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Speaker 1: Alzoone Media get ready for anarchy in Atlanta.

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Speaker 2: It should be clear to all Americans that we have

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Speaker 2: a very serious left wing terror threat in our country.

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Speaker 3: State of the art, organized and well funded activists in criminals.

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Speaker 4: On April twenty ninth, twenty twenty five, after almost exactly

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Speaker 4: four years of protests, sabotage, encampments, and organizing against the

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Speaker 4: construction of a state of the art police training facility

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Speaker 4: dubbed copp City, the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center officially

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Speaker 4: opened atop of the South River Forest into Kabba County, Georgia.

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Speaker 4: One two three cuts.

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Speaker 1: The Atlanta Public Safety Training Center is open. A handshake

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Speaker 1: between Governor Brian Kemp and are relieved Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.

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Speaker 5: Here has not been an easy journey.

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Speaker 1: The opening of the one hundred and eighteen million dollar

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Speaker 1: complex for police, fire and E nine to one one personnel,

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Speaker 1: which includes academic, leadership and simulation centers, came after not months,

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Speaker 1: but years of public pushback.

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Speaker 4: This is it could happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. I've

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Speaker 4: been covering the combined Defend the Atlanta Forest, Stop cop

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Speaker 4: City movement on this show since twenty twenty one. I

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Speaker 4: first traveled to Atlanta to report on the ground from

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Speaker 4: inside of the protest encampments in spring of twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 4: and I moved to Atlanta to continue covering story more

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Speaker 4: in depth in twenty twenty three. My coverage has tracked

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Speaker 4: the trajectory of the movement as well as my ability

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Speaker 4: as a reporter, But this will be my last piece

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Speaker 4: on the Stop Cop City movement. Every other reporter mini

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Speaker 4: series I've done on Stop Cup City was written while

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Speaker 4: the movement was still ongoing and the final outcome had

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Speaker 4: yet to be fully determined. Something that set the movement

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Speaker 4: in Atlanta apart was the genuine belief that this fight

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Speaker 4: was actually winnable, as opposed to the many lofty aspirations

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Speaker 4: of other anti police, anarchists or leftist struggles. I believe

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Speaker 4: that we will win and cop City will never be built.

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Speaker 4: Were common turns of phrase and not just repeated mindlessly

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Speaker 4: as a protest chant, but deeply believed. But now, six

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Speaker 4: months after the grand opening of Cop City, I want

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Speaker 4: to use this distance to offer a look at the

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Speaker 4: whole movement, based on interviews and conversations I've had with organizers, anarchists,

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Speaker 4: and forest defenders. Analyzing the movements rise and fall and momentum,

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Speaker 4: and why Atlanta is the bridge between the twenty twenty

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Speaker 4: protests during Trump's first term and the current expansion of

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Speaker 4: police surveillance, ice activity an increased state repression against quote

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Speaker 4: unquote radical left terrorists. We don't have enough time to

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Speaker 4: retread a complete, in depth play by play of the

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Speaker 4: movement's history, most of which I've already covered in previous episodes,

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Speaker 4: but I will attempt to break down the movement into

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Speaker 4: a series of discrete phases. After organizers learned about the

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Speaker 4: plans to build cop City in April of twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 4: the movement to Defend the Atlanta Forest first took form

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Speaker 4: with an opening attack phase throughout the entire summer of

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty one, with tree spiking and sabotage targeting construction

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Speaker 4: equipment on the east side of the forest, which a

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Speaker 4: movie studio was planning to develop at the time in

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Speaker 4: partnership with local government. To quote from an anonymous Atlanta

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Speaker 4: anarchist quote, early stages of the movement were very intentionally

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Speaker 4: defined by lots of sabotage and unapologetic militancy, just absolute

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Speaker 4: this is what we're doing. This is what we're about.

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Speaker 4: This is the goal. If you don't like it, that's cool,

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Speaker 4: but then don't be a part of this. That was

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Speaker 4: just what we were doinguote. In September twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 4: the Atlantic City Council voted to approve the land Lease

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Speaker 4: Ordinance authorizing the Atlanta Police Foundation to use hundreds of

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Speaker 4: acres of city owned land in the South River Forest

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Speaker 4: to build cop City. After this vote, electoral strategy gets

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Speaker 4: largely aeshewed, and soon after the next phase fully kicks

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Speaker 4: off that fall with the physical occupation of the forest

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Speaker 4: and the start of the pressure campaign's targeting subcontractors working

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Speaker 4: on the construction project. To again, quote from an anonymous

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Speaker 4: Atlanta anarchist quote, persistent encampment, occupation, lots of direct action happening,

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Speaker 4: lots of sabotage happening, and the cops just not knowing

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Speaker 4: what to do at all. Small incursions would get made,

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Speaker 4: but they just had not figured out what to do

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Speaker 4: about it yet. There was just kind of like free

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Speaker 4: reign unquote. For the first half of this occupation phase,

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Speaker 4: the Atlanta Police into cab sheriffs seemed to be stuck

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Speaker 4: in a form of paralysis, not knowing how to disrupt

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Speaker 4: the forest encampments or prevent equipment sabotage. Meanwhile, the pressure campaign,

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Speaker 4: inspired by the tactics of the animal rights group Shack,

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Speaker 4: showed early promise in getting some contractors like Reeves A

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Speaker 4: Young construction and material suppliers to drop out of the

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Speaker 4: cop City project. But after this stream of steady success

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Speaker 4: from Fall of twenty twenty one to May of twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty two, the police were forced to up the ante

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Speaker 4: and started conducting large scale raids in the forest to

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Speaker 4: remove force defenders and damage encampment infrastructure. Quoting an Atlanta

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Speaker 4: anarchist quote, May of twenty twenty two is the end

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Speaker 4: of the paralysis phase for the cops. We had our

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Speaker 4: first grid sweep raids where the paralysis phase is broken.

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Speaker 4: You're getting your multi agency large sweeps where they're really

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Speaker 4: coming in and putting in a lot of work. That

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Speaker 4: really leads up to January of twenty twenty three where

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Speaker 4: Torte got killed. Prior to the police killing of Tortigita

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Speaker 4: during a forest encampment raid on January eighteen, twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 4: the occupation phase proved highly effective in preventing pre construction,

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Speaker 4: but the killing and Tortighita essentially marked the end of

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Speaker 4: the continuous occupation phase. What followed was a period of

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Speaker 4: high octane intensity. Let's call this the revenge phase. Quoting

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Speaker 4: in Atlanta anarchist. You get this kind of like trading

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Speaker 4: blows with the cops repeatedly during that time, and things

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Speaker 4: are getting pretty fucking crazy, hitting their highest pitch at

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Speaker 4: March fifth quote. During the South River Music Festival on

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Speaker 4: March fifth, a few hundred people splintered off from the

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Speaker 4: festival and marched to the nearby Cop City construction site.

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Speaker 4: The crowd repelled police and construction equipment was set on fire.

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Speaker 4: The cops weretleated, quick swarming the area with all available

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Speaker 4: units in Atlanta, kettled the festival and eventually arrested twenty

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Speaker 4: three people, charging them with domestic terrorism. After the events

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Speaker 4: of March fifth, the movement entered an odd limbo phase,

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Speaker 4: with heightened tensions among the Stop Cop City coalition on

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Speaker 4: the role of direct action and sabotage within mass movement actions.

