for people who hate cops and like movies. And there's Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness for the content that we put out as Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. That one comes out monthly. And I want to thank some of our backers. I want to thank Hoss the motherfucking Dog, who has been with us as a Patreon backer for years. Thank you Hoss, Michaiah, Chris, Sam, Kirk, Eleanor, Jenipher, Staro, Kat J., Chelsea, Dana, David, Nicole, Mikki, Paige, SJ, Shawn, Hunter, Theo, Boise Mutual Aid, Milica, Paparouna, Aly, Paige, Janice, Oxalis, and Jans. If you'd like to see your name on here, you can do it. You can even make it be a silly name that I have to say every time but not an offensive one because I wont do it, not even for money. Anyway, I hope you're doing as well as you can and I or one of the other hosts will see you next Friday. Find out more at https://live-like-the-world-is-dying.pinecast.co

In which I sat down with my buds Leila Al-Shami and Shon Meckfessel to talk about how and why a bunch of fascists became fans of everyone's favorite genocidal mass murdering dictator, Bashar (يلعن روحك يا) Assad, who was recently voted most likely to end up like Mussolini by I-just-made-it-up magazine. Leila, a recurring guest, is the co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War and, together with Shon, she co-wrote the chapter of No Pasarán: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis (edited by Shane Burley, also a previous guest of the pod) on this topic. You can also check out Mariam Elba's excellent 2017 piece on this issue for The Intercept. Shon is also the author of "Suffled How It Gush: A North American Anarchist in the Balkans" and "Nonviolence Ain't What It Used To Be: Unarmed Insurrection and the Rhetoric of Resistance." Aaaand check out Bizri#6! Kind reminder that the best way to support this podcast is by Mussolini-ying Bashar. The second best way? you can support The Fire These Times on patreon.com/firethesetimes with a monthly or yearly donation and get a lot of perks including early access, exclusive videos, monthly hangouts, access to the book club, merch and more. Credits: Host: Joey AyoubProducer: Joey AyoubMusic: Rap and RevengeMain theme design: Wenyi GengSound editor: Artin SalimiEpisode design: Joey Ayoub Pluggables: The best way to keep up to date is through the website thefirethesetimes.com or through patreon. I occasionally post on Mastodon and friends of the pod occasionally post on Twitter and Instagram. The newsletter will be available on www.thefirethesetimes.com and www.thefirethesetimes.substack.com as well.

In this episode we are joined by Devin Zane Shaw to talk about his book Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy. We discuss the concept of the ‘three-way fight', what Beauvoir's analysis of the antinomies of action can teach us about emancipatory violence, and the necessity of community self-defense. Ambiguity may be an inescapable condition for those of us who truly care about freedom, but you just cannot have dinner with nazis, comrades.leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphilReferences:Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy (New York: Roman & Littlefield, 2020)Devin Zane Shaw, “Seven Theses on the Three-Way Fight”, at threewayfight: https://threewayfight.blogspot.com/2021/08/seven-theses-on-three-way-fight.htmlGlen Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014)Stanislav Vysotsky, American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism (New York: Routledge, 2021)Leanne Simpson, As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom through Radical Resistance (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2021)Shane Burley, Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021)Music: Vintage Memories by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

This week, we spoke with Maia Ramnath about her essay contribution to ¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches From a World in Crisis. The essay was entitled “The Other Aryan Supremacy: Fighting Hindu Fascism in the South Asia Diaspora”. Transcript PDF (Unimposed) – pending Zine (Imposed PDF) – pending For the hour, we talk about about Hindutva, a brand of Indian ethno-religious-nationalism some have called fascism, the organizations that carry it in India and in the sub-continental or Desi diaspora around the world, some of the ideas and actions attributed to it, Islamophobia, Hindutva's connections with the project of Israel, also it's overlaps with far right, Nazi-inspired ideologies and how non-Desi anti-fascists can stand in solidarity against it. Some publications by or including Maia Ramnath: Haj to Utopia: How the Ghadar Movement Charted Global Radicalism and Attempted to Overthrow the British Empire Decolonizing Anarchism: An Antiauthoritarian History of India's Liberation Struggle Art for Life: Conversations with the Progressive Writers Movement on Pens, Swords, and Internationalism, from Antifascism to Afro-Asian Solidarity (paperback / ebook) ¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches From a World in Crisis (edited by Shane Burley). The essay was entitled “The Other Aryan Supremacy: Fighting Hindu Fascism in the South Asia Diaspora”. For audiophiles out there, there is an audiobook version of this book available from AK Press, though it's a little pricey it is over 20 hours long! Other interviews on related topics: Yeah Nah Pasaran! interview with Raja of The Humanist Project Nazi Lies podcast with Shyam Ranganathan 12 Rules for What with Amardeep Dhillon Bursts also recommends Azadi by Arundhati Roy, which includes lots of thoughts on these topics. And you can hear our 2020 interview with Pranav Jeevan P. in Karela state in India which covers many of these same topics, which is also transcribed. Phone Zap for #StopCopCity Arrestee, Emily Murphy #StopCopCity protestor Emily Murphy has been in jail for almost a month since being arrested 1/22 following the protest against the police killing of Tortuguita. Emily has been vegan for many years, but the Atlanta City Dentention Center has not been giving them food they can eat. They describe being emaciated and having physical problems after a month of starvation. We are asking that you listen to Emily's statement, participate in our call in campaign, and show up at Atlanta City Dentention Center at 7pm this Friday (2/24/23) to voice your discontent. We present Emily in their own words You can find info on this in Blue Ridge ABC's mastodon post on the subject. Announcement Bad News #65 The monthly, English-language podcast from the international A-Radio network is now available at a-radio-network.org for streaming or downloading. You'll hear updates from antifascist struggle in Bulgaria, news from comrades in Greece as well as info about how the organizing of the 2023 St-Imier anti-authoritarian and anarchist gathering is going in Switzerland recorded by A-Radio Berlin. . ... . .. Featured Tracks Note by Rekoil Chafe Baapmanus (a tribute to B.R. Ambedkar) by Mahi Ghane

Insurgent fascist movements are shaping global politics from the US to Brazil. Where does the antifascist movement go from here?Shane Burley is a writer and filmmaker. His most recent work is No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis, an anthology of antifascist writings.Studio/Post-Production: Cameron GranadinoHelp us continue producing The Marc Steiner Show by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer:Donate: https://therealnews.com/donate-pod-mssSign up for our newsletter: https://therealnews.com/nl-pod-stGet The Marc Steiner Show updates: https://therealnews.com/up-pod-stLike us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/therealnewsFollow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealnews

In this episode of Movement Memos, host Kelly Hayes and Shane Burley, editor of No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis, discuss the state of the far right, antifascism and how we can build power and sustain empathy in these times. You can find a transcript and show notes (including links to resources) here: bit.ly/movementmemos If you would like to support the show, you can donate here: bit.ly/TODonate If you would like to receive Truthout's newsletter, please sign up: bit.ly/TOnewsletter Music: Son Monarcas & David Celeste

