All Episodes

October 11, 2023 48 mins

We conclude our conversation with Shane, Emily, Daryle, and Michael by talking about the current state of antifascism and what lessons can be learned from antifascist history.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Media.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Welcome back to It could happen here. This is Garrison Davis.
This episode is part two of a conversation that myself
and James Stout had with some of the contributors to
a book by AK Press titled No Passeran. It's an
anti fascist anthology that talks about the modern anti fascist
movement and some of the writer's own experiences with anti fascism.

(00:31):
So we'll pick up our conversation basically right where we
left off, talking about the modern state of anti fascism,
anti fascists and like, you know, the left quote unquote
in general right now is kind of in a weird place.
You know, like a lot of people were you know,
extremely kind of catalyzed after Charlottesville, and that led to
a like massive resurgence of anti racist action, anti fascist action.

(00:55):
And I think the quote unquote like antifa movement of
the twenty teens abs like was is probably one of
the largest like politically radicalizing forces for people, especially people
my age, people a little bit older. It's you know,
it's very influential in what the kind of the modern
like anarchists or you know left, you know scene is.

(01:16):
And there's like there's a lot of positive parts of that.
There's also you know, there's some some drawbacks for that
as well. Kind of one one kind of recurring thing
is that like when your only tools a hammer, then
everything is a nail. And there's certain elements of of
like and and this like antifa notion, like people who
like grew up with with like anti fascists and being

(01:39):
their primary kind of mode of practice. Then it can
be very easily turned horizontally. But you know, it's after
after j six, after after Biinen's been inaugurated, we have
had this very weird lull, but there's still been you
know a lot of fascist mobilization. But this response to

(02:00):
it that you know was very normalized in twenty eighteen
has has definitely shifted. We we've seen, like you know,
the one thing that's been new is, like you like
you mentioned regarding you know, Charlotte Spell, there's lot of
like debate around if people should show up armed. We
now have like the Drag Time Story Hour kind of defenses,
like armed defenses with John Brown, gun clubs becoming more popular.

(02:23):
But you know, the one the kind of occurring things
that everyone's kind of been talking about it I've been hearing,
Like there's so many parallels for what we've been going
through the past like five ten years to other kind
of things in the past. Like while all of the
John Brown anti Clan Committee stuff, there's just a lot
of cyclical notions. I mean, even I'm here in Atlanta

(02:43):
right now, there's this Rico grand jury indictment. Everyone's thinking
about like green scare stuff. Even even John Brown Anti
Clan Committee did grand jury resistance back in like the eighties.
Like it's this this these things have happened before. And
I think one thing that you know, the quote unquote
after anti fascists sometimes they're kind of bad at is

(03:03):
actually passing down the history. There's this tendency that when
people get involved, we're kind of forced to reinvent the
wheel every time. But it's like completely like unnecessary, but
we tend to just keep trying the same things over
and over again. So there's even people younger than me
who weren't even old enough to get involved in anti
fascist stuff in like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and they're
now kind of growing up. There's still this fascist mobilization.

(03:26):
You know, liberals are kind of passive because they have
their guy in the White House, and we're going to
be reaching a really interesting tipping point in twenty twenty four.
So for these types of people who are like either
wanting to get involved or who are like just just
starting to realize that, hey, maybe we should actually do
something about all this stuff, especially as you know, trans
existence is one of the main things under attack right now.

(03:47):
What is kind of some like lessons from the passage
you would like to be passed down to people.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
A couple of things that come to mind. I was
reminded because James is in San Diego about you know,
one of the things we haven't talked about at all
is the border, and that's been a recurrent theme of
the right and of the state, both in terms of
building you know, a repressive apparatus. So going back to
you know, the early days of People Against Racist Terror,

(04:17):
which is the group that I had in La after
John brand Ask and Anti Clan Committe left. One of
the first actions we did was there was something called
the American Spring at the Mexican Border, which was a
neo fascist element. It kind of grew out of the
previous Clan Border Watch that David Duka done, and they
were trying to you know, build up a base of

(04:39):
support for you know, very you know, close the borders.
And so we did bring people from la and joined
up with San Diego. And actually at one of those
rallies somebody drove a car at and nearly hit someone
from the the the you know, the anti fascist forces.
So I think that's an important piece of we should

(04:59):
be thinking about the other thing in terms of killings
and shootings. You know, somebody from the Red Nation was
just shot in Albuquerque, and you know, I think that again,
the question of indigenous sovereignty and indigenous rights is a
leading edge of struggle. A lot of the struggles around
missing and murdered Indigenous women have to do with the
you know, fossil fuel industry and in the back in

(05:23):
other places where you know, women have disappeared and been
killed by you know, people in the fossil fuel industry basically,
And I think bringing all that to bear is really
critical to have the breadth of consciousness and the understanding
that there is a global struggle that's going on and
Indigenous people in particular are part of that, about the