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Speaker 4: During this period, police fortified and regularly patrolled the perimeter

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Speaker 4: around the forest. Entry became heavily restricted Following this denial

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Speaker 4: of operating space. The forest around the slated construction site

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Speaker 4: was preemptively clear cut to both prepare for construction and

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Speaker 4: demoralize the movement. But a month later, the bail fund

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Speaker 4: and legal defense nonprofit the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, was raided

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Speaker 4: by police and were later charged with money laundering and

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Speaker 4: charity fraud. Just a few days after the raid, the

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Speaker 4: city Council approved a sixty seven million dollar Cop City

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Speaker 4: funding package. The next day, organizers announced a referendum campaign

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Speaker 4: to gather petition signatures to put the Cops City land

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Speaker 4: Lease Ordinance on the upcoming November ballot. Despite setbacks, there

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Speaker 4: was still energy going towards stopping Cop City, but it

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Speaker 4: was fragmenting in ways that it hadn't really before. There

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Speaker 4: was no clear consensus on the direction to take the movement.

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Speaker 4: Previous periods of shift in the movement were often marked

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Speaker 4: by an organized Week of Action, which was a convergence

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Speaker 4: of people from all around the country or even the world,

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Speaker 4: who traveled to Atlanta to partake in a week's worth

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Speaker 4: of events, actions, and protests against Cop City. The Atlanta

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Speaker 4: Police Foundation and contractors hired to build the facility the

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Speaker 4: summer of twenty twenty three saw the sixth organized Week

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Speaker 4: of Action, but it too was caught in this limbo phase,

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Speaker 4: and without the forest as an operating zone, the Week

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Speaker 4: of Action struggled to find its purpose despite the surge

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Speaker 4: in movement participation around the city Hall budget vote earlier

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Speaker 4: that June. The next phase was the first to be

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Speaker 4: positively determined by the police, the repression phase, which really

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Speaker 4: sets in around August of twenty twenty three with the

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Speaker 4: Rico indictment charging sixty one people with racketeering, arson, and

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Speaker 4: domestic terrorism. State repression then evolved in the form of

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Speaker 4: persistent surveillance of activists, house raids, and additional charges, which

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Speaker 4: leads to the current trial phase. Quote an Atlanta anarchist quote,

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Speaker 4: I think an important aspect of this phase is obviously

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Speaker 4: supporting your defendants, preparing for the potential of long term

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Speaker 4: prisoner support, and also not letting the state be the

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Speaker 4: one to close the book by doing this, because you

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Speaker 4: don't want to let them define the narrative of this

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Speaker 4: forever by getting to put their rubber stamp on the

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Speaker 4: end of the trial and calling it Otherwise, the movement

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Speaker 4: gets stuck in this permanent zombie phase where we're still saying,

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Speaker 4: stop cop City is this thing that's happening. When it's built,

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Speaker 4: it's built, it's right there, right like. It doesn't mean

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Speaker 4: that we all just go home, but it means that

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Speaker 4: you're like a veteran of this battle now and there's

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Speaker 4: new shit to do, new stuff to work on. Even

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Speaker 4: in retrospect, people have been largely hesitant to assign blame

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Speaker 4: to a specific factor in why the fight to stop

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Speaker 4: cop City fell short of achieving its stated goal. But

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Speaker 4: we can track a decline in momentum which allowed the

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Speaker 4: state to gain the upper hand. For nearly three years,

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Speaker 4: state repression tactics failed to disrupt the growing momentum against

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Speaker 4: the Cop City project. Forest raids, arrests, and criminal charges

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Speaker 4: made little impact. The use of terrorism charges as a

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Speaker 4: repression tactic started back in December of twenty twenty two,

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Speaker 4: following an encampment raid resulting in six people being charged

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Speaker 4: with domestic terrorism. This was the first time that charge

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Speaker 4: has been used in Georgia, following its adoption in twenty

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Speaker 4: seventeen in response to the whitepremacist mass shooting by Dylan Roof.

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Speaker 4: Just a month after domestic terrorism charges were first deployed.

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Speaker 4: Tortighito was killed by police in another forest raid, but

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Speaker 4: this tragedy only seemed to strengthen the resolve of the

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Speaker 4: movement to fight cop City, which then only grew. Similarly,

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Speaker 4: the clear cutting of the force itself wasn't enough to

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Speaker 4: demoralize the people in Atlanta. Rather, the hesitation to build

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Speaker 4: on the momentum of a widely publicized direct action like

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Speaker 4: March fifth provided this state in opening while the movement

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Speaker 4: was stuck in limbo. Throughout this limbo phase, the movement

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Speaker 4: was adjusting from intensified momentum and the high octane aspects

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Speaker 4: leading to March fifth. But as the energy tapered down,

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Speaker 4: the state jumped on that dip in momentum, then delta

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Speaker 4: pretty significant blow with the Rico indictment. The Rico charges

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Speaker 4: in August of twenty twenty three, followed by the series

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Speaker 4: of house raids in February of twenty twenty four, were

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Speaker 4: a pretty crippling one to punch that stifled the momentum

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Speaker 4: to our almost a complete standstill. Quoting an Atlanta anarchist,

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Speaker 4: A lot of people will argue their opinions about what

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Speaker 4: was the stifling thing. I think some of the more

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Speaker 4: electorally or mass movement. Big tent minded people would argue that,

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Speaker 4: like March fifth, takes a lot of the wind out

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Speaker 4: of the sails. I think a lot of people would

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Speaker 4: disagree with that, just because like you can build on

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Speaker 4: the momentum of a March fifth, you can build on

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Speaker 4: like a triumphant battlefield victory, it's a lot harder to

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Speaker 4: build on just everyone getting more charges and also people

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Speaker 4: getting their doors kicked in really early in the morning.

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Speaker 4: It's hard to build on that. Despite the Rico charges,

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Speaker 4: acts of sabotage did continue, but isolated sabotage alone wasn't

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Speaker 4: enough to propel the movement. After the referendum campaign was

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Speaker 4: effectively nullified by the state and fall of twenty twenty three,

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Speaker 4: there was a lack of willingness among its organizers to

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Speaker 4: engage in serious efforts to get people engaged in mass

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Speaker 4: actions or pressure campaigns targeted against elected officials. Something multiple

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Speaker 4: activists in Atlanta have mentioned to me as a contributing

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Speaker 4: factor to the eventual decline in momentum during this limbo

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Speaker 4: stage is a sort of failure to prefigure alternative strategies

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Speaker 4: and adapt After the forest occupation became impossible to maintain,

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Speaker 4: especially considering just how much weight people had put into

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Speaker 4: that strategy but then did not come up with a

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Speaker 4: clear next step after the police were able to suppress

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Speaker 4: that tactic by completing their ODA loops and improving their

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Speaker 4: own strategies. The ODA loop is a four step military

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Speaker 4: decision making model used across a large variety of professional fields,

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Speaker 4: including policing. Step one, observe, gather as much information as possible,

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Speaker 4: then orient, synthesize and information with background knowledge, decide on

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Speaker 4: the next course of action using that newly synthesized information,

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Speaker 4: and finally act and the results of your actions should

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Speaker 4: then send you back to step one. Failure to act

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Speaker 4: at all or too slowly often ends in defeat. To

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Speaker 4: quote an anonymous Atlanta anarchist quote, you need contingency lines right,

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Speaker 4: either things that you're willing to escalate in the current

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Speaker 4: line of strategy that you're doing to make it still viable,

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Speaker 4: or a complete change in strategy it can be changed

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Speaker 4: in tactics to something new and exciting. Either of those

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Speaker 4: are valid options. Doing both of them in the same

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Speaker 4: time can be extremely effective, but at the end of

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Speaker 4: the day, you have to when the cops start to

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Speaker 4: break out of paralysis. An example from any eco defense

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Speaker 4: or occupation, whether in Atlanta or somewhere else, when the

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Speaker 4: cops start to break out of that paralysis, you have

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Speaker 4: to escalate in some way. The occupation, the defense of it,

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Speaker 4: has to escalate in some way to prevent them from

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Speaker 4: feeling safe coming in or trying to, or the physical

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Speaker 4: space of action to change, because now they need to

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Speaker 4: recalibrate to oh, shit, like, not only is the occupation

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Speaker 4: less assailable than we thought because there's been a change

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Speaker 4: in tactics, but there's also a massive uptick and shit

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Speaker 4: going on everywhere else, and that significantly impedes their ability

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Speaker 4: to have an ODA loop to do battle with. You

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Speaker 4: can even look at the ice pickups that got a

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Speaker 4: lot of attention in Worcester, Massachusetts. They were not expecting

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Speaker 4: that many people just to show up. You can see

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Speaker 4: when the crowd starts to hit like a critical mass

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Speaker 4: of rage and getting really close to those guys that

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Speaker 4: they fucking panic. They freak out, like it's very clear

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Speaker 4: even just in the small amount of their faces and

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Speaker 4: their movements that you can see that they were panicking.