Episode Summary Brooke and Casandra talk with Why We Fight author, Shane Burley about conspiracy theories, false consciousness amongst the right, and how mythos get built to influence how people think. Guest Info Shane Burley can be found on Twitter @Shane_Burley1, on Instagram @ShaneBurley, on Mastodon @Shane_Burley, and on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ShaneBurley Host Info Casandra can be found on Twitter @hey_casandra or Instagram @House.Of.Hands. Brooke can be found at Strangers helping up keep our finances intact and on Twitter @ogemakweBrooke 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. Next Episode This Year in the Apocalypse on 12/30/22 and every two weeks there after. Transcript Live Like the World is Dying: Shane Burley on Conspiracy Theor Brooke 00:18 Hello and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcasts for what feels like the end times. I'm Brooke Jackson, one of your hosts today, along with Casandra. Today we have the honor of talking with the author, researcher, and journalist Shane Burley. We're going to discuss conspiracy theories or whatever rabbit holes that topic takes us into. But first we'd like to celebrate being a member of the Channel Zero network of anarchist podcasts by playing a little jingle for one of the other podcasts on the network. Here it goes. Brooke 01:29 And we're back. Shane, thanks for joining us today to talk about conspiracy theories. Would you tell us a little bit about yourself, including sharing your pronouns? Shane Burley 01:36 Sure. Thanks so much for having me on. My name is Shane Burley, my pronouns are he/him or they/them. I research the far right amongst other things. I've written a few books on it, Why We Fight from back in 2021 and Fascism Today from 2017. And most recently edited this big anti fascism anthology called an No Pasaran: Anti Fascist Dispatches From a World in Crisis. And right now I am working on a book with my co-author Ben Lorber for Melville House books, on anti semitism. Brooke 02:06 Nice, thank you. Yeah, the one you wrote back in 2017 - Casandra has a copy of that book. And when I realized that my beliefs align with anarchism, I was like, I should learn about what this is. And, you know, learn more about fascism, too. And I was like, Casandra, do you have a good, like, primer book on this for me? And she just went to the bookshelf and pulled that one out. It was yours! Handed it over. Shane Burley 02:33 Oh, awesome. That's what I was hoping for, when we wrote it because there wasn't a lot that was good and straightforward at the time, at least from our side. Casandra Johns 02:40 Spreading the good news about anti-fascism. Brooke 02:46 That was, it was a good piece for, for getting started and learning there. So thank you for writing that. And for your continued work. Shane Burley 02:53 Yeah, thanks so much for saying that, it's really kind. Brooke 02:56 So we wanted to talk today about conspiracy theories, and I'm just gonna start with a real basic question just to make sure we're all kind of on the same page as we're having this conversation, of what is a conspiracy theory? Shane Burley 03:08 And conspiracy theory is a theory about a conspiracy that is not true. More appropriately, it's one that could not be true. So I think it's distinguishing from actual conspiracies because there are conspiracies in the world. So, you know, a good comparison about this would be the killing of JFK. There's conspiracy theories that range from three people did it to 10,000 people did it. But no matter what one person had to engage in some kind of collaboration, so some kind of conspiracy is possible, which is separate from conspiracy theory. So I think we separate it from like the various kind of quote unquote "conspiracies" that lots of organizations and governments engage in just in day to day work, versus ones that basically come up against the basic laws of physics and how we understand the world to work, and specifically divert our understanding of how complex issues work by sort-of putting an element of fantasy into them. Brooke 04:03 So that kind of answers one of the questions that I've been pondering, maybe we can talk about it more? Casandra has been wondering about, you know, why conspiracy theories have become so mainstream. And my sort of corollary thought was, it seems like they're so appealing to people, you know? Those two things are kind of tied together - the mainstreaming and the fact that they seem to really appeal to people for some reason. Casandra Johns 04:28 Not even just mainstream, as in the rest of society mainstream, but mainstream on the Left. Shane Burley 04:37 I was interviewing a friend, Brendan O'Connor, who wrote a book, Blood Red Lines, about anti-immigrant kind of nativism and border politics. And he made a comment that I thought a lot about which was that he's kind of unsure about where the line between conspiracy theories and quote unquote, "false consciousness" lies. What's the difference between conspiracy theory, and what's the differencce between misunderstanding sources of oppression and how systems work, which is a common thing? Shane Burley 05:06 I think one of the realities about a conspiracy theory is that it is an attempt to liberate oneself; it is actually an attempt to do that. It's an attempt to explain people in power and explain your own disempowerment. And so in situations in which lots of instability or feelings of loss of status - whatever they are, real and imagined - when those things start to sort of percolate, conspiracy theories are the easier answer. They don't require a ton of political education they don't depend on a lot of shared reality, even. And our society depends really heavily both on false consciousness and conspiracy theories. Depending on how you put those lines. Shane Burley 05:48 Take the entire Republican Party: [it] has built a mythos on working class people, specifically, not elites, right? That's the language used. And their policy is entirely based around basically inculcating the rich and the people who own capital. So how do you explain both of those things? It has to be institutionalized false consciousness, which in itself engages a certain amount of conspiracy theories. How can you understand empowering the rich and empowering the working class at the same time? Those things don't comiserate. Except millions and of millions of people assume that they can. And so I think there's an institutionalization of that kind of thinking. Conspirarcy theories, the wild ones, actually aren't that far afield from that, you know? Because if you think about the way that things - just basic [things], like taxes and social services - versus the kind of benefits of the rich, it seems pretty obvious that when those who own capital are enriched that that money comes from us. I mean, it doesn't require a master's thesis to explain that. So you have to get millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people to basically avoid thinking about that, or to believe it's untrue. And so that, I think, is foundational to the way that we think about conspiracy theories because we all - not all of us, hopefully - but huge portions of us engage in some level of conspiracy thinking, Casandra Johns 07:03 You can tell me if you think this is accurate: it seems like conspiracy theories often try to blame individuals, rather than looking at systems for instance, it sort of frustrates me when people are like, you know, eat the rich. Which yeah, eat the rich. But like, "If Jeff Bezos would just, you know, redistribute his wealth, everything would be fine." But it wouldn't be because capitalism would still exist, and there would just be someone else super rich. You know what I mean? Shane Burley 07:32 Yeah, I think the kind of classic line on this is that conspiracy theories - and particularly anti semitic conspiracy theories, just as like the archetype for it - are one of the most effective defenders of capital because what it does is divert your attention away from a system and places it on supposedly corrupt individuals. And there's a couple of reasons I think this is really attractive to people. I think one is that it actually plays on bigotries really well, and validates them in a certain sense. So there's certain stories that people tell right? So one is that they're aggrieved and legitimately so. I would say that most members of the working class are having a problem, right? They're being exploited at work. They're not being paid, obviously, what they're worth; paying bills is hard. It's miserable. It's very upsetting, the things that we go through, even people who are reasonably affluent but not ruling class, it's actually quite difficult. And so that's a legitimate grievance. And I think that grievance has a lot of anger built up with it. And that anger inside people's bodies and minds is often indistinguishable from bigotry. I think it's actually those things intermix a lot. So it's the impulse that if someone is actually legitimately your oppresser in a dynamic, you know, your boss, there's an impulse to actually want to say something bigger to them. Shane Burley 08:45 There's a lot of research about people being pushed, and saying things and doing things they never thought they would in the direction of bigotry, simply as a way of harming those they think are harming them. And so what a lot of these conspiracy theories do - and populists conspiracy theories in general - is allow you to sort of indulge in that a bit. So it's not uncommon to focus on the effeminacy of the ruling class. So you'll see this a lot: "Jeff Bezos, look at his soft hands. He can never do the hard work like us." There's a certain kind of 'let's make them look effeminate. Let's make them look queer, code them as queer.' Casandra Johns 09:18 Also, the lizard thing, like talking about how they look like lizards Shane Burley 09:24 Very much about their appearance. I mean, if you look at... early 20th century