February 12, 2024 • 30 mins
BAMN holds weekly international tribunals on Zoom to build the international mass movement for equality. At our last tribunal, we discussed the January 13, 2024 March on Washington D.C. for Palestine, and the important development of demonstrators shaking and almost breaching the fence surrounding the White House.
BAMN's national chair, Shanta Driver, presented on the methods of militant struggle and the political demands that are needed for victory to the Palestinian struggle to stop the Israel's genocide against Palestinians.
========================== BAMN (Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary) https://www.bamn.com/ Linkpage: https://linkpages.pro/Hzxto6
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(00:00):
This is the BAM Podcast. Episode 7.
Victory to the Palestinian Struggle. The methods of militant struggle and the
political demands that are needed to win at stopping Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.
Visit us at BAMN.com.
(00:22):
BAMN holds weekly international tribunals on Zoom to build the international
mass movement for equality.
At our last tribunal, we discussed the January 13, 2024 March on Washington, D.C.
For Palestine and the important development of demonstrators shaking and almost
breaching the fence surrounding the White House.
(00:44):
BAM's National Chair, Shanta Driver, presented on the methods of militant struggle
and the political demands that are needed for victory to the Palestinian struggle.
So I'm really, really happy to have this discussion opened up in this tribunal.
(01:07):
It is something that is being debated in our sister group, Movement for Justice in Britain, as well.
And it's really, really, really an important debate,
in part because it's how a movement learns what it is that it should be fighting
(01:29):
for and how it needs to fight to win. And I think that...
There are a number of strategies that are out there right now,
including support for various Democratic Party candidates and officials,
(01:51):
none of whom, I might add, have done anything, including Bernie Sanders or the squad,
to oppose Biden's genocidal policy and to bring it to a close.
So certainly there's no one there to give support to.
But in part, we have two models for building successful movements.
(02:17):
And one is the movement created by Dr.
Martin Luther King in the 1950s to secure an end to Jim Crow in the South and
to win just huge and monumental gains for the Black communities.
(02:37):
But also for poor people and to oppose the war in Vietnam.
And that movement was built on the premise that it was absolutely necessary
to be independent of either of the two political parties.
(02:58):
That allowing a movement
to be shaped by either the
Democratic Party or the Republican
Party or for the focus of the movement to be centered around the atomized action
(03:21):
of individuals taking votes, taking,
you know, voting for a particular candidate would just never win.
And that none of the candidates ever held to any of the promises that so many
of them made to seeking Black equality.
(03:45):
And okay, so I'm just going to restrain myself, but because I've been working
I was working on something on the Tennessee Valley Authority,
the TVA, which was created during the Depression and
was considered to be monumental and historic project created by FDR in 1933
(04:08):
to build public utilities and to create a bunch of different social reforms.
And it had the power to do just about anything it wanted. And...
Its most important model project was built on absolute and complete segregation
(04:34):
and environmental disaster.
And so two of the things that was supposed to be addressing as national concerns,
which was planned development and inequality.
Were never addressed by it, even though FDR is really famous for being,
(04:58):
you know, the champion of working people and of civil rights for Black people,
which is largely hype that is not a true telling of history.
So I think there are a lot of examples like that.
(05:18):
And so for Dr. King, he felt that the main thing to do was to build mass actions
and mass struggles, to keep people marching in the streets,
to force the politicians to have to respond to the movement,
in large part because of the politicians'
(05:42):
fear of the explosiveness of what the movement represented.
And it's a funny thing to say, you know,
to use the term explosiveness and Martin Luther King in the same sentence may
strike people as being kind of odd because Martin Luther King was known for nonviolence.
(06:05):
But he supported direct action, never condemned violence that was undertaken
by the oppressed to fight for the needs and program of the oppressed.
And while he talked about pacifism, he was absolutely for the movement being
(06:32):
as militant as it could be.
And there was a point in the King movement where there were young people that
started to raise the demand for Black power.
And in a big march through Mississippi.
(06:53):
And that was something that people associated often with violence. But Dr.
King kept the young people in the movement.