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Speaker 4: Similar scenes have since taken place in Chicago and Portland.

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Speaker 4: And I've seen this before with Bortac during the twenty

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Speaker 4: twenty protests in Portland. I think anyone who has watched

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Speaker 4: the Cops for Treat has seen this before. But the

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Speaker 4: more the same thing happens, the more you get used

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Speaker 4: to it, the more you experiment and find ways to

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Speaker 4: adapt and overcome. Quoting an Atlanta anarchist quote, cops panic

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Speaker 4: and you can see it in the way they walk

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Speaker 4: like they weren't ready for that, and next time they

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Speaker 4: might be, which means you have to add something new,

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Speaker 4: a new spice has to get thrown in a new

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Speaker 4: flavor profile. They'll get used to pushing through crowds like

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Speaker 4: that until someone hits them at the end of the day,

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Speaker 4: and whether you're like confronting them on the ground or

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Speaker 4: trying to get to the neighborhoods ahead of time to

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Speaker 4: knock people's doors to get them out, Eventually cops will

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Speaker 4: start to find ways to counteract your strategy, and eventually

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Speaker 4: you will have to reshift and recalibrate the tools you

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Speaker 4: are using to orient back to Atlanta, All these instances

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Speaker 4: I've mentioned amount to failing to take advantage of key moments,

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Speaker 4: whether that be in the aftermath of March fifth, the

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Speaker 4: seeming impossibility of continue nude forest encampments or of the

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Speaker 4: city's blanket refusal to accept the results of the referendum.

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Speaker 4: In these moments, the police and the state were able

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Speaker 4: to determine where battle lines were drawn, and quite literally

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Speaker 4: so during the quote unquote block Cop City protest in

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Speaker 4: October of twenty twenty three, where police easily repelled a

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Speaker 4: protest march from even reaching the road to the Cop

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Speaker 4: City construction site, and the state continued to push their

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Speaker 4: lines forward with the joint fbiatf raids on activist houses

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Speaker 4: in February twenty twenty four, which further stifled the movement

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Speaker 4: and was coupled with months to years long persistent surveillance

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Speaker 4: and intimidation denoted by cops parked outside of homes of

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Speaker 4: alleged activists, mobile surveillance, and hidden cameras placed in front

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Speaker 4: of activists homes and a local community center. One of

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Speaker 4: the more frightening incidents came in May of twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 4: where a resident of one of the homes raided that

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Speaker 4: February woke up in the middle night to a bright

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Speaker 4: light outside the bedroom window only to find a lit

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Speaker 4: road flare catching the wooden railing of their porch steps

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Speaker 4: on fire. One of the things I've been reflecting on

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Speaker 4: regarding cop City is the way people talked about fear

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Speaker 4: as a tool. Frank Herbert's litany against fear was a

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Speaker 4: common refrain to overcome the fear that this state used

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Speaker 4: as a weapon. But the first time I heard fear

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Speaker 4: mentioned as an offensive measure wasn't in reference to this

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Speaker 4: state using fear. It was in early twenty twenty two

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Speaker 4: when I first visited the forest encampment, and the anarchists

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Speaker 4: talked about how the police were scared of entering the forest,

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Speaker 4: how delusions of Vietnam's style booby traps demonstrated that the

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Speaker 4: cups are not impervious super soldiers. Instilling fear is a

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Speaker 4: major aspect of police training. They are susceptible to emotional impulses,

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Speaker 4: like all of us. Quoting an Atlanta anarchist quote. But

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Speaker 4: while we understand our own fear, I think people often

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Speaker 4: fall into the trap of not understanding that the state

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Speaker 4: is also afraid of them. Because the state feels like

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Speaker 4: this monolithic machine, like this unassailable entity, that it is

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Speaker 4: not It's made up of people with flaws and emotions

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Speaker 4: who have the same corrozol response to being threatened that

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Speaker 4: you or I do. A big part of the lessons

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Speaker 4: learned from Atlanta has to be of willingness to engage

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Speaker 4: with them in a way that is personally endangering. That

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Speaker 4: is the single way out. They're human and they get scared.

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Speaker 4: The fear that I think had them so tight until

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Speaker 4: May of twenty twenty two was a fear that manifested

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Speaker 4: itself in a lot of paralysis. Fear is of normal

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Speaker 4: human emotion to danger. So whether you're the most hardened

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Speaker 4: swat team guy going up against the craziest eco freak

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Speaker 4: in the world, fear is a normal reaction to that.

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Speaker 4: But what really had them so tight was fear as

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Speaker 4: a matter of them being paralyzed by it that they

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Speaker 4: couldnot find out how to move. And once they did

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Speaker 4: find out around May of twenty twenty two, we really

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Speaker 4: start to see things change and like they were scared

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Speaker 4: enough in the woods to shoot someone to death, like

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Speaker 4: they were still afraid, we were able to instill an

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Speaker 4: immense amount of fear in our enemy, which is an

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Speaker 4: absolutely necessary tool if you're going to be on the

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Speaker 4: very nimble, small green team insurgency side of things. You

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Speaker 4: have to make your enemy afraid of the dark, but

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Speaker 4: also you have your defensive strategy against fear. You would

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Speaker 4: hear all the time in Atlanta, the whole let the

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Speaker 4: fear wash over you and through you mantra. That was

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Speaker 4: a thing that people talked about and said constantly, because

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Speaker 4: you have to find a way to move through that paralysis. Eventually,

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Speaker 4: and with the help of a multi agency task force,

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Speaker 4: the cops in Atlanta were able to move through that

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Speaker 4: fear and continue their actions. They were not totally paralyzed

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Speaker 4: by it. In contrast, the pseudo paralysis affecting Stop Cop

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Speaker 4: City only set in very late into the movement as

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Speaker 4: a culative result of a coordinated sequence of oppression tactics.

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Speaker 4: As the movement has been winding down and transitioning to

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Speaker 4: court support, something people in Atlanta have had to balance

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Speaker 4: is the urge to keep Stop Cop City in this

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Speaker 4: sort of unalive zombie state where you're still kind of

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Speaker 4: acting like it's an ongoing thing, even though the immediate

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Speaker 4: local result is pretty clearly finished. But in keeping this

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Speaker 4: kind of zombie version of the movement alive, it prevents

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Speaker 4: you from actually moving on and internalizing what happened here

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Speaker 4: and using that for whatever comes next, which is at

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Speaker 4: this point a burgeoning police state and right wing power block.