socialist literature, the inordinate focus on making the capitalist class look fat, just absolutely rotund, as if they're consuming things that, you know, they're eating so much that you can't eat. You become small and they become big. So I think that allows, it gives us a twofer, right? That says, okay, yeah, they're the capitalist class, they're oppressing in that way. And also that discomfort you feel of fat people, those are now one and the same, and one actually mobilizes the other, like one becomes a weapon for the other. So I think that's an easy way to focus on that personalization. Shane Burley 10:01 And the other thing is, if getting rid of Jeff Bezos doesn't solve the problem, what the fuck would solve the problem? That's really scary. I think this idea that there are certainly targets in terms of the kind of super rich and stuff. But it's not, that's not enough. Like, what does it mean to go after a system of capital? What does that even mean? I think that's a really confusing prospect. And it's one that is really emotionally unsatisfying, when it gets right down to it. Casandra Johns 10:30 Yeah, cuz we haven't. We haven't imagined alternatives. Or, you know, the average person hasn't imagined alternatives to that. Shane Burley 10:37 Or how will you even get there? Like, what's the pathway to alternative? I think the idea of getting rid of Jeff Bezos, whether or not it's realistic, at least you kind of understand the physicality of what that would be. But what does it mean to communize the entire economy? I mean, what does it mean to actually look at your life and say, "How can I fix these really deeply laid traumas and undo them, and replace it?" That is just such a mammoth task that it's, I think, it's hard to build up a consciousness that's really easy, has a quick fix mentality that's easy to communicate to another person. It's a lot easier to say, you know - I've worked for unions, I've been a union organizer - to say like, "It's that boss, look what he's doing, look at what the car is driving, he couldn't do your job." Those things are easy. And they are true in most of those cases, but they're not the end of the story. And so I think we end up with that really foreshortened perspective because the other stuff is just so big. Casandra Johns 11:32 Yeah. And I wonder if... when we explore the big stuff we also have to look at the ways that we participated, which is difficult. Yeah. Shane Burley 11:42 Yeah. I mean... capital's really complicated now. And the way we, our lives, are intertwined in it is really difficult. Huge portions of the economy are made up of people that would have previously been considered petty bourgeois: freelancers, contract workers, you know. Is an Uber driver a business owner? I mean, there's these things that don't really make sense in the traditional kind of Marxist sense, are the ways we talk about activism and capitalism and wealth. And so it ends up being really complicated. And then when you add the dimensions of being, you know, white folks or in the Global North, that's sort of hyper exploited, under other countries, it's like, well, how does that relationship work? You know, does it? Do I see, am I doing that? Do I benefit from it? What does it mean to benefit from it? You know, I think that actually adds those layers of complexity to it. I think that's why this is the new story. I mean, that's why conspiracy theories are the story that we tell - it's a really important story. And like you said, it's not just the Right, it's the Left, too. Brooke 12:44 So why do you think that they have become so much more mainstream? Because they've always had that quality of being simpler explanation or an easy thing to point to, but now we're seeing them becoming more common. And as Casandra said, you know, more common on the Left as well. Like, what's the rise about? Why is that happening? Shane Burley 13:07 I think that it comes partially from the destabilization of kind of Western economies. The the center has collapsed out, so you're not having as much as moderate politics in general. The radical version of right wing politics is conspiratorial, it's necessarily conspiratorial, so the more radical it gets, the more conspiratorial it's gonna get. That's really, really important for how it builds up sort of an enthusiastic base of supporters, is built on conspiracy theories. Shane Burley 13:36 Again, the Left and the Right will build their energy on similar impulses, right? The impulse to liberate oneself. Well, if we're talking about, quote, unquote, "white working class" - which is a kind of an artificial category - but if we're going to talk about that in the kind of MAGA/Trump sense, they are people, like all people, who have diminishing 401ks and have, you know, rent they can't afford and stuff. Even though they're not disproportionately poor or anything, it's a general feeling of decline, right? So there is decline generally happening. And so that radicalization is going to be in the direction of conspiracy theories because if you were straightforward about right wing politics, no working class person would ever accept such a thing. I say, "So you're going to keep taxing me and then and then give tax breaks to rich people?" Which makes no sense when you think about it. "You're going to bust my union, I won't have as good of a pension?" You have to have conspiracy theories, and bigotries underlying that. So those simply just radicalized more. And they give a narrative, a mythology, to the real emotional turmoil people are living with. Stop the Steal makes a lot of sense if you feel like everyone's stealing everything from you. Like, you're always being stolen from, of course they can steal this election; "This election told me they were gonna fix problems and they stole it from me, just like they stole my pension, just like they stole my home in foreclosure." So I think those things are transpiring. Shane Burley 14:50 I think on the Left there is an increase in conspiracy theories because of the decline in political education and us talking things out. There's not a really good sense about systems. And there's also just a rapidly increasing sort of social network of sharing information that shortens it a lot. So instead of sort of talking about complex issues, it's a lot easier to package them in bite-sized bits. And those things become a lot more viral. Shane Burley 15:13 People also really enjoy thinking that they are participating in secret knowledge of some kind. Like they've been smart. They're ahead of the curve, they're ahead of the official information. I mean, Google search, you know, "Epstein didn't kill himself," and see all the people that have decided that they know something that the rest - everyone else - doesn't know... There's an effort to step past uncertainty, and confusion and complexity, and just kind of claim knowledge. And so that's, I think, an important part of how those discourses happen, and then they just happen so rapidly. Now, they just they progress so quickly. Casandra Johns 15:46 Yeah. I know deep down that conspiracy theories on the Right are ultimately more dangerous. But I get so much more frustrated when I see it on the Left because I feel like we should know better. You know, I was thinking about the, like, to the Right, Jews are dirty communists, and to the Left Jews are dirty capitalists. And one makes me more angry than the other. Shane Burley 16:14 It's interesting because we associate the Jew as the communist with the Right, and actually the Right use the "Jew as the capitalist" more. So for example, the second generation Klan would focus on Jewish capitalists. Part of it is that most likely a lot of the people in the Klan base hadn't met Jewish communists, and people in other countries might have met Jewish communists, you know? But this is one of the things I think is interesting is that there is just a rhetorical crossover that happens here, and actually, when you see - and this does happen, it's not it's not nearly the level that the Right or liberals want to make it sound - but there is moments of crossover when people from the Left take on really far-right ideas or can move to the far right, it has happened. And anti-semitic conspiracy theories is one of the primary ways that happens. Shane Burley 17:04 This sort of anti capitalism - I use the term fetishized anti capitalism, but you know, basically any enemies of capitalism are therefore my friends. And so even these kind of radical traditionalist forms of anti capitalism - these ultra conservative, nationalistic or fascistic forms anti capitalism - sort of start to feel like, well, they're opposed to the same systems, they must be the same thing. And that happens with with anti semitism. And I think we allow for this in all kinds of ways on the Left. Shane Burley 17:32 I mean, the amount of times I've been at international solidarity rallies where really despotic regimes are being - kind of like with signs and flags - simply because they're enemies of our enemy, either the US or the West, or Israel or something, or far right groups, are propped up because they supposedly are against the banksters... Their