He kept marching with them. They kept marching with him because he too was convinced
that there would be political differences within a movement,
(07:14):
That he had to defend the movement against criticisms from the opponents of the movement,
who would always claim that they were peace-loving people while they were watching
the Klan kill activists in the South and doing nothing to stop it.
(07:35):
And having, you know, dog and baton wielding police trying to break up demonstrations.
And that kind of hypocrisy was not something that Dr.
King ever tolerated. And so that's one of our models.
And the other one is the anti-war movement, which grew out of the civil rights
(07:59):
movement and was in many ways connected to it.
And the anti-war movement had.
The great advantage, and this is true as well for the King movement,
but even more for the anti-war movement, as being a student-led,
student and student, what's the right word?
(08:21):
Lots of students participating in the movement.
And that was important because it made it possible to turn universities into
centers of militant actions by students.
And probably the most famous organization that grew out of the student movement
(08:46):
in the 1960s was something called SDS, Students for a Democratic Society.
And again, one of the main principles of SDS was to build a movement on the
basis of democratic decision making.
So there were votes that were taken at meetings.
There was none of the stupidity of consensus where,
(09:10):
you know, a minority gets to control the decisions of a majority and defeat
proposals that in some cases, is the vast number of people agree to,
it was always on the basis of one,
you know, of just voting on what to do and what to call for.
(09:33):
And with principles and understanding that even if If a group of people lost
a vote in an SDS meeting, they should.
And in most cases did, continue to be a part of SDS.
(09:55):
It didn't mean the breakup of the organization. It
meant that there was unity in action
of the organization and that the organization had the opportunity to be able
to assess the success of one or more of its tactics so that if people had voted to do something,
(10:20):
then that failed,
that it was possible to have discussion to figure out why it failed,
to figure out why a demand that had been supported supported by a majority of
people on a college campus should be.
Abandoned in support of another demand, and a demand that could take the movement to victory.
(10:48):
And again, like with Dr.
King, demonstrations that were called by SDS never had a policy of censoring
the politics of any organization that was part of SDS.
So, you know, I remember when I was in my, I'd love to say nursery school,
(11:15):
but in fact, high school and college.
Being in demonstrations in which I would be marching with the people who are
calling calling for victory to the North Vietnamese.
And there would be other contingents of people chanting, bring the boys home now.
(11:36):
And that more pacifist demand was not something, it's fine for them to chant it.
It wasn't, but it was just a political dead end.
If that's all you you were fighting for, and it had no chance really of succeeding,
even in its own terms, unless the US military was suffering defeat in Vietnam.
(12:02):
That was the way the boys were going to be brought home. That was a perfectly valid aim to have.
But if the point of raising that demand was to try to convince Democrats or
Republicans to support an end to the Vietnam War, well, it was just going to fail.
(12:24):
And in fact, my estimation, and I think this was born true by history, the.
The determination, the strength of the Vietnamese people to fight against U.S. troops, U.S.
Imperialism at tremendous cost to themselves.
(12:47):
I mean, it's just so much like Palestine. I mean, just these people who are
fighting for freedom and Vietnam had been doing it against the French than against the U.S.
I mean, it was just a war for generations.
And no one, not no one, but the vast majority of people were prepared to keep
(13:10):
on fighting until they had freedom,
even if that meant the death of so many civilians,
of everything from grandmothers to babies, of,
you know, and involving the whole population in the war efforts.
(13:31):
So I think that those are kind of our two models for how to build.
And on the shaking the fence tactic, which I think is really successful.
Part of what you're trying to do, you're trying to create a tumultuous situation
(13:55):
by doing things like trying to take down a fence in front of,
you know, the White House.
I mean, I think people who lifted up the fence backed off immediately because
the next step That would be to hurl yourself over the fence that was built as well as the, you know,
(14:16):
wrought iron fence that surrounded the White House.
And that was probably a suicide mission.
And we're not for those. We are just we're not for carrying out adventures that
will cost the movement important leaders when it's not possible to get amassed.
(14:39):
The masses that are assembled to be able to act in defense of the leaders of the movement.
And so it's it's it's I think it's a fact is.
Really was reflected in the anti-war efforts of the movement to end the Vietnam War.
