Speaker 1: Welcome to it could happen here, a show about things
Speaker 1: falling apart and also putting things back together. Today we
Speaker 1: have an episode about well it's that this is This
Speaker 1: is kind of a big one, folks. So everyone who
Speaker 1: listens to the show regularly will know that there have
Speaker 1: been a rash of attacks by the far right on
Speaker 1: drag Queen's Story hours and kind of similar events to that.
Speaker 1: Events that are LGBT friendly, events that also involve children
Speaker 1: have been regularly attacked all over the United States. At
Speaker 1: the same time, there have been escalating attacks by right wingers,
Speaker 1: often the very same people on reproductive healthcare resources clinics,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Um. This is happening all over
Speaker 1: the country, but one place where things have been particularly
Speaker 1: aggressive as of late is in New York Um, New
Speaker 1: York City. And today we're going to be speaking with
Speaker 1: a couple of different people who live in New York
Speaker 1: who have been present at some of these actions and
Speaker 1: who want to talk about what's been going on with
Speaker 1: the far right and the attempts to defend these people
Speaker 1: in these organizations from from right wing aggression. So I
Speaker 1: want to introduce Talia. Now, Talia, you are known to
Speaker 1: our audience. You've been on this show and some of
Speaker 1: our other shows a couple of times in the past.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, and hello
Speaker 1: to everyone who still remembers what I sound like. And
Speaker 1: do you wanna you wanna drop your your your Twitter
Speaker 1: and stuff up at the top here too, because you
Speaker 1: do a lot of on the ground reporting at different
Speaker 1: times in the city. It's pretty simple. It's Talia O
Speaker 1: t g as an on the ground um and yeah
Speaker 1: that's where I do my reporting on events analysis all
Speaker 1: that dumb ship. And then our other guests are two
Speaker 1: New Yorker is sorry, New York people, um, who are
Speaker 1: both anti fascist activists who have been present in the
Speaker 1: streets for a number of these recent events. I'd like
Speaker 1: to introduce Tom and Barry. Do we want to go
Speaker 1: around and do pronounced real quick? Here? Um, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: he him? Yeah, sure, I'm she? Are they? This is Tom,
Speaker 1: I'm here him and I'm she her? Awesome? All right,
Speaker 1: Well that is so, I guess I'd like to kind
Speaker 1: of start and and hand it over to to Talia
Speaker 1: if she wants to give kind of an overview of
Speaker 1: how all of this has has has gone down. But
Speaker 1: basically we've seen. I mean, the thing that surprised me
Speaker 1: most in the coverage that I have watched from a
Speaker 1: distance is how aggressive and large some of the right
Speaker 1: wing presence has been at like reproductive health clinics in
Speaker 1: New York City. I was kind of surprised to see
Speaker 1: that in New York. Yes. So there's a group in
Speaker 1: New York called NYC for Abortion Rights and they host
Speaker 1: once monthly clinic defenses at the Planned Parenthood on Bleaker
Speaker 1: in Lower Manhattan. UM. And they do that because there
Speaker 1: is a church nearby the basilica of Old St. Pat's
Speaker 1: that hosts a a coalition of anti abortion religious zelic groups.
Speaker 1: They organized these large they're usually processions to the Planned Parenthood,
Speaker 1: where they pray outside, they throw holy water on the building.
Speaker 1: They attempt to hand out UM propaganda and literature and
Speaker 1: intimidate people who are coming into the clinic for necessary
Speaker 1: health services. UM. And these dame individuals have been seen
Speaker 1: attending anti vaxx rallies that the man who leads the
Speaker 1: procession to the Planned Parenthood UM his name is Christopher Mansinski.
Speaker 1: He's also known as Fidelis, and he has invaded clinics
Speaker 1: in White plain New York in I think UM East
Speaker 1: Hempstead UM. He has been trying to revive Red Rose Rescue,
Speaker 1: which UM. People who are familiar with the fight for
Speaker 1: reproductive rights are probably aware that that is the primary
Speaker 1: group that invades clinics and tries to harass patients, UM,
Speaker 1: threatens doctors and care workers and all all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: That the main people who lead Red Rose are either
Speaker 1: in jail or have died thankfully, UM. And he's trying
Speaker 1: to revive that here in New York. UM. And he
Speaker 1: has attended um rallies organized by bar right conspiracists, Anti
Speaker 1: vas conspiracists UM. And it's like, you know, he he
Speaker 1: went to d C for the March for Life and
Speaker 1: then he stuck around for the My Body, My Choice,
Speaker 1: Anti vacks rallies. It's it's very it's it's very contradictory.