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Speaker 4: Quoting an anonymous Atlanta anarchist quote, internalizing not just in

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Speaker 4: terms of like lessons learned and things that you need

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Speaker 4: to learn from and skill up on to keep that

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Speaker 4: honed combative edge in Atlanta, but to think about fighting

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Speaker 4: on a larger scope than just Atlanta. As the cops

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Speaker 4: took their lessons learned here nationwide in terms of how

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Speaker 4: they're doing repression towards Palestinian liberation movements towards a lot

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Speaker 4: of the way that ICE operations are currently happening. That

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Speaker 4: necessitates that we also take our lessons learned here and

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Speaker 4: also go to a larger scale with them. Also, if

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Speaker 4: you never close the book yourself on this battle that

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Speaker 4: you're a part of, which people incurred a massive amount

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Speaker 4: of trauma doing at a certain point, this could just

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Speaker 4: remain like an open wound on you forever if you

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Speaker 4: let it. And it is probably unhelpful to keep seeing

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Speaker 4: the movement to stop cop City is doing a rally here.

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Speaker 4: Like when it's built, it's there, and now we need

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Speaker 4: to move on to other things. We need to move

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Speaker 4: on to other things that are larger than Atlanta. There's

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Speaker 4: still a police state to engage with here. You don't

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Speaker 4: need the container of this struggle to justify going out

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Speaker 4: and taking action against the police. And there are other

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Speaker 4: things happening in Atlanta. There's vice rates happening in Atlanta

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Speaker 4: in the north suburbs of the city. Cop City is

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Speaker 4: actively being enacted, and if people want to continue stopping it,

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Speaker 4: they'll have to actually stop what the effects are which

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Speaker 4: are now happening on a nationwide scale. An early irony

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Speaker 4: of the movement was that though cop City was conceived

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Speaker 4: as a training ground for police first, it became a

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Speaker 4: training ground for anarchists. As top Cup City became the

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Speaker 4: first mass movement following the twenty twenty George Floyd protests,

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Speaker 4: whatever happened in Atlanta would demonstrate what activists have learned

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Speaker 4: from the twenty twenty uprising, as well as influence what

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Speaker 4: future movements against police expansion might look like. Atlanta Police

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Speaker 4: Chief Darren Shecherbaum expressed as much during the Public Safety

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Speaker 4: Training Center grand opening.

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Speaker 3: Because when Antifa put out its call for individuals to

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Speaker 3: rally here in this spot and on Peachtree Street, from

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Speaker 3: across the nation and literally the globe. We were up

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Speaker 3: against a playbook we had never seen at the Atlanta

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Speaker 3: Police Department, and we ourselves put out the call for help,

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Speaker 3: and no sheriff said no, No police chief said no.

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Speaker 3: The Georgia State Patrol, the Department Natural Resources should ste

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Speaker 3: by side of this department, as did the FBI and

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Speaker 3: the ATF, because we all knew that that playbook was

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Speaker 3: successful here in Atlanta, Georgia, it would find itself across

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Speaker 3: this country and public safety be stymied wherever we go.

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Speaker 4: While Atlanta served as this training ground for anarchists, in response,

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Speaker 4: the state also used the movement to test out strategies

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Speaker 4: for the next generation of counterinsurgency tactics, well before the

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00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:20,360
Speaker 4: cop City facility was finished being built. Now, with this

401
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 4: specific localized struggle at completion, both organizers and the state

402
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 4: are carrying lessons forward as Trump expands police power, deploys

403
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 4: National Guard, increases ICE operations, and continues repression against organizers

404
00:25:34,440 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 4: protesting the Palestinian genocide. To quote an Atlanta anarchist quote,

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Speaker 4: I think as a matter of reimagining the struggle that

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00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 4: you're a part of insurrectionary struggle is often an imaginative one.

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Speaker 4: And if you were part of this thing here, you

408
00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 4: are now like a veteran of the fight in Atlanta.

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Speaker 4: This thing, like this specific thing that was defend the

410
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Speaker 4: Atlanta Forest. Top cop City is something to be learned

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Speaker 4: from and valued and also moved on from and to

412
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,960
Speaker 4: move on from while taking lessons learned, experience gained, and

413
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 4: connections made, and following those things through to their logical conclusion.

414
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Speaker 4: Such that the state has as well. They have taken

415
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Speaker 4: lessons learned from here and followed them through to their

416
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 4: nationwide logical conclusions. We are necessitated to do that as well.

417
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Speaker 4: That doesn't mean you have given up. It just means

418
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,919
Speaker 4: that there's new shit happening. It's helpful to re imagine

419
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:33,440
Speaker 4: yourself not as just we're in Atlanta, we're doing stop

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Speaker 4: Coop City, to now you are engaged in a nationwide

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Speaker 4: anti fascist struggle against like a fascist police state. This

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00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,440
Speaker 4: nationwide focus has always been an aspect of Stop Cop City.

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Speaker 4: One of the movements key slogans was cop City is Everywhere.

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Speaker 4: Organizers did speaking tours around the country to educate about

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Speaker 4: the movement and thousands of people from all around the

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Speaker 4: country and the world traveled to Atlanta to participate in

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00:27:00,160 --> 00:27:03,560
Speaker 4: weeks of action. The physical fight top Cop City also

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00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,920
Speaker 4: expanded outside of Atlanta with solidarity attacks and direct actions

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Speaker 4: as a part of the tertiary targeting campaign against subcontractors

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Speaker 4: and insurance companies. This nationwide drift also happened on the

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00:27:17,440 --> 00:27:21,200
Speaker 4: side of the state, with similar police training facilities having

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00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 4: been proposed in dozens of other cities, and the strategies

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00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:28,080
Speaker 4: of repression used in Atlanta have been copied on a

434
00:27:28,200 --> 00:27:33,240
Speaker 4: national level. Quoting an Atlanta anarchist quote, now the cops

435
00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 4: are spreading out, and their strategies and the strategies of repression,

436
00:27:36,720 --> 00:27:40,000
Speaker 4: both militantly on the ground and legally, and even their

437
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 4: propaganda and their messaging has gone outwards from here. And

438
00:27:43,800 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 4: so too, then must our lessons learned both in how

439
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:50,400
Speaker 4: we prepare and engage in struggle in Atlanta, but also

440
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 4: how we make connections to the rest of the country.

441
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:55,120
Speaker 4: People who came here are now back home and will

442
00:27:55,119 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 4: make connections to the people around them. The cops in

443
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,760
Speaker 4: different cities, they have big conferences. They talk to each other,

444
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 4: they learn from each other. There's no reason that we

445
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:08,159
Speaker 4: shouldn't be, you know, doing so with caution and security culture.

446
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:12,320
Speaker 4: Don't have your Atlanta veteran hat on. But we have

447
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:16,120
Speaker 4: things to learn from each other, and if you were here,

448
00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 4: you've got a lot to potentially teach people. Even if

449
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 4: that was just like, here's how we fucking run a

450
00:28:22,240 --> 00:28:23,920
Speaker 4: kitchen where we cook for like four hundred people in

451
00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 4: a day, or here's how we sneak around in the

452
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 4: middle of the night. This is a representative of the

453
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 4: Fire and Movement Defense at a cop City trial press

454
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 4: conference from September twenty twenty five.

455
00:28:38,920 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 5: The horrors we predicted have come to pass. Federal agents

456
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 5: now stock communities from coast to coast, masked and unnamed,

457
00:28:45,880 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 5: snatching people from buses, farms, kitchens, and churches. Who can

458
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 5: argue now that we were wrong to resist the endless

459
00:28:55,080 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 5: expansion of police power, now that Trump commands them, now

460
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 5: that they are his police. The very people who helped

461
00:29:04,240 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 5: lay the groundwork now scramble to distance themselves from his orders,

462
00:29:08,200 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 5: his camps, his federal troop deployments. But they built the logistics,

463
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:17,240
Speaker 5: they funded the training centers, they expanded the surveillance. Liberal

464
00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 5: governments like Atlantis helped pave the way for the descent

465
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,840
Speaker 5: of our country into autocracy.