(15:07):
Because when you read some of the memoirs of Nixon or Henry Kissinger,
they sound like everybody in the United States is against them,
even though that wasn't true.
I mean, they were terrified of the the movement.
And it's that kind of expression of popular power being hoist upon the U.S.
(15:41):
Government and the Biden administration that was strong enough to cause the
clearing of the White House. That is something that they will never forget.
And they will, whatever they may be saying about knowing that the majority of
Americans is on their side, they know two things about Washington, D.C.
(16:05):
One, Washington is a moment away from another riot all the time,
because the level of segregation, of poverty,
of police violence and brutality, of people being forced out of their homes
so that there can be gentrification,
all of the many factors that make Washington what it is, a tale of two cities,
(16:29):
means that some type of police,
you know, something that is on television that looks like a police riot against
a bunch of protesters could facilitate a popular riot against the police and
against the government.
And that is not something that the Biden administration wants It wants stability.
(16:54):
It wants to present a united America or the pretense of one.
It wants to be able to claim that the unanimity of purpose in the Democratic
Party to get Joe Biden elected, which means no criticism of him,
exists in the whole population.
(17:15):
And the second thing that is true about Washington, D.C., is the people of Washington,
D.C., are very disinclined to punish anyone who is protesting for a just cause.
And so, you know, arresting a bunch of people, that's probably not going to
(17:36):
get you very far either. either.
And so it's just saying to that government, well, Biden, you're lucky you weren't
there or you would have been swept out of the basement, too.
And, you know, forced to take refuge in whatever the bunker is that exists under
the White House, even though there was no real chance.
Danger in that situation, it raises
(17:59):
the possibility of that because
it's clear to any thinking person that the people shaking that fence were speaking
for the majority of the American people who do not want a government that is
supporting and perpetuating genocide.
(18:21):
So I'm sorry, that was a really long answer.
And there's more that we should talk about and talk about in terms of different
tactics and be able to assess. ass.
You're always trying to express the power of the movement.
(18:45):
And that's whether you're in a courtroom as a lawyer, which is where I am often
find myself because I am a lawyer for BAM,
you know, and you're just there talking to a jury, you got to bring the movement
into the courtroom room to win,
or whether you're, you know, 50 people trying to stop much bigger mobilization
(19:10):
of anti-abortion people.
You're just always looking for that way to take things as far as you can to
express the movement without carrying out really stupid adventures that will
demobilize rather than mobilize the movement.
And for years and years and years, and it's the last thing I'll say on this,
(19:34):
in Oakland, there would be marches in Oakland and the people of Oakland would
turn out for the first march.
And then the anarchists would start, you know, getting into it with the police
and burning up some stuff.
And the next marches would be smaller and smaller Because it didn't,
(19:56):
the young people and the militant Oakland community did not want to be in a
position where they were going to get their heads beaten in or arrested or have
a police attack in their communities.
And so that particular tactic
(20:20):
of the anarchists that did not achieve anything did successfully demobilize
people from coming out because they just thought that they'd have no control
over what a group of people would do that might endanger a much,
(20:40):
much larger group of people that.
Wanted to fight, but didn't want to carry out a failed adventure.
So that's what I want to say on that. I am just changed the subject.
I'm so happy, really happy, happy, happy, happy, happy to hear that you want
(21:00):
to organize a National Day of Action.
That is something that must be done. That is something I know we can spearhead
with you and drawing in other people.
And I think it's just a great idea to try to do something on President's Day.
(21:20):
It gives us enough time to really be able to build for something.
And while at the same time not stretching things out so far that,
you know, it will not have the necessary effect we want it to have,
what's transpiring in Israel.
(21:44):
So that's just great. We have been trying to, as Ben mentioned,
get in touch with organizations and individuals whose free speech rights have
been taken away because they've uttered support for Palestine in a classroom
or on a campus or in a written statement.
(22:04):
And this has been largely true on campuses.
And we want to
be able to bring a
legal action that can provide a point to galvanize the movement in support of
free speech and to associate the policies of the fascist government in Israel with the actions of.