theory about it involves all kinds of like Rothschild conspiracy theories, and you know, they want a certain kind of Christian nationalism. So we overlook those really commonly when they are our enemies, or when they are ourselves. People are very soft on each other's conspiracy theories. Shane Burley 18:11 I mean, how many 911 Truth folks have you known in your life, you know? And those are fundamentally anti-semitic conspiracy theories, they depend on them. That's how they function. And this is true in the environmental movement. This is true, obviously, in feminist circles. It has different targets, different constituencies, but it's what we see with the kind of growth of turf-ism and that, these use of conspiracy theories to explain. So it's something that we're not prepared to sort of deal with. And we don't, I think, always communicate why it's a problem. I don't think there's a general consensus on the Left that it really is a problem. Shane Burley 18:51 I'll go back to the Epstein thing, you know, the Epstein case. It's really suspicious. People should probably look at that, but I don't know what happened. And I have no reason to believe it was conspiracy. I just don't, and the assumption by everyone jumping immediately into it sort of communicates to me that people feel totally fine, and engage in conspiracy theories when they have gaps of information, and everyone's pretty gentle on this. And that's not the most serious conspiracy theory. I'm not gonna put my stake in the wall in that. But I think we need to start talking to each other about that. Shane Burley 19:19 The other thing about this is that it's a losing strategy. You know, this, it's one of the worst ways of liberating yourself is to do it in accordance with a conspiracy theory because you will necessarily lose. We will always necessarily lose. There is no conspiracy theory that has ever led someone to an effective social movement to change anything. Casandra Johns 19:39 Ugh. Yeah. That's all I have to say. Amen. Brooke 19:49 Yeah, so you guys started getting into the the ties between conspiracy theories and anti-semitism. And there was a whole bunch that went on in that conversation that was just over my head here, that I did not pick up on. Casandra Johns 20:02 You can ask for clarifying statements. Brooke 20:08 I know, but you're on a roll, I don't want to interrupt. Casandra Johns 20:12 We try to make this digestible to someone who's not familiar with the topic. So you know. Brooke 20:22 But I am definitely curious to talk more about the ties between conspiracy theories and anti-semitism. I brought that up the other day and Casandra made the point of, I think you said something like, "All conspiracy theories eventually lead back to anti semitism" or something like that? If I'm totally misquoting you, please correct me. It is not a thing I've ever heard before. And I wanted to dive into that statement that you made and understand it. So I want to talk more about the links between conspiracy theories and anti semitism. Shane Burley 21:00 Anti-semitism has always held a conspiratorial element - a conspiratorial core even - before it engaged in what we would know as conspiracy theories today. So anti semitism, historic anti Judaism in Christianity - and when we say anti semitism, we're specifically talking about the type that was formed in Christianity, we're not talking about broad xenophobia against Jews. So for example, in the classical Muslim world, Jews were far from equal in Muslim dominated countries, but they [Muslims] didn't engage in the kind of like vicious, conspiratorial, genocidal anti semitism that you see in Europe. That's very much a European-Christian invention. But what they essentially did was, in the development of their theological differentiation they had to build on earlier libels around Jews as a sort of conspiratorial cabal of people that engage in really nefarious practices for misanthropic or even demonic reasons. And part of this has to do with the Jews' resistance to assimilation. Jews of 3000 years ago are not the same as Jews today, but there is a certain amount of, like, "We don't change according to societies that we're enbetted in or engaged with." There's a certain amount, for example, with Holika Jewish law things do have a certain continuity to them. And that's sort of threatening to people who want to remake entire populations of people. It's kind of inherently anti assimilationist. And it's very easy then to paint them as an outsider, ones who aren't playing by our rules and not part of our society. Christianity, in an effort to differentiate itself as a breakaway religion from the Jews, and focus really heavily on Jews sort of failing to understand the real spiritual message of their own scriptures, failing to live up to the promise that their religion. Like, "Christians are the new Israel" right? Then eventually develop that into open hostility, and then the suspicion that Jews are engaged in something really nefarious. Shane Burley 23:00 So the blood libel is an example of this: the idea that Jews are secretly kidnapping and killing Christian children to use their blood in different rituals. "Host desecration" is one; after the Catholic church decided that the the wafer - the host - is literally the body of Christ, they then started accusing Jews of stealing that host and stabbing it because they're so cruel. They have, you know, accused them of having pacts with the devil, engaging in all kinds of horrific things. And then at the same time: Jews, they weren't disproportionately moneylenders, but a number of Jews were involved in money lending because of their prohibitions in other industries. And then, of course, Christians used that as a propaganda tool, and basically kind of trumped up the charge. And so that populist anger was starting to intermix with the stories about Jews, and you get incredibly violent hostility. Shane Burley 23:46 I was talking with my co-author, Ben: I don't think at this point in history it's good to luxuriate in all the terrible stories of things that happened to Jews, I think that's almost, like, pornographic in a sense. But if you read pogroms that are kind of a mix of this theological anti Judaism and the reaction to the monarch, basically, they're targeting the Jews, instead of targeting the people who actually hold power. There's this kind of guttural rage, and the kind of cruelty that they're engaged in is totally off the map, it has no productive function other than just as much kind of creative violence as possible. And that's kind of a very particular impulse. And this is one, I think, is the flip side of the impulse to liberate yourself: to engage in oppression of others has some of that element to it. And it's very ephemeral. It's very kind of gut driven. Shane Burley 24:37 But those stories about Jews went through a lot of versions. A lot of ideas about Jews - Jews as moneylenders, Jews as people who steal from Christians, inherently dishonest people - those were secularized into what became known as anti semitism, opposition to Semitism. It was a kind of pseudo scientific idea that Jews had a particular ideology almost in their genes, and they were affecting society in particular ways. So the movement against them, the movement against semetic influence, was sort of productive movement to stop them from kind of degenerating society. The idea of how they're influencing society is that they're engaged in these cabals, either banking cabals, cabals involved in the media, you know, they're changing public perception, they're involved in legal professions, obviously, again, money lending, all forms of like banking and finance, in particular, all these kind of new industries and early capitalist environment. And so these are what we know as the most popular conspiracy theories - about secret societies, about Rothschild bankers, things like that - emerge out of that period. And that's the beginning of what we know today as a conspiracy theory. Shane Burley 25:39 A really coherent secular conspiracy theory, you know, it might have some religious overtones, certainly, but it doesn't argue itself necessarily in purely religious terms. All conspiracies that come later basically have the same format that was developed around this. They all have the same basic structure. And most conspiracy theories have lineages that you can trace back - one came from another one which came from an earlier one, and so on and so forth. They always come back to Jews. And most conspiracy theorists today hold that same anti semitic structure. So Q-Anon is a really great example of this. You know, Q-Anon rarely, quote unquote, "names the Jew." Names the Jew is something that open white nationalists do, right? They'll say, "Okay, this is typically the Jews." But instead, what Q-Anon does, is they'll use the figures of the cabal, they'll take all the structures of this earlier anti semitic conspiracy theory, they'll use verifiably Jewish names, or stereotypes associated with Jews, they'll take older pieces of those conspiracy theories, theologic pieces, and secularize them. So for example, they believe that a cabal of satanic Democrats