(05:44):
survival of humanity and of the planet in a sense,
and to situate anti fascist struggle in that context, I
think is really really important and relates to who are
our allies, who are leadership, where is the struggle being
led by and so you know, one of the things
we uncovered here is that the people involved in the
militia movement started their operations by supporting Christian militias in

(06:07):
Guatemala and the Philippines, attacking left forces in those countries
and indigenous forces in those countries. And you know, having
that global perspective, I think that's one of the really
great strengths of the book, by the way, that I
thought was really amazing, as the coverage of anti fascist
movements all around the world, and you know, the anti
fascists in India and so on, and having that sense

(06:30):
that it's not just you know, people of European descent
or you know, African Americans in the United States who
are post to fascism, but there's a very very broad,
you know, movement around the world and inside this country
of people who are experiencing fascism literally all the time
that you know, gives a strength to anti fascism.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
There is an exceptionalism that exists even in the left
and American exceptionalism that exists even in the American life
when it comes to how bad things are, how good
we are at organizing or whatever. And I think that
a lot of the time is one of the things
that we often forget is that we are not the

(07:14):
only people going through this, both in time and space.
Right there's movements that are going on elsewhere that are
facing a much deeper sort of repression than what we
see in the United States, and they are still finding
ways to organize. I like to do you know when
we talk about like the attack on queer rights, and

(07:35):
you know, things like all of these hateful laws that
are being passed which will almost certainly be thrown out
in the courts, and that's you know, it's going to
be a couple of years. But you know people are saying, well,
this is going to make pride illegal, and this is
you know, this is the worst thing. This is like,
you know, a step towards genocide and all of that stuff.

(07:56):
And I think it's actually important for us to put
things in perspective. Istanbul has a much stricter set of
restrictions on we are organizing quirkeet demonstrations. Pride happens every
year Pride is attacked by cops every year, they still
continue to persist. What can we learn as Americans from
that movement. I think that's a really important thing for

(08:19):
the American anti fascist scene to really start to to
think around and try to take this moment. As you mentioned,
there's a lull that is happening now, both in the
organizing and in the popular support. We need to take
that moment to reflect on what is working, what is not,
to regroup and to find new approaches, new tactics. This

(08:43):
is something that I write about in the chapter I
wrote on TRANSI anti Fascism. Right, we need to, like
we need to absolutely bring in historical contexts and comparative
analysis into our into what we're doing, But that does
not mean that we need to say that everything is
literally the Holocaust. What we need to do is look

(09:04):
at what are the factors, what are the causes, what
are the root causes of the things that are happening,
and how can we strategically organize to disrupt and to
bypass those forces. So I think it's really important to
have that multifaceted perspective.

Speaker 5 (09:22):
I think that Emily is touched on something that is
really important when we say that the police are being
are attacking pride events, pride marches and such, that suggests
that somebody initiated something on our side. That speaks to

(09:42):
what it is we have to do. We have to
initiate certain actions. We cannot keep waiting for the fascists.
We can't keep waiting, we can't keep being reactive. We
do have to go on the offense. I mean, that's
one of the reasons why myself, me and others have
been so successful. It is because we don't wait for

(10:06):
the fascists to do something. We do something to them
before they make a move, and we know when to
do it because they basically send us signals out courtesy
of their free speech, that they want to do something,
and we just take those cues and say, Okay, here's
how we are going to go forward. We're going to

(10:27):
let people know about you, We're going to let people
know how to keep you at bay. I mean, that's
the kinds of things that we need to do. We
need to just basically say we are establishing this institution,
we are establishing the security around that institution, and you
are not going to be able to breach this institution.

(10:49):
The other thing that we do need to do in
that while we build that is also make it clear
to some of those that, for lack of a better term,
or wishy washy on the subject, are more mainstreamers and
liberals and such who are quick to defend the fashions
that they say they don't believe in before they defend us.

(11:10):
We gotta start telling them to chill, and you gotta
start telling them to pick a side and stop getting
in everybody's way. Stop being a bulwark because you're too
cowardly to put up this fight or you're too interested
in protecting your other interests as opposed to being concerned
about what's coming down the pike. The book starts off

(11:35):
with a discussion about a three way fight. We definitely
are in one. Do you want to explain what a
three way fight is? Well, three way fight is not
only you're dealing with you know, the obvious enemy, so
to speak, but you're also dealing with those that are
hesitant to do something about that enemy to the point

(11:55):
that they will fight you more, to the point that
they will fight you more. And frankly, it's frustrating. It
is a frustrating thing, but it is there and it
has been there through our history, and I mean even
the mo I mean, I'm surprised I'm actually referencing a
Mel Gibson movie, but even the movie Brave Heart brought