466
00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 4: As Marlincrats of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund told The New Republic, quote,

467
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 4: what's happening in Atlanta is a vision of the future.

468
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 4: This is a test run of a repressive playbook that

469
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,400
Speaker 4: authorities on many different levels are experimenting with to discover

470
00:29:40,600 --> 00:29:45,400
Speaker 4: what they can get away with. Let's look at some

471
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 4: examples of expanding surveillance, increasing police resources, and these strategies

472
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 4: for counter insertaency that are spreading in the era of

473
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 4: Trump two point zero. In January of this year, Georgia

474
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:03,720
Speaker 4: Representative Marjorie Taylor Green introduced a resolution titled deeming certain

475
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:09,560
Speaker 4: conduct of members of Antifa as domestic terrorism and designating

476
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:14,720
Speaker 4: Antifa as domestic terrorist Organization, which the measure justifies by

477
00:30:14,800 --> 00:30:19,640
Speaker 4: referencing multiple instances of protesters in Atlanta being charged with

478
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:25,479
Speaker 4: domestic terrorism. The Atlanta based surveillance company Flock Safety, gained

479
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,360
Speaker 4: early notoriety for their camera towers placed around the slated

480
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 4: Copcity construction site in the South River Forest, which protesters

481
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 4: repeatedly toppled. Flock has grown massively the past four years,

482
00:30:39,200 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 4: with over eighty thousand quote unquote AI powered cameras in

483
00:30:44,040 --> 00:30:49,080
Speaker 4: forty nine states. These cameras complete over twenty billion scans

484
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,800
Speaker 4: per month. Flock cameras and license plate readers have spread

485
00:30:52,840 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 4: all around the country and are used by all manners

486
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 4: of agencies, including ICE, as well as Texas sheriffs, who

487
00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 4: have used the nationwide camera network to track pregnant women

488
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 4: seeking abortions. Border Patrol has used Atlanta's local flock camera

489
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 4: network to make over three thousand and two hundred searches

490
00:31:11,560 --> 00:31:15,800
Speaker 4: from January to November twenty twenty five. In April twenty

491
00:31:15,840 --> 00:31:20,000
Speaker 4: twenty five, President Trump signed an executive order titled Strengthening

492
00:31:20,040 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 4: and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to pursue criminals and protect

493
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:28,360
Speaker 4: innocent citizens. This order calls to quote unleash high impact

494
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 4: local police forces, protect and defend law enforcement officers wrongly

495
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:35,360
Speaker 4: accused and abused by state or local officials, and surge

496
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 4: resources to officers in needuote. It directs the Attorney General

497
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 4: to create a mechanism to have private sector law firms

498
00:31:42,360 --> 00:31:45,320
Speaker 4: provide pro bono legal events to police officers who quote

499
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 4: unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the

500
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 4: performance of their official duties to enforce the law. This

501
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 4: tries to make it harder for a police to be

502
00:31:54,680 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 4: held accountable for both civil and criminal misconduct, basically extending

503
00:31:59,400 --> 00:32:03,480
Speaker 4: qualified a mus to the criminal realm. The order also

504
00:32:03,640 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 4: calls to use federal resources to increase pay, expand training,

505
00:32:08,240 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 4: and strengthen legal protections for police officers, as well as

506
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 4: to quote seek enhanced sentences for crimes against law enforcement officers,

507
00:32:16,160 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 4: promote investment in the security in capacity of prisons, and

508
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 4: increase the investment in and collection, distribution and uniformity of

509
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:30,120
Speaker 4: crime data across jurisdictions. The Attorney General is directed to

510
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 4: review and remove any previous accountability restrictions placed on local

511
00:32:35,960 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 4: or state law enforcement agencies that might unduly impede the

512
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 4: performance of law enforcement functions. And then finally, quote, the

513
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 4: Attorney General and the Secretary of Defense, in consultation with

514
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 4: Secretary of Homeland Security and the heads of agencies as appropriate,

515
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 4: shall increase the provision of excess military and national security

516
00:32:56,080 --> 00:33:00,480
Speaker 4: assets in local jurisdictions to assist state and local law enforcement.

517
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:04,479
Speaker 4: And shall determine how military and national security assets, training,

518
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 4: non lethal capabilities, and personnel can most effectively be utilized.

519
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 4: To prevent crime. As the police become further militarized, the

520
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:19,600
Speaker 4: military prepares to do more policing. One of the executive

521
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 4: orders from Trump's police takeover of Washington d C contains

522
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 4: a section directing the Secretary of Defense to quote designate

523
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 4: an appropriate number of each state's trained National Guard members

524
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 4: to be reasonably available for rapid mobilization to assist federal, state,

525
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 4: and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances, and that quote,

526
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:47,480
Speaker 4: a standing National Guard Quick Reaction Force shall be resourced, trained,

527
00:33:47,520 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 4: and available for rapid nationwide deployment. Later in October of

528
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,640
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, the Department of Defense sent out memos

529
00:33:56,680 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 4: to each state's National Guard mandating that each state have

530
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 4: their own Quick Reaction forces operational by January first, twenty

531
00:34:05,000 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 4: twenty six, with crowd control equipment and two full time

532
00:34:08,560 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 4: trainers by the National Guard Bureau being provided to each unit.

533
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,360
Speaker 4: The units contain, on average, five hundred troops per state,

534
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,040
Speaker 4: ordered to be ready to deploy within eight to twenty

535
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 4: four hours. The initial portion of the Bureau training courses

536
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:28,360
Speaker 4: cover how to quote form squad sized riot control formations

537
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 4: employ a riot baton as member of a riot control

538
00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 4: formation how to supervise a riot, slash, crowd control operation,

539
00:34:35,880 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 4: crowd management techniques, and domestic civil disturbance training. On September

540
00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:46,799
Speaker 4: twenty second, Trump signed an executive order designating Antifa as

541
00:34:46,800 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 4: a domestic terrorist organization. Three days later, Trump signed the

542
00:34:50,760 --> 00:34:56,400
Speaker 4: National Security Presidential Memorandum seven on Countering Domestic Terrorism and

543
00:34:56,640 --> 00:35:00,200
Speaker 4: Organized Political Violence, which calls for a new national la

544
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:03,760
Speaker 4: enforcement strategy to quote investigate all participants of these criminal

545
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:08,200
Speaker 4: and terroristic conspiracies and disrupt networks, entities and organizations that

546
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 4: foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in

547
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 4: criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts unquote.

548
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 4: The memo orders local joint terrorism task forces to quote

549
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:26,840
Speaker 4: investigate potential federal crimes relating to acts of recruiting or

550
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 4: radicalizing persons for the purpose of political violence, terrorism, or

551
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 4: conspiracy against rights, as well as investigating institutional and individual funders,

552
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:44,400
Speaker 4: including employees of organizations which are quote responsible for, sponsor

553
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,560
Speaker 4: or otherwise aid in a bet the principal actors engaging

554
00:35:47,680 --> 00:35:52,600
Speaker 4: in the criminal conduct unquote. As previously described, the Treasury

555
00:35:52,600 --> 00:35:55,480
Speaker 4: Secretary will work with Thetorney General to quote identify and

556
00:35:55,520 --> 00:35:59,800
Speaker 4: disrupt financial networks that fund domestic terrorism and political violence,

557
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 4: and shall deploy investigative tools to examine financial flows and

558
00:36:04,200 --> 00:36:08,960
Speaker 4: coordinate with partner agencies to trace illicit funding streams. The

559
00:36:09,040 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 4: memo also instructs the IRS to quote take action to

560
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:17,000
Speaker 4: ensure that no tax exempt entities are directly or indirectly

561
00:36:17,040 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 4: financing political violence or domestic terrorism unquote, and that the

562
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 4: IRS shall refer organizations and their employees to the Department

563
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:29,960
Speaker 4: of Justice for investigation and possible prosecution, quoting the memo

564
00:36:30,080 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 4: one final time, quote, Investigations shall prioritize crimes such as

565
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:39,360
Speaker 4: the following assaulting federal officers or employees, conspiracy against rights,

566
00:36:39,440 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 4: conspiracy to commit offense, solicitation to commit a crime of violence,

567
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:49,320
Speaker 4: money laundering, funding of terrorist acts, or otherwise facilitating terrorism, arson,

568
00:36:49,600 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 4: violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act RICO,

569
00:36:55,120 --> 00:37:00,680
Speaker 4: and major fraud against the United States unquote. At Trump's

570
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:05,840
Speaker 4: White House ANTIFO roundtable meeting, Seamus Bruner, the director of

571
00:37:05,880 --> 00:37:09,600
Speaker 4: research at the Government Accountability Institute, discussed his theory of

572
00:37:09,640 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 4: how a network of NGOs are funding ANTIFA, and specifically

573
00:37:13,760 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 4: mentioned stop cop City.