with curious R last names are taking children and sacrificing their adrenal glands to extract this substance that they use then in rituals to intoxicate themselves. Right? It's familiar, uses a lot of sciency sounding words - Adrenochrome, which is not a real thing - but it sounds like... Casandra Johns 27:01 They were making the forbidden matzah or whatever, right? Shane Burley 27:04 Exactly. What they're doing is basically capturing Christian children and using them for their evil Hebraic rituals. But again, they don't always say - some of them do, increasingly, they do say Jews, but it takes just a tiny scratch on this. 911 Truth is a really good example, you know, where cabals of bankers - or you know, Israel, whatever it is, that's verifiably not involved - are accused of being involved. And the pattern for how this works has an earlier anti semitic conspiracy theory to it. So these are generally how those kinds of work. Casandra Johns 27:06 Can you can you really quickly explain what you mean by "ur" something? Shane Burley 28:40 Ur would mean the kind of universal base form. So the most origin point. So it's saying that ur conspiracy theory maybe means like the first conspiracy theory, or the kind of conspiracy theory that established the format for it, so you can look back and say, okay, it started here. What's the thing that these all hold in common? Then I think you'll see that in the blood libel is that they all hold those basic structural points in common layer. Shane Burley 28:48 In my book I interviewed David Newark, who wrote Alt America and other books about the far right and conspiracy theories. And he, you know, says that basically, the blood libel is the "ur" conspiracy theory. It's like the basic source of all conspiracy theories because the idea that small cabal of people are engaged in this really nefarious work of extracting goodness and turning it into something evil. So anytime you have a conspiracy theory, it's going to have this DNA. Is there any conspiracy theory that engages in a way that's not anti semitic? I think part of the problem is that we live in a globalized world. So other cultures have had conspiracy thinking in them, but the West has really exported anti semitism as a subtle cultural code. Shane Burley 28:48 So I mentioned earlier Muslim anti-semitism, obviously, there is anti semitism in Muslim-majority countries and some Muslim communities, but when you look at it, it actually looks much more like exported Christian anti semitism with some Islamic kind of branding, or like some opportunistic use of Muslim sources. It very much looks like a Western export. And I think that's what we're seeing now globally on conspiracy theories is that even if there was versions of these - and other cultures had conspiracy theories against diasporic people, you know, there's conspiracy theories about Chinese immigrants in Malaysia and there's conspiracy theories about Koreans in Japan, there are those - nowadays, the exporting and universalization of the anti semitic conspiracy theorists, the"ur" conspiracy theory, has affected all peoples sense of how they build those. So you're gonna find spray paint in Japan, that says, "The Jews did 911" in a place where those people likely had never met a Jew, and maybe no one in their ancestry line has ever met a Jew, right? So this isn't about Jews. So in that way, we globalized so effectively and exported our own bigotry so much that there is really no place in this conspiracy thinking that doesn't involve Jews. Brooke 30:06 You might say the genesis of conspiracy theories? (Laughter.) I learned so much in the last 10 minutes. I feel like when I go back and listen to this episode, I'm gonna play it at three-quarters speed and pause to ponder things. No, seriously, I really did. Thank you for the deep historical context there because a lot of that that was unknown to me, that I went, you know, "What, what?" Shane Burley 30:36 I also know it's a lot, too. And I think this is part of the problem is that in any given situation, particularly in situations of anger, how useful is it for me to explain to them what host desecration is, you know? I think it's actually hard to intervene in these spaces. And it's especially hard to intervene when there's really contentious stuff, like Israeli colonization of Palestine and stuff. So it's actually really hard with this very justified anger. And the targets of those angers are actually are coded as Jews. I think it's actually really hard to then intervene and say, "Hey, hold up, you're actually doing a thing. And it has a history and it's a problem." Casandra Johns 31:15 It also makes it difficult to talk about anti semitism in simple terms. I feel like sometimes when people ask me questions about it, that should be simple questions, I'm overwhelmed by the amount of information I'd have to transmit to give them proper context. You know what I mean? Brooke 31:32 I have literally been that person to Casandra. Casandra Johns 31:37 I was interviewing him and I was like, we should do an interview about this. Shane Burley 31:41 We transmute American racial taxonomies on to anti semitism that don't really fit, you know. The couple of interviewees that I had for the book that made this interesting point, they phrased it in an interesting way. And I think JFRCJ, Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, had framed it this way, as well: Only sometimes does anti semitism make Jews poor. It doesn't make us poor all the time. And in fact sometimes it stabilizes Jewish income. So for example, in areas when Jews would have been a hyper exploited population, they're allowed to have certain amounts of wealth as a way of defecting anger from peasant classes away from the actual rich people and onto the Jews. So they might not actually interact with a noble person, but they would interact with a Jew, and they might see the Jew having stable money, and there might be nice things in their home, and that would communicate to them: "This is the person that's exploiting me, rather than the Noble who I've never come across." And there's a certain kind of positioning of Jews in a lot of those situations. Shane Burley 32:40 You know, one thing we talk about in the book is this phenomenon of Jews, and the relationship of white Jews to whiteness, is that when white Jews were very openly accepted as white folks in the US, particularly after the Second World War, there was a kind of class jumping that took place. But what happened was that a lot of Jews - particularly what we call a kind of second wave Jews moving here in the 1920s - were very poor, a lot of them socialists, a lot of working in garment factories, union organizers. But basically, in these dense urban areas, they started to leave those urban areas as they were kind of coded as white, became middle class, and in a lot of ways conservatized, right? Israel was formed in 1948. There's other things that kind of made more conservative. And who moved into those areas? It was a lot of black folks, it's a lot of Puerto Rican folks, lots of communities of color, where Jews now might be the business owner. They might be the landlord because they kind of class jump. They might own the grocery store that all the folks in the community use, and have maybe jacked up prices, or they work and they're not being treated really well. And so again, that dynamic is continued of them being sort of the middle agent, you know? The Jewish shop owner does not control capitalism, but they are the person you might see. And so again, you kind of repeat that dynamic. Shane Burley 33:55 So it's not always that Jews are going to experience anti semitism in the way that black folks experience anti blackness in the same kind of structural way. And also the US is not foundationally built on anti semitism in the way that it's built on anti blackness and colonialism. So it works fundamentally differently. There are some cases in which it looks more similar. So for the Orthodox Jews, they are more likely to be, you know, hurt by police, they are more likely to be poor. There's a recent study that came out that if someone is coded as Jewish in employment, they're much, much less likely to hire them. There's usually other things that kind of go along with it... There's limited data on this, but it's not with someone who's coded as a secular Jew, it's more like if they're coded as Orthodox, where someone's different, seems like it might cause you a problem, or it might make you uncomfortable. Or if it feels like they hold Jewish qualities that are associated with unsavory-ness, you know, like large noses or weird ways of speaking. Or maybe they bring weird food into the office, stuff like that. So those things do actually happen, but in general, it works differently. Shane Burley 35:04 And so there's a certain kind of structural unsafety for Jews, they're always kind of worrying about whether the other shoe was going to drop because anytime there's instability Jews often get targeted in that. But that doesn't mean in the day to day they usually, you know, can't find a job, or [get] pulled over at disproportionate rates. So it works differently. It's