(12:16):
that up. Now, I don't think that we need to
smack people upside their head with a mace, but by
the same token, we do have to let people know
that we do have to be a little bit more
I should say, assertive in our efforts as we go
forward and basically try to rout this particular fascist element,

(12:39):
and an assertive means blowing past those that are supposed
to be on our side. I mean, because I was
thinking about the fact that this is now the twelfth
anniversary of Occupy Right, and Occupy was trying to do that.
Occupy is still trying to do that, and respects the

(13:00):
folks that were in Occupy, but some of the folks,
because what you also saw at Occupy were a lot
of folks who thought that they would be able to
take advantage of the progress that we were making in
this effort and turned it into a more fascist thing.
I mean, I was just looking at a lot of

(13:21):
the characters that come out of Occupy that went to
the fascist side, and when you look at who they are,
you realize that you had a whole bunch of opportunities
that were within our ranks that were looking for something
totally different than what the rest of us. We were
looking out for each other and Occupy The true people
that were dealing with Occupy Wall Street were looking out

(13:43):
for each other in our communities. These guys just thought, Hey,
perfect opportunity to just say that we're one with them
and drag them over here to the right. That's strasserism,
that straight up stratsifism. But when you look at it
even further, it's just a bunch of people that only
cared about themselves ultimately. And we've seen it after year

(14:03):
after year in this fight. So I think that it's
going to be very important to build and protect our
institutions and recognize what it is we are protecting them from.
And it's not hard. We have shown over and over
and over again that we are prepared to weigh that
kind of war. We just have to basically recognize it

(14:26):
within ourselves when we have to do it, and that's
just and do not wait for people to die. I mean,
Heather Hire did not have to die. No one in
January sixth. Regardless of how I feel about any of
them had to die. That should not be the thing
that we should respond to. We already know what to do,

(14:47):
we just need to do it.

Speaker 6 (14:49):
Yeah, I think it picked up on a lot of
what everyone said, especially Michael. I think part of what
gets out here is having a place for like broad
social movements where they're able to interact with one another
and support one another. So anti fascist movements as a
defensive movement have often been essential to actually operating other
kinds of organizing, you know. So like when I was

(15:12):
working with Houselest encampments and we were doing food not
bombs and stuff. You get attacked by far right groups,
you had to have a defense development. There was no
other choice.

Speaker 5 (15:20):
Same thing.

Speaker 6 (15:20):
I've been at union offices that were attacked by the
far right. You have to have that defens development. And
then on the same token, we're talking about mass actions
against far right demonstrations. It requires people that are coming
probably from all kinds of political backgrounds, but they've gotten
involved from different kinds of practices. We're having mutual aid
networks that support people getting there, sustaining themselves there, medical care,

(15:43):
all kinds of component pieces. So those things require that
kind of back and forth, and I think that also
begs to how do you get people in We're talking
about a lot of problems with people on like the
moderate left, not kind of taking those next steps, those
defensive steps that are necessary, but also how do we
find a pathway for them in. You know, if we're

(16:03):
talking about mass participation in something, if we're talking about
like a revolutionary movement with huge masses of people, we
have to figure out what those pathways for people are
and giving them access to them. And I think also
moving past what we've thought of as the far right before.
I mean people have talked about this a little bit.
You know, a lot of what we think of as

(16:23):
recently anti fascism was built around finding the alt right
and other kind of recent short term projects, and what
we have now is just radically different, just like it
will be in a few years. And so having a
deep kind of intersexual understanding of how that works, because
when you do that, you have that kind of natural
understanding of where that's going to show up again, how
it might interact with different communities, and what rule places

(16:45):
for you. How are you able to interact with it
as this person coming into a social movement.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Yeah, I mean, especially considering something I've been kind of
watching and we're seeing a little bit of it with this,
with this set of Republican primaries, is that we have
an incoming new wave of kind of gen z and
millennial Republicans who grew up in the alt right era
who are now bringing that sort of like alt right
street politics to electoralism, and how that's going to be opposed.

(17:12):
It's going to be you know, I was just talking
about before how we shouldn't just try to like retread
the same ground over and over again without learning the
histories from the past. But like this, for a lot
of people who have just been doing like street politics
the past few years, figuring out how they're going to
oppose like fascism in this much more like electoral setting,
it's gonna be an interesting shift because, yeah, you can

(17:32):
like punch Richard Spencer and no one really cares too much,
But if you punch someone like, you know, DeSantis, that
is going to be a different thing to kind of
sort through it. And so yeah, I think that is
kind of one of these shifts that you know, maybe
maybe coming up here soon and whatever kind of evolves
on the anti fascist side to kind of meet that

(17:53):
it is going to be interesting to watch and take
part in.

Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, I think that, you know, the part of the
ar analysis has always been that fascism is built from
above and below. And I think we really have to
understand that that the fascism is Fascism is not only
the factor of the street politics and the people who
declare themselves to be fascist, but that there are fascist
elements in the structure of this society, and there are
fascist elements in power in this government right now. And

(18:30):
you know, the fascism has come to power in quite
a number of you know, in Italy, neo fascists as
the Prime Minister, and you know in the United States
Matt Gates, and that element has a clear you know,
they're in power within the Republican Party, they control the
House representatives in a way, and I think that that's

(18:52):
a critical understanding. But also it speaks to the fact
that fascist practices and elements exists in a lot of
different places. And I think one of the things I've
always tried to put out to people is that this
is an aspect of the nature of imperialism, central colonialism
and I want to emphasize that because I think there's

(19:13):
a fractal character to what we're dealing with or holographic,
you know, there's any element of this society that you
attempt to deal with, you're actually facing the entirety of
imperialism and fascism.

Speaker 5 (19:26):
There.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
So, if you look at the labor movement right now,
labor is a big resurgence, particularly here in southern California.
There have just been you know, the hotel workers and
restaurant works on strike, the screen actors on strike, the
writers go on strike, and the fact that there you know,
there is a fascist element to the employment structure and
trying to organize it. If you look what happened to

(19:48):
the Amazon union, or just the fact that again going
back in history, you know, the Taft Hartley Act was
written to criminalize you know, communists and and also solidarity
with the labor movement outlaw. You know, solidarity strikes, and
that's fascist, that is you have to understand that. And

(20:09):
you know, one of the reasons that the Puerto Rican
in Dependence movement attack Congress was that the US attempted
to put the Taft Tartly Act into practice against the
labor movem in Puerto Rico, and the Nationalist Party said no,
we're going to counterattack. So I think that that's a
really critical understanding. We started out talking about the prisons,

(20:29):
and you know, there's nothing more fascists that's in prison.
And one of the things they do in prison is
they use privilege to try to divide the prisoners. You know,
and we haven't talked much about privilege and how it
operates in the society, but you know, it's a key
factor in how people are are organized by the system
to collaborate to you know, get along by going along

(20:55):
and so. But even inside the prisons we've seen here
in California and elsewhere, and you know, the Alabama, Georgia elsewhere,
prisoners are able to organize under conditions of fascism that
exist in the prisons. They have ways to communicate with
each other, they've built into racial solidarity in many cases.
So I think those are examples of anti fascism that

(21:17):
we need to embrace and understand the same way that
people organ you know, if you're organizing a union, you're
operating on a certain level clandestinely, because if you're open
about it, you're going to get fired. And they're going
to retaliate and they're going to anybody you talk to
is going to get fired. So we need to have
an understanding of ways to organize that are not always

(21:39):
I'm not talking about arms struggle, and I'm saying that
people have to organize below the radar when you're dealing
with fascism, especially when it's in power, and fascism isn't
in power, and a lot of sectors of the society
right now and people are dealing with it, as Emily
said about you know, Istanbul and Pride marches, you know,
so you know, I think we need to make those

(22:00):
connections into the labor movement, into the prison movement, into
the you know, formally incarcerated people's movement, you know, the
solidarity with indigenous struggles that are going on against that's
just the colonization of their lands and struggles. And I
think that if we understand that that's an aspect of
anti fascism, I think it actually strengthens what we're engaged in.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
Definitely. I think it's also important just to, like, I guess,
if people are thinking about their organizing, and it's always
important to hear from those struggles as well. As you know,
to to include them, but to really include them in
a sense of like listening and learning from rather than
sort of telling and saying this is like a Cish hat,
white guy. It's definitely a thing that I've perceived in

(22:45):
the movement in the last few years is a desire
to speak a little more and listen a little less.
And one thing I enjoyed about your book is that
when we talk about fascism, and we'd already mentioned Michael's
mentioned the border as a sort of a location for
fascist experiments within the United States, which I think it's
very hard to argue against living on the border. If

(23:07):
you protested in twenty twenty against police violence, you were
surveiled using technology that has been used for years where
I live, against migrants and citizens who live here. But
I really liked your perspective on looking at global fascisms,
because fascism is it's very easy to spend too much
time defining fascism, especially as anti fascists, right, Like, it's

(23:30):
extremely easy to be like, it's not fascism unless it
comes from the Fascia region of Italy, kind of like
this like cheese or champagne. Definition of fascism, but they've
focused on, for instance, fascism in India. Like, if I
go to the border, I was at the border a
couple of days ago, right that there are tons of
Punjabi Sikh people camped out in the desert right now

(23:51):
because border patroller are holding them in an open air
concentration camp, essentially because of what's happening in India that
they turn up here, right and as well as bringing
sort of migrant detention, resistance and migrant mutual aid and
to any fascism, I think it's important anti fascists also
like we can take concrete action to protect and like