Speaker 1: But we see these same people because they're aligning on conservativism,
Speaker 1: on crystal fascism, and we're seeing him pop up UM
Speaker 1: insured spaces pretty frequently in New York in ways that
Speaker 1: I think are more transparent or like more easy to
Speaker 1: clock here, even if there is like a larger density
Speaker 1: of them that do mobilize to these specific things like
Speaker 1: clinic Crossman's Yeah, that's um, that's a really interesting point.
Speaker 1: And that's also what we've seen a lot in the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. Um. You know, we just had an attempt
Speaker 1: at rally at a drag Queen Story Hour in Eugene
Speaker 1: and it was a lot of the same old crowd
Speaker 1: who used to rally in Portland before they got scared
Speaker 1: off of Portland. Now I'm wondering kind of what how
Speaker 1: would you characterize the response of the police to these
Speaker 1: events and how they kind of have have have treated
Speaker 1: the right wing at these Well, it is about it's uh,
Speaker 1: cliche as cliche comes. Because every single time, Um, when
Speaker 1: I've covered clinic defenses specifically, the police are helping move
Speaker 1: the procession along and threatening clinic defenders with arrest on
Speaker 1: the basis that they're blocking the roadway. Um they are.
Speaker 1: They they essentially work as like secondary of security. Um.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they will split off from the other police and
Speaker 1: be like pushing and shoving clinic defenders on their own
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't make any sort of strategic sense.
Speaker 1: But it's like they're getting enjoyment from doing that. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's the same story over and over again. You know,
Speaker 1: we see it in in San Diego when anti fascists
Speaker 1: were mobilizing against uh like Trump's supporters that were being
Speaker 1: very violent. The Trump supporters were doing the violence, and
Speaker 1: it was the police that were attacking the anti fascists
Speaker 1: trying to fight against like trying to defend themselves against
Speaker 1: the far right um. And we saw the same thing
Speaker 1: at Penn State just the other night. The there was
Speaker 1: a gaggle of like proud boys or I think Tess
Speaker 1: Owen referred to them as fascists in all black, who
Speaker 1: were macing the crowd and they they you know, I
Speaker 1: didn't do anything. The police escorted there was an incident
Speaker 1: where a Proud Boy was assaulting or like somehow there
Speaker 1: was a fight that happened with a demonstrator and a
Speaker 1: Proud Boy and the demonstrator. The police threw the demonstrator
Speaker 1: on the ground and then escorted the Proud Boy into
Speaker 1: the building where Gavin mcinness and Alex Stein were supposed
Speaker 1: to put on a very bad it didn't end up happening,
Speaker 1: lead him back to his friends. Jesus Christ I asked
Speaker 1: that question, and I know everybody like listening, and I
Speaker 1: know all of you knew like what the answer was
Speaker 1: going to be. I feel like you still have to
Speaker 1: like ask it. Um. I am curious. The NYPD has
Speaker 1: a kind of manpower, access to manpower, and access to
Speaker 1: surveillance equipment that, in my experience out does most nations
Speaker 1: I've been in. And I'm interested particularly and everyone's responses
Speaker 1: are welcome, but particularly what what Tom and Barry might
Speaker 1: have to say about what sort of roadblocks that provides
Speaker 1: towards organizing responses to these events and kind of how
Speaker 1: activists have had to adapt to that. Uh, this is
Speaker 1: Tom here. I mean, I will say it's very clear
Speaker 1: that the NYPD constantly monitors any sort of online space whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and I think most people know to organize, you know,
Speaker 1: in person or on signal with a small group of
Speaker 1: their friends, rather than trying to get a larger group
Speaker 1: of people to come to a thing publicly on the internet,
Speaker 1: because anytime that happens, it's like there's instantly, you know,
Speaker 1: that much larger of a police presidency at dozens and
Speaker 1: dozens of what's called the s RG, the Strategic Response Group,
Speaker 1: which I think probably can maybe speak on that a
Speaker 1: little more but they're basically the hats and bats that
Speaker 1: come bust up protests. Yeah, definitely agree with that, UM.
Speaker 1: And I would also say that because of the share
Speaker 1: volume of events that these exact same groups of people
Speaker 1: who are now attacking UM drag story hours and clinics,
Speaker 1: because we know this group already and they were having
Speaker 1: on the daily anti vax rallies which objectively stopped kind
Speaker 1: of being a thing to them, consider try to mobilize
Speaker 1: account of protests for um SO, I think there is
Speaker 1: kind of a large disconnect right now, which, whether by
Speaker 1: design or accidentally, where I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: feel like um, people who might attend account of protest
Speaker 1: that is might feel like, oh, no, it's just those
Speaker 1: same idiots up to their nonsense again, you know that
Speaker 1: that's we don't worry about that. Tell me if it's
Speaker 1: the proud voice coming and we'll mobilized kind of protest.