(22:36):
Primarily, both liberals and conservatives in the United States to suppress
speech when it comes to defending the Palestinian people.
It is always a test of somebody's politics as to whether or not they stand on
the side of their imperialist government, or they oppose it.
(23:00):
It. And that is, you know, it's just clear that that's where a bunch of liberals
are drawing the line and saying, no,
no, no, no, no, you can't be on the side of the Palestinians because that's against Biden.
And you can't be against Biden because Biden exists to defeat Trump.
(23:23):
Well, Well, that is highly questionable to begin with, whether that can happen.
And Biden, in my opinion, should just step aside.
But leaving that point aside, it makes
no sense to be carrying out
the policies that Trump has said he wanted to carry out but couldn't get away
(23:45):
with when he was president president because he didn't have the liberals helping
him suppress speech and political protest.
So that's what I wanted to say on that. And then very last thing that I wanted
to just say a word of, because this is another debate that's taking place within
(24:07):
the movement and within then movement for justice and ban,
which is a debate around building a campus movement in particular around a call for divestment.
And this is a demand I really dislike.
And I dislike it because it begins from the standpoint that it's imperative
(24:33):
to preserve capitalist property forms.
And so you're not doing anything to try to convince an administration or a group
of people to get out of the stock market or to try to find ways to maximize
(24:54):
their capital. capital.
What you're trying to get them to do is invest in companies that people can
pretend do not contribute to the efforts of U.S.
Imperialism and Israeli imperialism. And there just are no such companies. There's a.
(25:19):
I know at UC Berkeley, there's been movement now that's begun for UC Berkeley
to divest from Boeing and I think another particular airline and something else.
And, you know, I mean, and when you raise,
okay, but does that mean that they would invest in Walmart or McDonald's,
(25:42):
you know, these union busting absolute,
you know, places that in other countries
are being boycotted for their participation in the war in Israel.
But people will just say, well, yeah, because they're not as bad as Boeing.
Well, there's no point in being stock managers for any capitalist institution.
(26:08):
And if Boeing is making a lot of money, which it is and will out of war efforts,
somebody else is just going to buy the stock. It achieves nothing.
It is justifying, it's looking for a tactic that can preserve students' opportunities
to get well-paying jobs, become corporate lawyers,
(26:34):
to continue to perpetuate U.S.
Imperialism while pretending that they're doing something that is helpful for
the cause of the Palestinians. Indians.
And the other thing that I think is really wrong with divestment strategy is that.
(26:58):
It assumes that students have to be isolated to building movements exclusively
on their own college campuses and not to interact with the rest of the world,
but oftentimes pretend that they're spokespersons for huge communities.
We had a discussion with one woman who is part Palestinian and part Lebanese,
(27:25):
and she She was telling me about, well,
what the people of the Arab world have decided and saying, we already decided for this and that,
when she has absolutely no contact with most
of the real world ever and couldn't
possibly be speaking for the Arab world just because she has the identity of
(27:52):
being the child of parents who came from somewhere in the Arab world.
And that's all kind of ridiculous.
That's the last thing I wanted to say.
And then final point, we have been in a fight to save the job of a really great young teacher,
(28:20):
lecturer at UC Berkeley named Perrin Powell,
who so far we've been successful in being able to hold on to his job.
And I think that we're probably the only organization in the country that I
know of that has mounted a successful defense of somebody who,
(28:45):
a lecturer who gave a long presentation after he said his class was over.
In which most of the students stay, that
described vividly and
in detail his support for the people of Palestine and the Palestinian struggle
(29:08):
and raised all kinds of condemnations about both the the work and policies of U.S.
Imperialism and the Israeli government.
So we're really happy to have succeeded so far in being able to do this.
(29:31):
But the thing about any struggle is every time you win, there are new contradictions
that come up that can lay the basis for you to lose in the the future.
So you've got to keep pushing forward. And that's what we'll do at Berkeley.
So thank you. And thank you, Krista, for raising those really, really good questions.
(29:55):
This has been the BAM Podcast. The movement needs leaders. It needs people to join BAM.