hard for people to identify that. Shane Burley 35:24 This is kind of true in general when we're talking about oppression outside of really narrow terms, people generally have learned to understand things in a certain way, and dominant hegemonic discourses, and then learning new ways is really, really tough. I think it really, it's really clear, for example, in the way that the Left just seemed totally unwilling to understand trends and issues for decades, just totally looked like they couldn't compute how little they understand sex work issues, or body issues, fat issues. It's an unwillingness to see that oppression is actually different for different folks, either individually or as groups, and to sort of accommodate for that, and to think through how these things are complicated. And so we can't assume that one thing tracks with another, that you can talk about oppression in one situation and have it be the same for another. So I think that creates that problem you're talking about. So what are you going to do, you know? Sit down and say, "Look, we need to have a conversation about, you know, second century Egypt, BC, and how Jews are coded as this." I mean, it's, it's a hard proposition. Casandra Johns 36:32 We have to talk, we have to go back to 1905. Talk about Czarist Russia. (laughter.) Yeah. I'm wondering, so I'm trying to remember exactly how you phrased it. But when there's, when there's instability, that's when people tend to target Jews. And when there's instability, that's when conspiracy theories also seem to, like, foment as well as fascism. And I'm wondering if you can talk about how those things are related, especially because you write books about fascism and anti semitism. Shane Burley 37:07 I mean, fascism is also an attempt to liberate oneself, right? It's to liberate oneself by inculcating more oppression, like an auto immune response, right? We're gonna attack the immune system, as if that's actually what's harming us. We're gonna attack, you know, the movement to undo white supremacy because that may be what's harming us, rather than, obviously, the reverse. So it's tenfold by two things: One is a sort of a centralized identity, and one is a sort of social stratification. So the idea is that your identity is fixed and must be preserved. And that's an essential piece, usually racial identity, but sometimes it's others. And then the other thing is that all of humanity has to be stratified in this hierarchy, you... are white, because you are not black, and that whiteness is above blackness, for example. And this is a way of taking a privileged part of the class and telling them that their oppression is the cause of the progress of other parts of the class. So it's specifically about splitting the class. So in a way, it's very clear what it's doing, it's disallowing you the ability to organize amongst working people or non-rich people, to change the society that is better for all of you. Right? So it's very specific in that way. Shane Burley 37:42 Anti semitism and conspiracy theories are a story about your oppression that never get to the structural roots, that are usually factually untrue, and are able to kind of break potential solidarity. So I think where the immediate hardships of actual organizing are onerous, confusing, and frightening: conspiracy theories actually disallow that. So for example, if I really want to change the world, it's going to require things of me, right? I'm going to need to figure out how I'm participating in white supremacy so that I can actually collaborate with non white folks. And once we do that, it actually changes the world for all of us, right? This makes it much better for us, like I personally benefit from that. But getting there, it's a little bit hard sometimes. It's also confusing, I don't quite see it, I've never seen it before, right? And I'm actually running into this movement. It's telling me that my whiteness is actually the thing that would make me happy, that whiteness is actually the thing that historically kept me safe, that whiteness is actually what I'm trying to protect. It's not all this class conflict stuff. That's the lies that they tell you, you know, those cabals that actually want to take from you, they're all socialist movements. And I think, so, people are out there and confused. Shane Burley 38:19 And remember, bigotry, it's really interesting because it speaks to people almost like their conscience, it's impulsive. It felt really emotionally... it feels true to people. I can tell you what doesn't feel true is Marxist jargon... That's what feels true. A lot of times when someone speaks of it they're trying, you're searching for a way to liberate yourself. You're looking for a revolutionary story about it. And then someone comes in and tells you something that actually tracks with a lot of the impulses you felt historically because being raised in the society we are that teaches people to understand the world in a certain way. So I think those movements come up in that way. Shane Burley 40:12 You know, fascism is just a particularly modern and revolutionary version of something that happens all the time. It has historically happened for centuries, you know, this kind of impulse to actually, to barrel down into a hierarchy, to basically reestablish tradition and immobile social roles, and to focus on identity at the cost of all others. So, instability simply radicalized this people to change their lot. And that is what's happening at such a systemic level. Now, because capitalism is imploding, the environment is collapsing, the stasis of the 20th century cannot continue any longer. And so that necessitates radicalism of all types. Which is also why, in a sense, stay anti fascism, because if you want any kind of revolutionary movement that's positive, you're gonna have to reckon with the revolutionary movement that's not positive. Casandra Johns 40:58 Right? Seems simple enough. Brooke 41:06 So you're working in some real toxic material, they're dealing with fascism with anti semitism with conspiracy theories, and that's got to, you know, take a toll on you on your mental health and well being. And I'm wondering what you do for yourself to help take care of yourself? And spoiler: this leads into, you know, a deeper question, which is what we always try to get to in Live Like the World is Dying, is talking about how we help others, and then we help our communities with this. But what do you do for yourself? Shane Burley 41:38 Having Andy Ngo sub tweet you, or whatever. Shane Burley 41:38 I don't, I think the reality is that I don't have a good, solid answer to that question. I don't, think that I formed health in my life in a very perfect way. But there's a couple of things I kind of thought about. I mean, I think one is that I think researching the far right is actually sort of empowering to people. I think, you know, if I kind of tried to figure out what it is I'm doing here, like, why am I here, it's not just for productive work, it's not just that I want to produce something that will stop it, I think, is productive. I mean, that's certainly a part of it. But there's also a certain part of it about looking at something that seems frightening and confusing, and sort of under the illusion that if I keep listening, and I keep reading it, it will somehow make sense to me. And that gives me sort of control over my life in a way. And I feel like I can sort of manage it, even though it actually brings instability into my life, you know, putting my name on an article about it, and you know, get threats from proud boys or white nationalists, that brings instability and - Shane Burley 41:49 Totally, I mean, that is actually unstable. But there is a sense that looking at stuff, I think, brings a certain stability. You know, in doing this book, I was interviewing a rabbi from Chabad-Lubavitch which is like a Hasidic. He's kind of particularly like, left leaning. Hot Seat. But, you know, I was talking to him about anti semitism, particularly in Orthodox communities, which often gets discussed as being the more, sort of facing it more frequently because of their visibility, you know, an Orthodox Jew is very visible. And a Herati, or ultra-orthodox view is even more visible than that, you know, black hats, suits, people kind of know what they're looking at. And he was telling me about, you know, "I don't really concern myself much with anti semitism." And I was like, "Well why not?" He's like, "Well, it's not very Jewish." And he was like, "I actually fill my life with Jewish things. And this is particularly not Jewish." And so, you know, part of me is sort of like, the opposite to this is to engage, is to deny engage with things that aren't Jewish, is to basically say, "Actually, I am going to be really purposely involved in the antithesis to these." You know? Casandra Johns 43:58 There's also something very Jewish about deconstructing something like down into its tiniest parts. Shane Burley 44:07 No, yeah, they had all the quotes from from the rabbi about this, which I thought was great... We forget, I think, what we're doing here all the time, being involved in organizing, being