(24:13):
to care for victim survivors of fascism. I guess people
who fled fascism, and like, when I think about what
my backgrounds in the study of the Spanish Civil War,
right that that's what my PhD is about. The thing
that radicalized young often Jewish men growing up in the
same part of New York that you did, was often

(24:37):
seeing people fleeing fascism coming to their communities and then
being like, we can't allow that not only to not
happen here, but the crucial step that like, we can't
allow that to happen anywhere, and that being what kind
of motivated them to travel to Spain, and many of
many of them died fighting in the Spanish Civil War, right,

(24:59):
But I think we could do better to do that
as well. Like now, I know not all of us
are living in the United States right now, but sometimes,
like Emily said, American anti fascism can be very exceptionalist
or whatever. But I think that we have so much
to learn from anti fascists. In my sort of formative experiences,

(25:21):
we're in Catalonia, in Spain, but also in India, also
in Russia, right, And I wonder if anyone could shall
like sort of I guess concrete ways that people listening
can help to expand that solidarity into an international anti fascism.

Speaker 6 (25:40):
I think there's an interesting example, and it gets to
what Michael was stressing about fascism being kind of colonial
rule brought back to homeland. You know a lot of
the methods that were used against kind of mid century
anti fascist organizers, for example, the Anti Nazi League or
later anti fascist.

Speaker 5 (26:00):
Action in the UK.

Speaker 6 (26:01):
We're basically test run against Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland, right,
So those uprisings different kind of methods of crowd control,
use of quote unquote non lethal weapons, different kinds of
forms of incarceration, then used later against the Anti Nazi League.
So there's sort of a step. They're taking this colonial
rule back home that's the testing ground, and then using

(26:22):
it domestically. And I think what that actually does is
create a certain bridge between two communities that there's now
a point of connection where they can relate. That doesn't
mean they're in the same situation, right like it doesn't
mean that like someone protesting in the United States is
in the same situation as someone in to call in
my space, But having that shared system that actually binds

(26:43):
us together in that sense of solidarity, that's a new
model of safety. That's a new model of community. So
it's now seeing my strength in that alignment with someone else,
of connecting with communities internationally, learning from what they're doing,
but making real connections between them, ones that have a
real sense of weight between them, where someone's success in

(27:03):
international social movement has real effect on your lives and
back and forth. I think committing to that is actually
the kind of biggest thing we can do that creates
an international movement, and it makes everyone stronger everyone, more effective.

Speaker 5 (27:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (27:18):
Yeah, I think one of the strengths of anti racist
action was that it was always an international organization. It
was US and Canada and there were a lot of
chapters in Canada and that really helped break some of
the US exceptionalism understanding. But he also had corresponding organizations.
It was Resistancia, Redskin in Colombia in Bogaton, and a

(27:40):
couple of like Colleia. I think, and you know, I
think that that really is an important element. And again
what I said is that we need to understand that,
you know, similar to what Lennon said about the the
Russian Empire, that is the prison house of nations, that
there are captive nations inside the borders in the United States,
and that you know, indigenous sovereignty, uh, you know, Puerto

(28:01):
Rican independence and you know Hawaiian sovereignty and a lot
of other issues. And I think those are things that
you know, the fascists try to exploit. Also, you know,
they present themselves, you know, fascism presents itself in the
Third World as a strategy for you know, national dependence.
When the Japanese you know, empire, but it so forward.

(28:22):
It was the the you know, they presented themselves as
being opposing British and US imperiless in Asia. You know that,
and you know then they were employing their own imperialism.
But you know that that internationalist element I think is
really critical. And uh, I think the same thing in labor.
I think that the labor movement, you know needs in

(28:43):
this country needs to think about uh, you know, prison
struggles as part of the labor movement needs to think
about the internationalists uidlarity with labor struggles elsewhere. One of
the things I raised with in relation to the uh,
the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild here is that
you know, they're based this whole thing about artificial intelligence.
And I don't know if people are aware, but artificial

(29:04):
intelligence depends on tens of thousands of people in the
Philippines and elsewhere that are working, you know, as gig workers,
processing stuff to put it into artificial intelligence. And you know,
the same thing you're saying about the border, the technology
of self driving vehicles is based on the same technology

(29:29):
using to you know, for motion detection on the border.
And the reason they're doing that is also because the
people driving self driving vehicles is not just Google and uber,
but it's the US Army Tank Division which wants to
have automated self driving tanks the same way they have drones.