Follow the BAM Podcast, visit BAM, B-A-M-N.com, and join us on our Discord to
build the movement. We are on Facebook at facebook.com slash BAM page.
Our YouTube is youtube.com slash national BAM.
(30:18):
We are on Twitter at follow BAM, on Instagram at join BAM, and on TikTok at
join BAM. Thank you for listening.
Music.
This is the BAM Podcast. Episode 7.
Victory to the Palestinian Struggle. The methods of militant struggle and the
political demands that are needed to win at stopping Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.
Visit us at BAMN.com.
(00:22):
BAMN holds weekly international tribunals on Zoom to build the international
mass movement for equality.
At our last tribunal, we discussed the January 13, 2024 March on Washington, D.C.
For Palestine and the important development of demonstrators shaking and almost
breaching the fence surrounding the White House.
(00:44):
BAM's National Chair, Shanta Driver, presented on the methods of militant struggle
and the political demands that are needed for victory to the Palestinian struggle.
So I'm really, really happy to have this discussion opened up in this tribunal.
(01:07):
It is something that is being debated in our sister group, Movement for Justice in Britain, as well.
And it's really, really, really an important debate,
in part because it's how a movement learns what it is that it should be fighting
(01:29):
for and how it needs to fight to win. And I think that...
There are a number of strategies that are out there right now,
including support for various Democratic Party candidates and officials,
(01:51):
none of whom, I might add, have done anything, including Bernie Sanders or the squad,
to oppose Biden's genocidal policy and to bring it to a close.
So certainly there's no one there to give support to.
But in part, we have two models for building successful movements.
(02:17):
And one is the movement created by Dr.
Martin Luther King in the 1950s to secure an end to Jim Crow in the South and
to win just huge and monumental gains for the Black communities.
(02:37):
But also for poor people and to oppose the war in Vietnam.
And that movement was built on the premise that it was absolutely necessary
to be independent of either of the two political parties.
(02:58):
That allowing a movement
to be shaped by either the
Democratic Party or the Republican
Party or for the focus of the movement to be centered around the atomized action
(03:21):
of individuals taking votes, taking,
you know, voting for a particular candidate would just never win.
And that none of the candidates ever held to any of the promises that so many
of them made to seeking Black equality.
(03:45):
And okay, so I'm just going to restrain myself, but because I've been working
I was working on something on the Tennessee Valley Authority,
the TVA, which was created during the Depression and
was considered to be monumental and historic project created by FDR in 1933
(04:08):
to build public utilities and to create a bunch of different social reforms.
And it had the power to do just about anything it wanted. And...
Its most important model project was built on absolute and complete segregation
(04:34):
and environmental disaster.
And so two of the things that was supposed to be addressing as national concerns,
which was planned development and inequality.
Were never addressed by it, even though FDR is really famous for being,
(04:58):
you know, the champion of working people and of civil rights for Black people,
which is largely hype that is not a true telling of history.
So I think there are a lot of examples like that.
(05:18):
And so for Dr. King, he felt that the main thing to do was to build mass actions
and mass struggles, to keep people marching in the streets,
to force the politicians to have to respond to the movement,
in large part because of the politicians'
(05:42):
fear of the explosiveness of what the movement represented.
And it's a funny thing to say, you know,
to use the term explosiveness and Martin Luther King in the same sentence may
strike people as being kind of odd because Martin Luther King was known for nonviolence.
(06:05):
But he supported direct action, never condemned violence that was undertaken
by the oppressed to fight for the needs and program of the oppressed.
And while he talked about pacifism, he was absolutely for the movement being
(06:32):
as militant as it could be.
And there was a point in the King movement where there were young people that
started to raise the demand for Black power.
And in a big march through Mississippi.
(06:53):
And that was something that people associated often with violence. But Dr.
King kept the young people in the movement.
He kept marching with them. They kept marching with him because he too was convinced
that there would be political differences within a movement,
(07:14):
That he had to defend the movement against criticisms from the opponents of the movement,
who would always claim that they were peace-loving people while they were watching
the Klan kill activists in the South and doing nothing to stop it.
(07:35):
And having, you know, dog and baton wielding police trying to break up demonstrations.