involved in work of any kind is meant to create a joyous life. It's meant to actually do something, perform something in your life. And I think we get so obsessed with functionality, and we don't actually live those lives. And the answer to that is actually living those lives. It's building strong relationships with other people. It's engauging art and spiritual life, the things that give your life meaning. I think engaging in that as openly and sort of like flagrantly as possible is is what you do there. And it's interesting because what the far right does is it sort of shows you the vulnerable empathetic parts of yourself, right? Because it it appears in those cracks, it appears in the things that they target. So those in a way are how you come to learn about what's meaningful about yourself, you know. Jewishness is targeted. That's exactly what I find meaningful. Those are the things that I bond with other people about. That's how I find a path forward in my life. And so I think all those sorts of things, engaging as much as possible with that. And I think it's perhaps on us to think less about what we can produce and give to people, as much as we can be with them. I mean, this happens all the time in organizing spaces. I used to be the worst offender about this, you know? "No, that's bad organizing. No, that's just cultural production. No, that's navel gazing." No, I think we should engage in cultural production and navel gazing, like, we should make us happy. I think that there needs to be a lot more of that. And any kind of organizing work that people are engaged in, or when any kind of work needs to be in the service of that, and that's how it should be measured. And not like reproducing the same metrics or bosses do about how productive we should be and what that's about. Casandra Johns 46:03 We shouldn't just reproduce capitalism in our anarchist spaces? Shane Burley 46:07 I mean, this happens all the time, right? It happens all the time. We are ritually unkind with each other, unloving, unwelcoming. It's the absolute worst. And I think it's interesting because we used to talk about, statistically for example, abuse, domestic abuse, and sexual assault are commiserate in activist spaces as they are in the rest of the world. There's no actual difference. So like, all the people that are doing these workshops on consent, and addressing abuse and stuff, tend to reproduce those dynamics as much as anywhere else. I would say that unkindness and a lack of community is even worse in active spaces; they are not particularly joyous places to be. I find them very hard in a lot of ways to be in those anymore. And I think that's sort of what we have to do, we have to look really carefully about how we build those relationships in authentic ways. That's how I think you survived doing hard, kind of trying work, putting yourself in vulnerability. Vulnerable spaces only works if you can live in a comfortable, vulnerable way. So I think when I say I'm not really there yet, I feel like I that's the direction I would like to go. That's how I would stay sort of healthy in a way, if that makes sense. Brooke 47:27 Yeah, so part of our community response to conspiracy theories and conspiracy theory thinking, and fascism and anti semitism, is kindness and compassion for others. And when they show up with their vulnerabilities, accepting those? Shane Burley 47:44 Absolutely. I mean, there's this old IWW poster, it says something like, "If you're not talking to your co workers, somebody else is," and it has a picture of the Klan. Brooke 47:57 Hardcore. Shane Burley 47:58 You know, like, if you're in rural America, we aren't talking to folks, but someone is talking to them. And they are validating their experiences. And they're saying, "Yeah, that's really fucking hard." They're not going to someone who's losing their farm and a foreclosure and saying, like, "Just to be real, have you checked your privilege, and like, you're not the most marginalized person in this situation." That's a hard thing to throw at people, people are actually having a really tough time most of the time. And we have to find a way to connect with them, and also not put up with their bullshit and actually talk to them about conditions of settler colonialism, white supremacy, but we need to actually invest in people. They will not care about us unless we care about them. And conspiracy theories very much are people's attempt to make sense of their lives. And so participating with them and making that sense, I think, is useful. You know, I'm Anti Fascist first, which means I'm defense first, defense always comes first. We protect communities before we do anything else. I don't think that's the same though is addressing cconspiracy theories all over the place, and figuring out how we address them with compassion with people. We care about how we address them institutionally. How we stop them when they need to be stopped, like how do we create barriers and borders, all those things are important. But I think in our communities, in general, a lot of conspiracy theories emerge out of dispossession. And we have to choose whether or not to possess those people basically, do we want to create that? Margaret says this too. I mean, the best way to confront conspiracy theories is to give someone a life that matters. I mean, that's what we're actually doing here. So I think focusing on that underlying fertile soil, figuring out how to change that dynamic, give people real tools, give them real relationships and friendship. I think that's really important. Casandra Johns 49:42 Do you have any favorite tools or resources? So my preface to this is that I've had people ask me this question and the reality is that my favorite resources on anti semitism and conspiracy theories are really dense, and most people will not read them. So I'm wondering if you have any favorite tools or resources that are more digestible? Shane Burley 50:03 Yeah, I think there's a few good pamphlets right now that exist that are useful on this. Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, which has been around for decades, it's this progressive left-leaning Jewish group, has a pamphlet on anti semitism that's particularly good. April Rosenbloom has a pamphlet called The Past Didn't Go Anywhere. That's also really good on this. There's a pamphlet put out by, I think it was a group called Unity and Struggle, called How to Overthrow the Illuminati. It's specifically about conspiracy theories and black communities. That's a really good resource. And there's a few others. Again, I think what, you know, one thing you're pointing out is that one of the issues around anti semitism is that the Right has sort of captured the rhetoric on it because they use it to defend Israel. They use accusations of anti semitism to defend Israel. And they over shoot the claims that the Left is anti semitic. So a lot of these groups just simply don't share a worldview with us enough that their analysis I find particularly compelling. But there are some versions of the Left that have done it, and they tend to be particularly academic. So Critical Theory, and Frankfurt School of Marxism, you know, there's a lot of that stuff, right. And that's good, but gobbly gook most of the time. There's a basically lost, forgotten world of Jewish feminism from the 70s and 80s that is actually quite interesting. But it's like next to impossible to find. So the anti fascist stuff, because anti fascists are kind of ahead of the curve on the anti semitism question. But I think those pamphlets are particularly good to hand someone, and hopefully Ben and my book will be will be like that. I'm hoping it will be. Casandra Johns 51:45 Yeah. Yeah. Maybe this is just part of anti semitism, and also conspiracy theorism, because critical thinking is difficult and can't always be, you know, handed to someone in a tiny package. But it just feels someone has to actually be invested in learning about it. It's difficult to explain. Shane Burley 52:13 David Renton, who's he's this great author and an attorney in Britain - and he writes a lot about the history of anti fascism - he wrote this book on the Labour Party's anti semitism, controversy. So people who don't know: the Labour Party in Britain has been embroiled in this big anti semitism controversy for the past several years. It has been cynically employed by the Tories as a way of attacking the party. And it's pretty obvious that that's what's happening. But it's also obvious that there has been some instances of anti semitism in the party. It's not nearly what the Right says of this, but it does happen. And, you know, David's sort of relitigated this and kind of pointed out that it's, you know, the party is turned towards populism and everyone's turned towards populism. A few years ago, populism became kind of the thing that had a weak point, and basically kind of didn't call out conspiracy theories, so they started making their way in, or kind of crude anti semitic ideas. And it's like the answer to that is actually if you look at the what works for the Labour Party, it's actually class war is the answer to that, actually