(29:49):
And having that understanding that it is up against the
global system and the fascists or a piece of that,
but they're not the only piece of that, I think
is really really critical to understanding what we have to
deal with.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
We talk about, you know, what would a fascist government
look like if it was in control, you know, full
control with no opposition. I think there are plenty of
examples of that, and there's a fascist war happening right
now in Ukraine, and I think that there's so much
that we can learn from what is going on there

(30:22):
that oftentimes I think that as anti fascists we find
ourselves wanting to be with the left, that we get
into a political situation that gets muddled. I went to
the border twice in Ukraine when the war broke out.
I would relive Unite the Right one hundred times before

(30:43):
I had to go back to that again. We don't
understand scales until you have seen it, until you've seen
the hundred or the thousand yards there from hundreds of people,
you know, poring over the border. I'm sure James, you're
you're you're very familiar with this, with the border work
that you're doing there. These things are so often distant

(31:06):
and abstract to us that we we lose sight, that
we think that we can influence things within our own
spaces that will then have an impact on these bigger,
bigger systems, and we can't write. So I think that
you know, to go back to you know, what would
be the call of action? You know, what would I
want the listener to take take away from this. I

(31:28):
think that this is about, as somebody said earlier, listen,
listen more, and speak less. Right, try to read, Try
to to see what people elsewhere are doing, how they're organizing,
what their needs are. You know, how do we do
mutual aid in earthquake and flood stricken areas? How do

(31:48):
we do mutual aid for refugees who are fleeing a
war and things like that. There's just so so much
out there that we need to bring into perspective. And
if you think that you can fix any of it,
or even just a small part of it simply through
speaking up or you know, awareness campaigns, I think that
you're a misled So I think my call it action

(32:09):
is go out, read books, meet people, get off of Twitter.
Scrass for me to say it. But the master's tools
can't dismantle the master's house, right. We can't keep this
pattern of outrage cycles up. In order to move the
issue forward, we have to come up with something new.
My challenge to people is to put your brains together

(32:31):
and figure out what that news going to look like.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Maybe that's where we could end actually is with each
of you suggesting something like Emily has just done right,
something to read, something to do, and an action to
take that could concretely to help us oppose and rebuff
and push back against fashion.

Speaker 5 (33:00):
I think it was pretty much going back to what
I was saying earlier, that it will begin when we
take the bull by the horns. It will begin whenever
we decide that we are going to establish this. I mean,
it goes back. You know, I grew up with hip hop.

(33:22):
I was in the punk scene. Both those genres. Both
those cultures were created by people who by those who
didn't see, say, the mainstream listening to them. So they said,
you know what, we don't need them. We need to
just go ahead and do what we need to do.

(33:43):
So we can benefit what it is we want to do,
and that's the attitude that we got to have. We
got to have that hip hop attitude, got to have
that punk attitude, and we just simply got to build
the institutions that will address the situation. And I will
say it again, that's what Occupy was about. I think
we need to continue to learn the lessons from Occupy

(34:05):
in order to go forward. And once we start doing that,
first of all, when we do that, we're going to
see again people trying to either co op or or
take it down. And we got to also protect ourselves
from from that as well. I mean, I know I'm

(34:26):
repeating what I had said earlier, but I think that
the solutions and you know what I didn't say. I
think the solutions are already being implemented. I think that
we are all have been working and doing this. Folks
that aren't on this folks that aren't on this podcast,
folks that would never be on any pockets are just

(34:47):
basically putting their time and to make sure that the
things are done properly. I just got I just saw
on the news that they had in Delaware they just
passed the law against I guess what they call panic
panic killings in regards to the LGBTQ community. You know

(35:10):
that what they call back in the day, the gay
panic thing defense. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (35:16):
Delaware became the seventeenth state I believe, yesterday to make
that illegal. It should have been illegal in the first place.
But but they basically for those who don't know what
that means, it generally means you cannot kill somebody because
you're freaked out over someone being gag. I mean, that's

(35:36):
just basically what it is concerned for. It happened after
Jenny Jones. Uh, somebody expressed their feelings towards another man,
and that person after the Jenny Jones show had murdered
that person, and the killer, instead of getting first degree murder,
got second degree murder because he used a gay panic defense.

(35:59):
So people initially, so that was where everything started, and
everybody was saying that we got to do something about that.
If it was not for us putting together the mechanism
and the institutions to breasically basically voice our concerns, voice
our issues, and say we got to do something about
this today, would that have happened. It should not be

(36:21):
seventeen states, By the way, it should be all fifty.
But that's the kind of things that we need to do.
These are the things that it's all going to depend
on us, and how we act to things that is
going to make all the difference in the world. So
when everybody's ready, let's rock and roll.

Speaker 6 (36:44):
I think I'm really interested in getting people connected as
social movements for their entire lives and seeing things through
being really connected with communities. And I think that's about
looking about where people fit in, where they feel comfortable
building those relationships because it both at the kind of
local and national international scale, So finding I think a

(37:04):
piece and pathway for folks. I mean right now, I
think considering what we're dealing with, climate and economic collapse,
mutual aid networks or a natural central piece of that.