And that kind of hypocrisy was not something that Dr.
King ever tolerated. And so that's one of our models.
And the other one is the anti-war movement, which grew out of the civil rights
(07:59):
movement and was in many ways connected to it.
And the anti-war movement had.
The great advantage, and this is true as well for the King movement,
but even more for the anti-war movement, as being a student-led,
student and student, what's the right word?
(08:21):
Lots of students participating in the movement.
And that was important because it made it possible to turn universities into
centers of militant actions by students.
And probably the most famous organization that grew out of the student movement
(08:46):
in the 1960s was something called SDS, Students for a Democratic Society.
And again, one of the main principles of SDS was to build a movement on the
basis of democratic decision making.
So there were votes that were taken at meetings.
There was none of the stupidity of consensus where,
(09:10):
you know, a minority gets to control the decisions of a majority and defeat
proposals that in some cases, is the vast number of people agree to,
it was always on the basis of one,
you know, of just voting on what to do and what to call for.
(09:33):
And with principles and understanding that even if If a group of people lost
a vote in an SDS meeting, they should.
And in most cases did, continue to be a part of SDS.
(09:55):
It didn't mean the breakup of the organization. It
meant that there was unity in action
of the organization and that the organization had the opportunity to be able
to assess the success of one or more of its tactics so that if people had voted to do something,
(10:20):
then that failed,
that it was possible to have discussion to figure out why it failed,
to figure out why a demand that had been supported supported by a majority of
people on a college campus should be.
Abandoned in support of another demand, and a demand that could take the movement to victory.
(10:48):
And again, like with Dr.
King, demonstrations that were called by SDS never had a policy of censoring
the politics of any organization that was part of SDS.
So, you know, I remember when I was in my, I'd love to say nursery school,
(11:15):
but in fact, high school and college.
Being in demonstrations in which I would be marching with the people who are
calling calling for victory to the North Vietnamese.
And there would be other contingents of people chanting, bring the boys home now.
(11:36):
And that more pacifist demand was not something, it's fine for them to chant it.
It wasn't, but it was just a political dead end.
If that's all you you were fighting for, and it had no chance really of succeeding,
even in its own terms, unless the US military was suffering defeat in Vietnam.
(12:02):
That was the way the boys were going to be brought home. That was a perfectly valid aim to have.
But if the point of raising that demand was to try to convince Democrats or
Republicans to support an end to the Vietnam War, well, it was just going to fail.
(12:24):
And in fact, my estimation, and I think this was born true by history, the.
The determination, the strength of the Vietnamese people to fight against U.S. troops, U.S.
Imperialism at tremendous cost to themselves.
(12:47):
I mean, it's just so much like Palestine. I mean, just these people who are
fighting for freedom and Vietnam had been doing it against the French than against the U.S.
I mean, it was just a war for generations.
And no one, not no one, but the vast majority of people were prepared to keep
(13:10):
on fighting until they had freedom,
even if that meant the death of so many civilians,
of everything from grandmothers to babies, of,
you know, and involving the whole population in the war efforts.
(13:31):
So I think that those are kind of our two models for how to build.
And on the shaking the fence tactic, which I think is really successful.
Part of what you're trying to do, you're trying to create a tumultuous situation
(13:55):
by doing things like trying to take down a fence in front of,
you know, the White House.
I mean, I think people who lifted up the fence backed off immediately because
the next step That would be to hurl yourself over the fence that was built as well as the, you know,
(14:16):
wrought iron fence that surrounded the White House.
And that was probably a suicide mission.
And we're not for those. We are just we're not for carrying out adventures that
will cost the movement important leaders when it's not possible to get amassed.
(14:39):
The masses that are assembled to be able to act in defense of the leaders of the movement.
And so it's it's it's I think it's a fact is.
Really was reflected in the anti-war efforts of the movement to end the Vietnam War.
(15:07):
Because when you read some of the memoirs of Nixon or Henry Kissinger,
they sound like everybody in the United States is against them,
even though that wasn't true.
I mean, they were terrified of the the movement.
And it's that kind of expression of popular power being hoist upon the U.S.