talking to people about class ends up being the antidote to that and having political education. Daniel Randall, another friend of mine, from Britain, had talked about, wrote about this. And I get political education is something that feels really dorky, and not fun to do, and not what people want to do in a lot of spaces, but it was an essential piece of radical movements that aren't there anymore. So actually talking to people about these things, and getting involved people to read some things. I think, you know, people do this in really overblown ways. Lord knows there's a million Marxist groups that make you sit in reading groups all day, and no one wants to be a part of that. But like having some progress on stuff and explaining what kind of anti capitalism we actually mean, I think is a useful thing. And it's one of the better ways intervene on that. Casandra Johns 54:01 That book, Daniel's book, what is it? Confronting Anti Semitism on the Left? He's the one who wrote that, right? Shane Burley 54:10 Yeah, yeah. Casandra Johns 54:11 That sounds right? That book was incredible. Shane Burley 54:14 Yeah. He's really incredible. Yeah, I think I think, you know, one thing is when it comes to anti semitism, specifically, most people don't know Jews and don't know much about Judaism. So I think just letting people know. I mean, the amount of times I've heard things repeated that are just bombastically untrue - like, for example, I was a Student for Justice in Palestine, and we had this event and someone asked the speaker where Zionism came from, and he said, "It's in the Talmud." Just like bonkers stuff, you know? Casandra Johns 54:52 Which is a think that, like, a Zionist might say. Ironically. Shane Burley 54:58 I interviewed Sean Magee when doing my book, and he made a point that a lot of the worst corners of anti Zionism tend to agree with the settlers. And so I think it's just getting people that kind of understanding. I think if people understand conspiracy theories and why they're toxic and what the consequences of them are, I think that's more useful. And then again, getting people in verifiable forms of community that actually meet their needs, I think that actually is more useful. I think when people get involved, for example, in the labor union, that tends to actually decline because they're like, "Okay, I could actually do this thing, I improve my wages this way, I actually have all this tactile control over my life." And then when people are in community with others they have these vulnerable, caring relationships, and they don't... have the same impulse to build the kind of alienating, almost cosmic-level, theories about the world. You know, believing in Q Anon is a really lonely thing, breaks up families or breaks up relationships. So I think all that kind of stuff is really alienating for people. Shane Burley 56:02 But you know, there's this thing called the wave, and SEIU - SEIU is a big labor union - and they have this model of what they call a union conversation, they call it the wave. It's eight steps of how to have a conversation. It's very dorky. But in the conversation, you do a few things, right? You introduce yourself. You listen to what people are saying, you agitate on their issues, you call questions, you know, you do a number of stages to get someone thinking about their issue, why it upsets them and what they can do about it. But you do two things: One, you always plan that when you talk to them, how can we win on this issue? How can we fix it? Is it possible? And then you inoculate them against what the boss will say. What will the boss say when you try and do that? What do they say to you? How is that bullshit? And we don't 'plan the win' with people. And we certainly don't inoculate them. People need to see how they can win. They have to know how it's possible. If someone's having issues in their lives, they have to see how it can win. And if we don't have a sense of that, we're not gonna be able to help with that. And we need to work that out with folks. Shane Burley 57:08 And also talk to them about, like, people are gonna give you other messages about this. Like, what do you think about that? What would you say back to that? Because I think particularly conspiracy thinking, a lot of people get trapped in not understanding the systems and saying, "Well, fuck, I guess that's the deal. I guess the Rothschilds do own it, I don't know." And so I think planning the win and inoculation are really important in that. And that's true in general. There's this assumption that if such a situation gets so bad, that the working class will rise up and overthrow it, but there's no evidence to suggest that. None. What does statistically show people, or what simply pushes people to taking that kind of action, is seeing that they can win. So small victories in their life or in organizing leads to big victories. You have to show people they can win. The pathway to winning using multiracial, you know, community organizing of whatever it is that base building that's, I think, the most important piece because that will then totally push away the sort of false answers. Casandra Johns 58:08 That seems important in terms of motivating people to care as well. You know, like, no, strategically, this is very important in all of our best interests. Shane Burley 58:18 I had this conversation with a member of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, which is an anti-fascist group from the 80s, and I was talking to them - I'll just withhold their name for the sake of this conversation - but I was asking him like, how do you commute? Because, you know, John Brown was essentially a white organization, it recruited white leftist folks in support of a kind of anti-white supremacy platform in support of black nationalism and some other things. In a lot of ways kind of divisive, a kind of divisive organization, their politics are a little divisive. And asked, like, "Well, how do you communicate to white working class people why eradicating white supremacy is in their interest?" And she said, she kind of paused and said, "I don't know that it is in their interest." She's like, "I don't communicate with him on that. I communicate with them about what kind of world do you want to live with?" And I told her, I was like, I just disagree with that entirely. I think it is in their interest, and you have to tell them why it's in their interest. And you have to plan out why it's in their interest. I do believe it's in my interest. And when it comes to conspiracy, there's anti semitism, it's super clear why it's in their interest because anti semitism will stop you from winning. It's just so point blank, right? Like George Soros is not the reason you can't pay your mortgage, it's simply not that... Casandra Johns 59:34 Anti semitism, however. Brooke 59:36 Is also not the reason, just to be clear. Not the reason. Shane Burley 59:40 Yeah, that's really great. So Shane, you've mentioned your books, you've got one that just came out right? No Pasaran. Shane Burley 59:40 There are people doing this and they have names and addresses, but... what you're saying is a false pathway. It's totally to direct you the wrong way. And we should talk to people about what happens when they don't just double down on privilege. They don't just double down on those sorts of things. What happens when they reach across communities and build large committees? They become infinitely more powerful. I mean, it's just so overwhelming the kind of change that you can have and not just in the long term, in the immediate term. You can see that with a labor movement. You see that with any social movemnet, that's one serious gain that happened by doing that. It never happened by doubling down on their privilege. So I think talking to people about their interests is essential. And that also shows that you actually give a shit about them because of their interests are your interests, that shows that there's an actual shared bond there, and you can build something. Shane Burley 1:00:38 It was a phrase used particularly during the Spanish Civil War, about blocking fascist access to space and movement into communities. So it's about blocking them, their ability to, to arrive. Brooke 1:00:51 Nice. Okay, so No Pasaran, that just came out. I've got a friend who picked it up at Powell's when you were there doing a book event or reading recently. He said it's really good, and is gonna loan me his copy. So I'm excited to get to read that too. I know you're working on another one - we've talked about it here - on anti semitism. Does that one have a name yet? Do you know when it's coming out? Shane Burley 1:01:11 Yeah, it's called Safety Through Solidarity. Casandra Johns 1:01:15 Nice. Brooke 1:01:15 Beautiful. Shane Burley 1:01:16 Yeah. And I think it'll come out like this time next year. I think that's what it is. So we're sort ofstarting to wrap it up now, like in the writing of it. Brooke 1:01:27 So in the meantime, people can pick up No Pasaran, and then look forward to that. Anything else that you want to plug today, Shane? Shane Burley 1:01:36 Actually, yes, I will be doing more book events in Jan