574
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:18,800
Speaker 6: There was an event in Atlanta called stop cop City.

575
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 6: Over sixty rioters were charged with domestic terrorism. These groups

576
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 6: received money for that from both the billionaire class as

577
00:37:27,760 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 6: well as taxpayer money.

578
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 4: So On May one, twenty twenty five, Homeland Security Investigations,

579
00:37:34,239 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 4: Secret Service and the acting ICE Director rated a home

580
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 4: in Irving, California, looking for a man who allegedly posted

581
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 4: flyers around Los Angeles containing the names, pictures, and phone

582
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:49,560
Speaker 4: numbers of ICE agents, with text in Spanish reading careful

583
00:37:49,640 --> 00:37:54,359
Speaker 4: with these faces. In April of twenty twenty three, three

584
00:37:54,400 --> 00:37:59,400
Speaker 4: activists were arrested for allegedly posting flyers identifying a police

585
00:37:59,400 --> 00:38:03,320
Speaker 4: officer nected to the killing of Tortigita on the mailboxes

586
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:07,520
Speaker 4: in that officer's neighborhood in Barlow County, Georgia, about forty

587
00:38:07,520 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 4: miles from Atlanta. The activists were charged with felony intimidation

588
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:14,439
Speaker 4: and were later added to the Cop City Weako case.

589
00:38:26,040 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 4: To circle back to the topic of fear, the targeting

590
00:38:30,040 --> 00:38:34,200
Speaker 4: of people putting up flyers simply identifying cops or anonymous

591
00:38:34,200 --> 00:38:39,240
Speaker 4: ICE agents demonstrates how the state understands fear as a weapon.

592
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 4: That's why they did the reco charges. That's why they

593
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 4: do the house raids. That's why they do overt surveillance

594
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,759
Speaker 4: where you're getting followed around by police. But they are

595
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:53,560
Speaker 4: susceptible to fear as well. Through their actions, ICE demonstrates

596
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 4: a high level of fear. They are taking massive steps

597
00:38:56,960 --> 00:38:59,160
Speaker 4: to hide the identities of ICE agents on the ground

598
00:38:59,440 --> 00:39:03,799
Speaker 4: and punishing people who attempt to identify these agents. They're

599
00:39:03,800 --> 00:39:07,279
Speaker 4: complaining about being compared to Nazis and called the Gestapo.

600
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:12,280
Speaker 4: They're referencing very dubious statistics about an increase in assaults

601
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 4: against officers, and they are afraid enough to shoot their

602
00:39:15,480 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 4: guns at unarmed people more than half a dozen times

603
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 4: in the past six months. They are scared, and as

604
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:26,960
Speaker 4: evil and super soldiery as they may seem, they are

605
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 4: indeed afraid. To quote an anonymous Atlanta anarchist quote, unless

606
00:39:32,360 --> 00:39:36,800
Speaker 4: you do something to keep them afraid, eventually it will stop.

607
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 4: Unless you change your strategy, change course, escalate in some

608
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:43,600
Speaker 4: way that shatters their ODA loop, they will break free

609
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:45,719
Speaker 4: of their paralysis and they will find a way through

610
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 4: their fear. So when that starts to happen, it's time

611
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 4: to do something new and insane, because you have to

612
00:39:50,960 --> 00:39:54,680
Speaker 4: keep them afraid, because, like by every moral right they

613
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 4: should be. They should be fucking terrified to leave their homes.

614
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,120
Speaker 4: And if they are too a f to leave their homes,

615
00:40:01,480 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 4: then they can't go out and do their jobs at

616
00:40:04,600 --> 00:40:07,040
Speaker 4: the end of the day. That's their odor loop right there.

617
00:40:07,600 --> 00:40:10,239
Speaker 4: The scale of fear as a tool of repression is

618
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:14,960
Speaker 4: always exponentially larger than this scale of physical or legal repression.

619
00:40:15,360 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 4: It punches well above its weight. You can look at

620
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 4: Atlanta as a good example of this, and you can

621
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 4: even look at some of the arrests made in response

622
00:40:23,080 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 4: to Palestinian liberation protests. It takes black bagging six people

623
00:40:28,520 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 4: to paralyze six thousand because it's terrifying, because it's scary,

624
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 4: like it's fucked up, that's a bad thing to have

625
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 4: happened to you, and like, of course, people are afraid.

626
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 4: Fear is one of those things that if you're engaging

627
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:44,759
Speaker 4: an anti fascist struggle, whether you're an anti fascist, whether

628
00:40:44,760 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 4: you're an anarchist or whatever, all of us have an

629
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 4: ethical obligation to ourselves and the people around us to

630
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 4: push through fear as an emotion, to find ways to

631
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 4: work with it, because it won't go away, and it shouldn't.

632
00:40:56,520 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 4: Fear can also keep you safe. But we are necessitated

633
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:01,880
Speaker 4: by the political moment we are in to find a

634
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:07,680
Speaker 4: way to take extensive action in spite of that unquote.

635
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:11,000
Speaker 4: Twenty twenty was a lot of people's first experience with

636
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 4: mass protest, and some of this people then carry those

637
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 4: experiences into Copcity. But then for other people, Stop cop

638
00:41:18,560 --> 00:41:21,040
Speaker 4: City was their first experience. And now you have an

639
00:41:21,080 --> 00:41:24,560
Speaker 4: even younger generation of people, the Gen Alpha terrorists, who

640
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 4: aren't even old enough to have been involved in Atlanta.

641
00:41:27,520 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 4: But people are still looking at what happened in Atlanta

642
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 4: as this bridge gap between twenty twenty and twenty twenty five,

643
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 4: the movement to Stop Cop City as the bridge between

644
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:44,200
Speaker 4: these two different eras of uprising and resistance against authoritarianism.

645
00:41:44,520 --> 00:41:48,880
Speaker 4: As the Copcity chapter closes, activists in Atlanta want people

646
00:41:49,000 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 4: to carry on what's been learned in the contents of

647
00:41:52,200 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 4: their struggle onto whatever the next volume is. Because Cop

648
00:41:57,200 --> 00:41:59,279
Speaker 4: City itself is in a sequence of events that have

649
00:41:59,360 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 4: happened beyond and longer than what me or anyone involved

650
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 4: in Cop City has been alive by generations. Cop City

651
00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 4: is not Volume one. Cop City is volume like thirty two,

652
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 4: but at the same time it's also the immediate prequel

653
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:19,520
Speaker 4: to the rise of a nationwide expansion of police power

654
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,319
Speaker 4: and surveillance led by a wanna be right wing strong man.