Speaker 1: Um So, I honestly feel that it's sort of a
Speaker 1: mental kind of the mental associations that we have with
Speaker 1: these familiar faces UM. I mean, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: it's been kind of obviously bomb observed that the anti
Speaker 1: vax stuff is direct pipeline and radicalization um platform for
Speaker 1: these more extremelyst Cristal fascists and transport with actions. Now
Speaker 1: people still can't really detach that this is actually serious now,
Speaker 1: so um, but yeah, I agree with that. Tom said
Speaker 1: that it's a matter of not dropping it. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I mean that that gets to another kind of advantage
Speaker 1: these folks have, which is because of how much additional
Speaker 1: state repression y'all are dealing with, the kind of personal
Speaker 1: cost of attending these events, encountering the Right is higher,
Speaker 1: both in terms of potential risk and just kind of
Speaker 1: in terms of the trauma incurred. I know from personal experience.
Speaker 1: I mean, I haven't been out in the street in
Speaker 1: quite a while, about a year at this point, and
Speaker 1: I know a lot of other people who are in
Speaker 1: the same place, because it just kind of you know,
Speaker 1: you can only take so much as an individual. What
Speaker 1: are some ways in which y'all is a community try
Speaker 1: to cope with burnouts that you can continue to meet
Speaker 1: the pace at which the Right is doing this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's really relying on other people
Speaker 1: like the same one, two or three or four or
Speaker 1: five people can't keep doing everything well. As people start
Speaker 1: to get exhausted. I think then it's time to you know,
Speaker 1: take a step back, take a week off, take three
Speaker 1: weeks off, Like there have to be other people that
Speaker 1: are ready to step up, um, you know throughout your community,
Speaker 1: but throughout everywhere. Yeah, and definitely I think there's going
Speaker 1: to be more of a need to emphasize that this
Speaker 1: requires every day and say fascists. I think in New
Speaker 1: York City especially, we kind of fell into a trap
Speaker 1: where any kind of public falled encounter was very I
Speaker 1: mean mil it's into style and boarding, you know, very
Speaker 1: clear that it's a cab and their black the water
Speaker 1: cans at that and the kinds of people that are
Speaker 1: just meeting members that we actually do need to also
Speaker 1: show up and saw the fascists that they're not welcoming
Speaker 1: here any able. It's either they're not going to response
Speaker 1: to something like that multitude of reasons, and uh, what
Speaker 1: can you say about sort of the numbers that you're
Speaker 1: seeing kind of on both sides on the ground here,
Speaker 1: what's like a normal action looking like in terms of that? UM,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, just from reporting and keeping tabs
Speaker 1: on different types of protests in New York City, we
Speaker 1: have a lot of uh, nonprofits and more established type
Speaker 1: groups that organize larger events UM, and those are typically
Speaker 1: just marches for visibility and awareness UM. And when it
Speaker 1: comes to a counter or some sort of direct action
Speaker 1: like Mutual Aid for example, UM, we see much smaller numbers.
Speaker 1: But those numbers that I mean that I see at
Speaker 1: least is that these are people who've built community and
Speaker 1: UM communicate together. As opposed to seeing a flyer showing
Speaker 1: up just for that one day. These are people who
Speaker 1: consistently are engaging with one another and with that space. So,
Speaker 1: like I mentioned mutual Aid, we have UM Washington Square
Speaker 1: Park mutually which meets every Friday, and the core group
Speaker 1: that UM sets it up and distributes and everything is
Speaker 1: relatively small. But the people who have shown up to
Speaker 1: support in some capacity in the past two years that
Speaker 1: it has been active UM, they all know each other.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean that you know, they're like necessarily
Speaker 1: going to birthday parties together or UM you know, donating
Speaker 1: kidneys to one another or something like that. It's not
Speaker 1: necessarily like best friend groups, but it's people who have
Speaker 1: built a sort of neighborhood in this ideology and in
Speaker 1: this space in this time. I would also say like
Speaker 1: these particular events have kind of brought in like a
Speaker 1: different group of people. It's not like this same cruise
Speaker 1: of people that were doing other things, because there's more
Speaker 1: kind of liberal people getting involved that are like coming
Speaker 1: to these drag String Court, drag Queen Story our defenses
Speaker 1: to you know, be joyful and hold up signs and
Speaker 1: saying and like welcome people into the library. So that's
Speaker 1: also made it more easy to keep these going because
Speaker 1: we've kind of got a larger revolving door of people
Speaker 1: rather than you know, smaller groups. Yeah, that makes sense