Speaker 5 (37:14):
So it's a labor.

Speaker 6 (37:15):
Movement and going where the far right is having their
front lines, making our defensive front lines, so for example
in defense and trans healthcare against that trans legislation and
defense of queer events like dirrect mean story are that's
absolutely important, and we have those relationships now. So it's
about sort of finding a place to be able to
reproduce those social movements and grow them and again like

(37:38):
Daryl said, people are doing that, and I think like
as there are shifts, people have to kind of redefine
that a little bit. But having that adaptability is what
we've kind of learned over this rapidly changing environment the
last few years.

Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yeah, I'll take again to give people a little bit
of sense of the longer view. I think that the
rise of the Christian Right in this country has a
lot to do with the distruction of the labor movement
and the collapse of organized labor. Was that vacuum was
filled by you know, the Christian right, because the labor
movement at one point did touch people throughout their lives

(38:13):
and their culture, and it was not just in your workplace,
but it was a community organization. And I think that
we have to rebuild that, you know, from the bottom up,
and it is happening. There's a lot of you know,
young people involved in labor organizing. I think that again
what I said earlier about the fractal nature of the system.
I think one of the things people left in the
name is anything they're trying to do, they have an enemy.

(38:34):
It's not just a problem that they're trying to face,
they have there is an enemy. Out there that is
trying to enforce the system that we have as it collapses,
and I think that that's critical. So yes, the mutual
aid and the kind of things Emily was talking about,
I think are critical. I think people are working on
people's assemblies. I was at this dual Power gathering and

(38:56):
the Midwest and there was just one up in Portland recently.
And I think that the understanding that all the power
and all the wealth that this system possesses is actually
stolen from the people that it oppresses and exploits, and
that it's our power and it's our power to take
it back. We have the creative power. I think that's critical,
and that their power is exploitive and power over an

(39:18):
hour is the power, you know, to create. I think
that understanding and that concept of solidary and I do
think that, you know, against Stephen Beko, part of the
Black Conscience movement in South Africa, said the you know,
the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is
the minds of the oppressed. And I think to the

(39:38):
extent that we can wage to struggle for a different
consciousness that is not based on privilege, is not based
on getting along by going along is not based on individualism,
you know, but is based on collective solidarity, and that
actually disempowers the people that we're dealing with and threatens
them in ways that you know, they're they're they're freaked out.

(40:00):
They understand better than we do the tenuous nature of
their power. And you know the reason for fascism, the
turn to fascism is that they want to try to
intimidate people and you know, you know, break people, people
sell clarity up. And I think that that, you know,

(40:21):
we need to understand there's a dialectic there and to
the extent that we can create those connections between people
that actually disempowers them, the fascists and the state. You know,
I have a different perspective on the three way fight.
I think the three way fight is versus the fascists,
you know, the self declared fascists and against the state

(40:41):
and the capitalist the bourgeoisie. And you know, they're not identical.
They have contradictions with each other and we can exploit
those and drive wedges of our own. I think we
have to find wedge issues that peel people off from
their identification with the oppressor, with white supremacy and with
imperialism and you know, pull people together and then who've

(41:02):
been you know, separated from that identification with the state
and with white power and bring them into solidarity with
you know, the global majority of people who are struggling
for you know, survival and a better world.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Does anyone have anything to plug besides the book?

Speaker 1 (41:21):
Yeah, explicitly plug the books. I don't think we did, Like, like,
what where can you buy it?

Speaker 5 (41:26):
What's your code? Yeah?

Speaker 6 (41:28):
I can plug in and do the self promotion. So
the book is no passeran anti fascist Dispatches from a
World on crisis, So we all have chapters in it.

Speaker 5 (41:37):
I edited it. It's with AKA.

Speaker 6 (41:39):
Press, who listeners are probably familiar with, so you can
get AKA Press. Always recommend folks go to Akpress and
buy directly if they can, but you can get it
pretty much anywhere. And it's a hefty read. It's about
five hundred pages, about twenty five chapters, and it really
covers the gamut. Some of the stuff we talked about,
some stuff we didn't get to. So it's a really
good overview of some of the different conversations happening in

(42:01):
the anti fascist movement and hopefully where it goes in
the Future.

Speaker 3 (42:06):
Yeah, I'll second that. I think the chapter in anti
fascism in the black metal scene was really fascinating and
worth the price of the book all by itself, honestly
the stuff. But India, I did want to talk to
other books. I've been involved in what is called the
Blue Agave Revolution. It's self published myself and OsO Blanco
Indigenous political Prisoner Contact, Anti Racist Actions, anti Racist dot

(42:30):
Org or emailed me anti racist on the score, laid
Yahoo dot Com. I was also involved with although I
did not edit or anything, but I contributed a lot
of material to we Go Where They Go, which is
from PM Press. It's the history of AAR and it's
chock full of incredible material about you know, specificity. One
of the things we didn't talk about aras involved in

(42:50):
was cop Watch. But you know, just a lot of
you know, cultural material and other stuff there that it's
well worth reading.