(15:41):
Government and the Biden administration that was strong enough to cause the
clearing of the White House. That is something that they will never forget.
And they will, whatever they may be saying about knowing that the majority of
Americans is on their side, they know two things about Washington, D.C.
(16:05):
One, Washington is a moment away from another riot all the time,
because the level of segregation, of poverty,
of police violence and brutality, of people being forced out of their homes
so that there can be gentrification,
all of the many factors that make Washington what it is, a tale of two cities,
(16:29):
means that some type of police,
you know, something that is on television that looks like a police riot against
a bunch of protesters could facilitate a popular riot against the police and
against the government.
And that is not something that the Biden administration wants It wants stability.
(16:54):
It wants to present a united America or the pretense of one.
It wants to be able to claim that the unanimity of purpose in the Democratic
Party to get Joe Biden elected, which means no criticism of him,
exists in the whole population.
(17:15):
And the second thing that is true about Washington, D.C., is the people of Washington,
D.C., are very disinclined to punish anyone who is protesting for a just cause.
And so, you know, arresting a bunch of people, that's probably not going to
(17:36):
get you very far either. either.
And so it's just saying to that government, well, Biden, you're lucky you weren't
there or you would have been swept out of the basement, too.
And, you know, forced to take refuge in whatever the bunker is that exists under
the White House, even though there was no real chance.
Danger in that situation, it raises
(17:59):
the possibility of that because
it's clear to any thinking person that the people shaking that fence were speaking
for the majority of the American people who do not want a government that is
supporting and perpetuating genocide.
(18:21):
So I'm sorry, that was a really long answer.
And there's more that we should talk about and talk about in terms of different
tactics and be able to assess. ass.
You're always trying to express the power of the movement.
(18:45):
And that's whether you're in a courtroom as a lawyer, which is where I am often
find myself because I am a lawyer for BAM,
you know, and you're just there talking to a jury, you got to bring the movement
into the courtroom room to win,
or whether you're, you know, 50 people trying to stop much bigger mobilization
(19:10):
of anti-abortion people.
You're just always looking for that way to take things as far as you can to
express the movement without carrying out really stupid adventures that will
demobilize rather than mobilize the movement.
And for years and years and years, and it's the last thing I'll say on this,
(19:34):
in Oakland, there would be marches in Oakland and the people of Oakland would
turn out for the first march.
And then the anarchists would start, you know, getting into it with the police
and burning up some stuff.
And the next marches would be smaller and smaller Because it didn't,
(19:56):
the young people and the militant Oakland community did not want to be in a
position where they were going to get their heads beaten in or arrested or have
a police attack in their communities.
And so that particular tactic
(20:20):
of the anarchists that did not achieve anything did successfully demobilize
people from coming out because they just thought that they'd have no control
over what a group of people would do that might endanger a much,
(20:40):
much larger group of people that.
Wanted to fight, but didn't want to carry out a failed adventure.
So that's what I want to say on that. I am just changed the subject.
I'm so happy, really happy, happy, happy, happy, happy to hear that you want
(21:00):
to organize a National Day of Action.
That is something that must be done. That is something I know we can spearhead
with you and drawing in other people.
And I think it's just a great idea to try to do something on President's Day.
(21:20):
It gives us enough time to really be able to build for something.
And while at the same time not stretching things out so far that,
you know, it will not have the necessary effect we want it to have,
what's transpiring in Israel.
(21:44):
So that's just great. We have been trying to, as Ben mentioned,
get in touch with organizations and individuals whose free speech rights have
been taken away because they've uttered support for Palestine in a classroom
or on a campus or in a written statement.
(22:04):
And this has been largely true on campuses.
And we want to
be able to bring a
legal action that can provide a point to galvanize the movement in support of
free speech and to associate the policies of the fascist government in Israel with the actions of.
(22:36):
Primarily, both liberals and conservatives in the United States to suppress
speech when it comes to defending the Palestinian people.
It is always a test of somebody's politics as to whether or not they stand on
the side of their imperialist government, or they oppose it.