655
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,640
Speaker 4: Quoting an Atlanta anarchist quote, a big lesson learned from

656
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,479
Speaker 4: Atlanta is that it is way safer to do shit

657
00:42:29,520 --> 00:42:32,359
Speaker 4: in the middle of the night than anything else. We've

658
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 4: had exactly one arrest made over the years, an arrest

659
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 4: that's not gone to trial. This is an alleged crime

660
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:44,320
Speaker 4: of one midnight sabotage action. Of the dozens and dozens

661
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:47,200
Speaker 4: and dozens of ursins that have happened, and this arrest

662
00:42:47,280 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 4: happened very late into the movement. Out of the dozens

663
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:52,720
Speaker 4: and dozens of attacks that have happened, only one arrest

664
00:42:52,760 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 4: has been made after the fact. Another lesson learned is

665
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 4: the difficulty of day counter surveillance and how much that

666
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:07,399
Speaker 4: requires militancy as a daily practice to again quote from

667
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,800
Speaker 4: an anonymous anarchist in Atlanta quote, militant anarchism as a

668
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,600
Speaker 4: daily practice understanding your adversary, not just as this thing

669
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:18,040
Speaker 4: that you meet on the field for twenty minutes of

670
00:43:18,080 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 4: action and then you both go home and like call it,

671
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 4: but that they are constantly pursuing you that you are

672
00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:29,200
Speaker 4: being like hunted for sport, and you have to evade

673
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 4: and maneuver constantly. That security culture is a persistent thing

674
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:38,319
Speaker 4: throughout the years, that you are going to continually keep

675
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 4: having to be a part of it and do so

676
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:44,560
Speaker 4: in a very disciplined way. Unquote. A lot of the

677
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 4: success that stopcop City achieved was based on a willingness

678
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:53,799
Speaker 4: to take an extremely militant approach to prefigurative infrastructure, which

679
00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:58,319
Speaker 4: added longevity to the combative struggle. Both were necessitated as

680
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:01,919
Speaker 4: symbiotic elements of this same curt feature. Throughout the Cop

681
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 4: City struggle, organizers and activists learned that if you're not

682
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:08,520
Speaker 4: always able to engage in a directly combative fight, using

683
00:44:08,560 --> 00:44:13,000
Speaker 4: militancy and discipline in their infrastructural projects the same way

684
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 4: they would in a combative engagement, helps prepare for what

685
00:44:16,120 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 4: will be necessary when things do turn combative. Quoting an

686
00:44:20,040 --> 00:44:24,480
Speaker 4: Atlanta anarchist quote, the state is this constantly churning machine,

687
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 4: like it is always trying to acquire new tools and

688
00:44:27,280 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 4: equipment and lessons, and we can't just sit still while

689
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:33,120
Speaker 4: they do this and be like, okay, Well, at some

690
00:44:33,239 --> 00:44:35,919
Speaker 4: point in four to five years, a flashpoint will happen

691
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 4: at the place that I live, and I'll go out

692
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:39,480
Speaker 4: there and I'll be like I was in Atlanta, So

693
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:41,680
Speaker 4: I'll be good because I remember how to do all that.

694
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:45,200
Speaker 4: Because if you do nothing for the next four to

695
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 4: five years, we're just going to be reinventing the wheel

696
00:44:48,480 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 4: over and over again, and all the like fucked up

697
00:44:51,680 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 4: trauma that you incurred doing that won't have been helpful

698
00:44:56,280 --> 00:44:58,920
Speaker 4: at all if you don't remember the skills learned on

699
00:44:58,960 --> 00:45:02,400
Speaker 4: the ground, because all skills atrophy and get weaker over time.

700
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 4: Looking back at Stop Coop City won't provide all the

701
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 4: answers to solve the problems facing the country today, especially

702
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 4: in light of the end result of the movement, But

703
00:45:15,640 --> 00:45:18,720
Speaker 4: it would be a mistake to overlook the ways Stop

704
00:45:18,760 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 4: Coop City made a legitimate impact on the resulting facility

705
00:45:22,520 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 4: and the political situation in Atlanta and beyond. I think

706
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 4: there's ways of looking at degrees of success the movement

707
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:33,919
Speaker 4: had while still recognizing its obvious shortcomings, considering the fact

708
00:45:33,920 --> 00:45:37,760
Speaker 4: that there is a facility called the Atlanta Public Safety

709
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:41,040
Speaker 4: Training Center, but a small group of activists turned a

710
00:45:41,160 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 4: proposed police training facility into a national political issue. Its

711
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:49,800
Speaker 4: opening was delayed by years at at least thirty million

712
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:54,400
Speaker 4: dollars over budget, and the current facility lacks the full

713
00:45:54,719 --> 00:45:58,480
Speaker 4: mock city design that it initially had, which inspired the

714
00:45:58,640 --> 00:46:03,640
Speaker 4: Cop City namesake. Moving forward, both these successes and shortcomings

715
00:46:03,680 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 4: will be internalized by thousands of people who traveled to

716
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 4: or lived in Atlanta and joined in the movement to

717
00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 4: stop Cop City. As Trump now signs executive orders expanding

718
00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:18,800
Speaker 4: military equipment, federal training, and legal protections for police, deploys

719
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:24,239
Speaker 4: the National Guard to quell civil disturbance, and targets anti fascists, anarchists,

720
00:46:24,320 --> 00:46:29,440
Speaker 4: and left wing activists or ENGOs as domestic terrorists. Quoting

721
00:46:29,440 --> 00:46:32,239
Speaker 4: an Atlanta anarchist quote, what we are seeing is the

722
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 4: logical conclusion of our adversaries lessons learned in Atlanta, taking

723
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:39,279
Speaker 4: the things that they learned how to do here, the

724
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 4: skills they honed, taken to a nationwide scale. This is

725
00:46:44,239 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 4: the logical conclusion of that. And there's a reason that

726
00:46:47,160 --> 00:46:49,400
Speaker 4: they are doing that. And if they are doing that,

727
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:54,040
Speaker 4: then we should also do that. Like there's logical conclusions

728
00:46:54,040 --> 00:46:56,960
Speaker 4: and escalations of the things that we learned in Atlanta,

729
00:46:57,440 --> 00:46:59,280
Speaker 4: that it would be silly for us to not try

730
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:04,320
Speaker 4: and push the further, including expanding the physical and metaphysical

731
00:47:04,400 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 4: terrain of battle. The immediate terrain for stop Copcity was

732
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 4: obviously the forest and now the cop City site itself,

733
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 4: but there was also the rest of Atlanta and all

734
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 4: the other construction sites, and then all these subcontractors around

735
00:47:21,040 --> 00:47:24,920
Speaker 4: the country and everything that supplies them. This same model

736
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 4: can apply to, say, the Palestine protests. There's a network

737
00:47:28,480 --> 00:47:32,960
Speaker 4: that exists beyond Columbia University campus that extends into the

738
00:47:32,960 --> 00:47:37,560
Speaker 4: weapons manufacturing industry, which could be targeted beyond consumer boycotts,

739
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:39,880
Speaker 4: like what we saw was shack But what we saw

740
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:43,880
Speaker 4: in Atlanta, where boycotts were an aspect, but by far

741
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 4: not the most effective aspect and in fact forcefully inflicting

742
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 4: monetary damage, caused a much greater degree of hurt to

743
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 4: the companies involved in the Copsity project as opposed to

744
00:47:57,880 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 4: the infighting caused by a walluse boycott. When reframing what

745
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:08,279
Speaker 4: the terrain of battle could entail, it is actually intimidating

746
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,320
Speaker 4: to think about what the reality of stopping these things

747
00:48:12,440 --> 00:48:15,399
Speaker 4: might look like. And as soon as you realize that

748
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 4: these fights go beyond a physical building. It becomes this