Speaker 5 (42:58):
Well, I guess I'll try. I mean say, I have
a lot of stuff out there right now. One of
the things that you can look for with me is
a documentary that was put out in twenty eighteen called
Right Age of Rage. It's somewhere online. I believe it's
on TB right now what was on Netflix. I found
out that the reason why it's not on Netflix anymore

(43:20):
is because Netflix has deemed it too political. But you
can still find it out there. It's a really good
remmer on basically what it is we're fighting in this
current time. We Don't Walk in Fear is the latest
documentary that I've been involved with. Some students in Villanova
University wanted to do a documentary about me, and it's

(43:44):
not exactly available to the public. What I've been doing.
You can probably find it at film festivals and things
like that, but what I've been doing is showing it
at various events that I've been invited to, whether it's
some sort of speed engagement or what have you. So
it's only a half hour long. But if anybody's in

(44:06):
a university or in a bookstore or whatever and would
like me to come out and show show the documentary
to folks and talk about it later, please feel free
to give me. Hit me up over at our website
One People's Project dot com. We also have a newsline
that's adevox dot com, both of them on threads and

(44:29):
on ig We also have also the last thing that
I would like to hype is also in twenty eighteen,
there are There was the movie Skin where Mike Culter
who played Lue Cage and it's in the TV show Evil.
He plays me. It's about a neo Nazi, someone from

(44:51):
the villain the Social Club, one of the nastiest and
forces who got out thanks to myself and others. And
it's a it's a beautiful story and it's been now
since twenty eighteen. The short film is a different story.
I'm not going to say too much about it because
you need to watch it. You can find it on YouTube,

(45:13):
or you can find a feature Amazon feature Skin on
Amazon Prime. But you can find they find a short
film on YouTube. It actually won an Oscar in twenty nineteen,
and I'm listening as a consulting producer, so I guess
I have an oscar. And that's about it. I mean,
if you want me to speak, come to your colleges
or whatever to speak or show the documentary We Don't

(45:35):
Walk in Fear. Feel free to give me a ring.
I'll be happy to see you. I love traveling.

Speaker 3 (45:41):
Like I mentioned one other thing. Actually we talked earlier.
I am the interim general manager of KPFK ninety point
seven FM in Los Angeles. It's one of the PACIFICA
radio stations. So it's KPFK dot Org. We have stopped
labed spying on the radio. We have It's going down
on the radio. We have Society and American Indian Airwaves
in the radio, we have Larrasa Radio, a.

Speaker 5 (46:05):
Lot of others very worthwhile.

Speaker 3 (46:06):
It's at KPFK dot org and we're in a current
membership drive for October. Anybody wants to join the station.
They don't live in LA and the Anti Racist dot
Org has about thirty five years of turning the tiet
and a bunch of stuff actually from earlier. I put
some of the stuff from Brother Reform from being Sexism
but I worked on in the seventies up there, including
a letter from Michelle McGee was just recently released finally

(46:30):
after I think forty eight years in prison, survivor of
the Mare in Courthouse Rebellion.

Speaker 4 (46:36):
I don't have anything to plug. I have a book
that I'm working on getting representation for, but that's still
a little bit too early for me to plug. So
I'll just maybe plug a little bit of what is
continuing to happen in Charlottesville before we end, so some
of you may not be aware of that. Criminal cases

(46:56):
are still being brought against the neo Nazis who marched
with the tiki torches. We have sort of successfully convinced
the local prosecutor to do something about these fascists who
have obviously terrorized the community and continue to do it
in their other communities. And whether or not you agree

(47:18):
with that approach, the community in Charlottesville and Alcamoll still
needs that support and that witnessing. As this all heads
to trial this winter, we're expecting some renewed fascist attention.
So I'll just give a shout out for the community

(47:39):
and ask for your awareness.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Great, well, thank you very much for time everyone. I
think that was really instructive and interesting. And yeah, everyone
should read the book. I read much of it before
we started today. It's great, it's very interesting. Yeah, thank
you very much.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Here is a production of cool Zone Media.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
You can find sources for it could happen here. Updated
monthly at coolzonemedia dot com, slash sources, thanks for listening.

It Could Happen Here News

Advertise With Us

Follow Us On

Hosts And Creators

Robert Evans

Robert Evans

Garrison Davis

Garrison Davis

James Stout

James Stout

Show Links

About
Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2024 iHeartMedia, Inc.