(23:00):
It. And that is, you know, it's just clear that that's where a bunch of liberals
are drawing the line and saying, no,
no, no, no, no, you can't be on the side of the Palestinians because that's against Biden.
And you can't be against Biden because Biden exists to defeat Trump.
(23:23):
Well, Well, that is highly questionable to begin with, whether that can happen.
And Biden, in my opinion, should just step aside.
But leaving that point aside, it makes
no sense to be carrying out
the policies that Trump has said he wanted to carry out but couldn't get away
(23:45):
with when he was president president because he didn't have the liberals helping
him suppress speech and political protest.
So that's what I wanted to say on that. And then very last thing that I wanted
to just say a word of, because this is another debate that's taking place within
(24:07):
the movement and within then movement for justice and ban,
which is a debate around building a campus movement in particular around a call for divestment.
And this is a demand I really dislike.
And I dislike it because it begins from the standpoint that it's imperative
(24:33):
to preserve capitalist property forms.
And so you're not doing anything to try to convince an administration or a group
of people to get out of the stock market or to try to find ways to maximize
(24:54):
their capital. capital.
What you're trying to get them to do is invest in companies that people can
pretend do not contribute to the efforts of U.S.
Imperialism and Israeli imperialism. And there just are no such companies. There's a.
(25:19):
I know at UC Berkeley, there's been movement now that's begun for UC Berkeley
to divest from Boeing and I think another particular airline and something else.
And, you know, I mean, and when you raise,
okay, but does that mean that they would invest in Walmart or McDonald's,
(25:42):
you know, these union busting absolute,
you know, places that in other countries
are being boycotted for their participation in the war in Israel.
But people will just say, well, yeah, because they're not as bad as Boeing.
Well, there's no point in being stock managers for any capitalist institution.
(26:08):
And if Boeing is making a lot of money, which it is and will out of war efforts,
somebody else is just going to buy the stock. It achieves nothing.
It is justifying, it's looking for a tactic that can preserve students' opportunities
to get well-paying jobs, become corporate lawyers,
(26:34):
to continue to perpetuate U.S.
Imperialism while pretending that they're doing something that is helpful for
the cause of the Palestinians. Indians.
And the other thing that I think is really wrong with divestment strategy is that.
(26:58):
It assumes that students have to be isolated to building movements exclusively
on their own college campuses and not to interact with the rest of the world,
but oftentimes pretend that they're spokespersons for huge communities.
We had a discussion with one woman who is part Palestinian and part Lebanese,
(27:25):
and she She was telling me about, well,
what the people of the Arab world have decided and saying, we already decided for this and that,
when she has absolutely no contact with most
of the real world ever and couldn't
possibly be speaking for the Arab world just because she has the identity of
(27:52):
being the child of parents who came from somewhere in the Arab world.
And that's all kind of ridiculous.
That's the last thing I wanted to say.
And then final point, we have been in a fight to save the job of a really great young teacher,
(28:20):
lecturer at UC Berkeley named Perrin Powell,
who so far we've been successful in being able to hold on to his job.
And I think that we're probably the only organization in the country that I
know of that has mounted a successful defense of somebody who,
(28:45):
a lecturer who gave a long presentation after he said his class was over.
In which most of the students stay, that
described vividly and
in detail his support for the people of Palestine and the Palestinian struggle
(29:08):
and raised all kinds of condemnations about both the the work and policies of U.S.
Imperialism and the Israeli government.
So we're really happy to have succeeded so far in being able to do this.
(29:31):
But the thing about any struggle is every time you win, there are new contradictions
that come up that can lay the basis for you to lose in the the future.
So you've got to keep pushing forward. And that's what we'll do at Berkeley.
So thank you. And thank you, Krista, for raising those really, really good questions.
(29:55):
This has been the BAM Podcast. The movement needs leaders. It needs people to join BAM.
Follow the BAM Podcast, visit BAM, B-A-M-N.com, and join us on our Discord to
build the movement. We are on Facebook at facebook.com slash BAM page.
Our YouTube is youtube.com slash national BAM.
(30:18):
We are on Twitter at follow BAM, on Instagram at join BAM, and on TikTok at
join BAM. Thank you for listening.
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