749
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:25,480
Speaker 4: love crafty and entity that exists everywhere, and it's unnerving

750
00:48:25,560 --> 00:48:29,120
Speaker 4: to contemplate what you'd be forced to do to actually

751
00:48:29,320 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 4: realistically confront that. Quoting an anonymous Atlanta anarchist quote, it's

752
00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 4: important to not get trapped in the you know, we're

753
00:48:37,200 --> 00:48:39,320
Speaker 4: doing an occupation on college campus. We're just going to

754
00:48:39,440 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 4: keep trying to do an occupation on college campus over

755
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,839
Speaker 4: and over again, and the cops really good at clearing

756
00:48:44,920 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 4: us up. But now maybe this time. And I think

757
00:48:48,160 --> 00:48:51,359
Speaker 4: a part of the struggle here though, for people is

758
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 4: when you decentralize like that, the thing that you're doing

759
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,879
Speaker 4: starts to take on a much different vibe. It can

760
00:48:58,920 --> 00:49:02,520
Speaker 4: be everywhere versus this is the college campus where we're

761
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,080
Speaker 4: doing protest. I generally think at the end of the day,

762
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:09,280
Speaker 4: it starts to feel a little bit too much like terrorismy,

763
00:49:09,360 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 4: it starts to feel too much like an insurgency, and

764
00:49:12,000 --> 00:49:14,479
Speaker 4: you see the path, you see the Pandora's box start

765
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 4: to open up a little bit, and you back off

766
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 4: because it's scary and that this thing will kill you.

767
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:23,200
Speaker 4: This thing will try and kill you eventually, if you

768
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 4: push it far enough, it will try and kill you.

769
00:49:26,160 --> 00:49:29,360
Speaker 4: And I might succeed, And like, that's just the reality

770
00:49:29,400 --> 00:49:33,480
Speaker 4: of engaging with fascism combatively as an ideology, it's the

771
00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 4: reality of engaging with advanced capitalism. That was the reality

772
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 4: of engaging with the police state, one that is well

773
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 4: understood in Atlanta and in many other places that this

774
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 4: isn't a game. You're not gonna get anywhere, just kind

775
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 4: of sitting on the same college campus green over and

776
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 4: over again, hoping for a different result. And as we've

777
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:00,799
Speaker 4: seen this year with the State Department cracking down on

778
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 4: pro Palestine protests, just sitting there on the college green

779
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:08,400
Speaker 4: doesn't prevent you from being black bagged by the FEDS,

780
00:50:08,600 --> 00:50:12,879
Speaker 4: taken to a black site, and deported. To close the episode,

781
00:50:13,440 --> 00:50:16,920
Speaker 4: in September twenty twenty four, the Georgia Attorney General's Office

782
00:50:17,000 --> 00:50:20,600
Speaker 4: dropped the money laundering charges against the organizers with the

783
00:50:20,719 --> 00:50:24,400
Speaker 4: Atlanta Solidarity Fund, though the defendants still remained on the

784
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:28,520
Speaker 4: Rico indictment. Almost a full year later, on September ninth,

785
00:50:28,640 --> 00:50:32,800
Speaker 4: twenty twenty five, the defense successfully argued that the State

786
00:50:32,960 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 4: AG's office did not have the jurisdictional authority to prosecute

787
00:50:37,760 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 4: the sixty one defendants under the State's Rico Statute due

788
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:46,160
Speaker 4: to simple procedural error in neglecting to first ask the

789
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:49,600
Speaker 4: governor if the AG's office could prosecute this case. Judge

790
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:51,720
Speaker 4: Farmer found that the AG does not have the authority

791
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:55,160
Speaker 4: to prosecute count one of the Rico indictment, the racketeering

792
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:59,880
Speaker 4: and conspiracy charges. Without the sweeping Rico charges engulfing this

793
00:50:59,880 --> 00:51:02,960
Speaker 4: sixty one defendants, just five defendants would be left with

794
00:51:03,040 --> 00:51:06,120
Speaker 4: Count two of the indictment, the domestic terrorism charges, which

795
00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:09,879
Speaker 4: the AG does have authority to prosecute, and Count three,

796
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:13,960
Speaker 4: the arson charge, though Judge Farmer indicated that that charge

797
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:17,759
Speaker 4: could also be thrown out on a similar technicality. The

798
00:51:17,760 --> 00:51:21,720
Speaker 4: prosecution is appealing this decision, and the defense has argued

799
00:51:21,880 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 4: that the state domestic terrorism law violates a constitution and

800
00:51:26,280 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 4: is far too broad and should be altered or overturned.

801
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:32,719
Speaker 4: Judge Farmer has yet to rule on this, but he's

802
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:37,600
Speaker 4: expected to very soon. Some of these sixty one defendants

803
00:51:37,800 --> 00:51:42,120
Speaker 4: could face charges individually in Fulton, Indicab County, but that

804
00:51:42,160 --> 00:51:46,280
Speaker 4: remains to be seen. The referendum case is still under

805
00:51:46,400 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 4: appeal in federal court, and the case against Jack Mazurich

806
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:54,080
Speaker 4: is still in pre trial. Just because the Copsity trial

807
00:51:54,160 --> 00:51:58,480
Speaker 4: is finally progressing does not mean that movement participants are

808
00:51:58,680 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 4: safe nowvoting an anonymous Atlanta anarchists quote, people should be very

809
00:52:02,960 --> 00:52:05,200
Speaker 4: mindful going into the trial phase that that does not

810
00:52:05,360 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 4: mean that they are safe. There is no statute of

811
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,880
Speaker 4: limitations on a lot of this stuff. Like with a

812
00:52:10,880 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 4: lot of radical movements, You're going to have to hold

813
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:16,200
Speaker 4: a lot of that shit forever. Rely on support structures,

814
00:52:16,200 --> 00:52:20,360
Speaker 4: rely on your community, be careful about who you talk to. Unquote.

815
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:25,160
Speaker 4: As Stopcop City becomes history, there will be an influx

816
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:28,520
Speaker 4: of people trying to define the legacy of the movement,

817
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:33,479
Speaker 4: whether that's through podcasts, documentaries, a college dissertation, or who

818
00:52:33,520 --> 00:52:37,520
Speaker 4: knows how many books are incoming. There already has been

819
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:41,920
Speaker 4: a true crimification of the movement in certain coverage which

820
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:45,719
Speaker 4: grossly objectifies the life of Torti Guita, platforms police as

821
00:52:46,120 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 4: more objective than movement participants, and removes autonomy from key

822
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 4: subjects to reframe the entire movement around other public facing individuals.

823
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:00,799
Speaker 4: To quote an Atlanta anarchist one final time quote, I

824
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 4: think a big lesson from Atlanta and this is one

825
00:53:03,680 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 4: that we actually still have to win at is to

826
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:10,920
Speaker 4: not let outside forces, whether that be the state or capital,

827
00:53:11,320 --> 00:53:15,000
Speaker 4: define the ending. That is a scope of battle that

828
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:18,080
Speaker 4: we are still engaged with and still have to win.

829
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:21,440
Speaker 4: We need to close the book on it ourselves, need

830
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 4: to rubber stamp it ourselves. No other entity can do

831
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:28,359
Speaker 4: that for us. It would be disastrous if they did.

832
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:34,520
Speaker 4: Unquote this has been it could happen here, see you

833
00:53:34,560 --> 00:53:39,799
Speaker 4: on the other side.

834
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 2: It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.

835
00:53:43,880 --> 00:53:46,920
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website

836
00:53:47,000 --> 00:53:49,560
Speaker 2: fool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the

837
00:53:49,600 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

838
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:55,880
Speaker 2: I can now find sources for it could Happen here.

839
00:53:55,960 --> 00:53:58,920
Speaker 2: Listen directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.