Speaker 1: as like, particularly as a way to not burn people out.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm curious as to what have you seen
Speaker 1: as far, like one of the major tactics anti fascists
Speaker 1: always uses identification um and exposing people who are attending
Speaker 1: these events rallying with fascist organizations. Have you noticed a
Speaker 1: difference on how well this works for the people who
Speaker 1: are showing up to protest like drag Queen Story Our
Speaker 1: events versus um the people showing up at reproductive healthcare clinics,
Speaker 1: at planned parenthoods and such. Because it kind of strikes
Speaker 1: me that one of those is more mainstream maybe than
Speaker 1: the other. Although perhaps I'm being kind of optimistic in that,
Speaker 1: But I'm wondering, does that does it appear to be
Speaker 1: more effective against kind of one kind of rally than
Speaker 1: it is in another kind, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the people who are engaging in
Speaker 1: the clant harassments are known among their networks, and because
Speaker 1: their goal is to present a sort of legitimizing face
Speaker 1: for opposing abortion, um, they don't typically show up to
Speaker 1: things that are a little bit more volatile. But we
Speaker 1: have seen that with so it as it happens that
Speaker 1: this the people who are harassing drag Story are for
Speaker 1: the most part have been a part of one specific
Speaker 1: core group of people that I've been monitoring and reporting
Speaker 1: on for the past year. So I know all of
Speaker 1: their names, which has pigeonholed them into what they can
Speaker 1: and can't do. We had, um, there's there's this far
Speaker 1: right propagandist or in Levy. His brother was at ah.
Speaker 1: He was trying to harass a drag Story hour at
Speaker 1: the Andrew High Scale Library for the Blind, and that
Speaker 1: was an event put on for Neurow divergent children and
Speaker 1: he was attempting to harass that. He ended up pepper
Speaker 1: spray to people, and because he has known, his name
Speaker 1: is out there, his face is known, and he is
Speaker 1: identifiable across all social media networks, it was very easy
Speaker 1: for those people to be able to file complaints against him. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And another thing too is that because this one group
Speaker 1: does all of these harassments together. They started out doing
Speaker 1: anti vax stuff where they were going and harassing a
Speaker 1: restaurant called Dame in Um think it's in the village
Speaker 1: or yeah, it's in the village. They were harassing that
Speaker 1: restaurant for a while, and then they started harassing the
Speaker 1: Health Commissioner's house and then Gracie Mansion, which is where
Speaker 1: Eric Adams lives. And they were all doing these things together,
Speaker 1: so their network was very easy to monitor and trace UM.
Speaker 1: And so when they started harassing Drag Story Hour, which
Speaker 1: was undeniably they were doing that as a result of
Speaker 1: far right propaganda that was being pushed into all of
Speaker 1: their social media spaces trying to convince them that Drag
Speaker 1: Story Hour is, you know, the Satan incarnate. Um, they
Speaker 1: start showing up and trying to harass those and immediately
Speaker 1: they're known. They tried to harass UM, they tried to
Speaker 1: disrupt AOC at a listening event that she was doing
Speaker 1: in Queens. Immediately they were known. It was like I
Speaker 1: saw the footage and I was like, that's Robert White,
Speaker 1: that's you know, Cliff Lee, that's sort of Ronan Levy.
Speaker 1: And it's doing that because they're known, because it's clear
Speaker 1: that it's one group. It's showing up and doing this,
Speaker 1: trying to trying to follow the lead on what is
Speaker 1: the trending outrage on the far right that week. It
Speaker 1: limits the number of people who are interested in joining
Speaker 1: them because it's they rely on making it seem like
Speaker 1: they are just neighbors and constituents who aren't happy with X,
Speaker 1: y Z. And it's like, you know, you're a coordinated
Speaker 1: group of harassers. We know who you are. So that
Speaker 1: mask being off, definitely, I think has helped to reduce
Speaker 1: the willingness to grow in those harassments. But I can't
Speaker 1: necessarily speak to the future on what would hold or
Speaker 1: like what other people have been inspired by them, because
Speaker 1: we have seen neo Nazis show up in other states
Speaker 1: to protest drag story are the same way that these
Speaker 1: this little you know band harassers has been harassing story ours. Yeah, um, yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: just a direct response to that that I definitely agree
Speaker 1: um that Yeah, we've been monitoring the movement of uh
Speaker 1: the main actors in the anti backs movement for a while,
Speaker 1: but I didn't want to say that it is occasionally
Speaker 1: other groups, but that they all have the same thing
Speaker 1: in common and that they attached to the kind of
Speaker 1: hot topic issue that they see happening in other cities
Speaker 1: and states. So we did have actually like a very
Speaker 1: like certainly Crystal cashis group um uh TMP that was
Speaker 1: called who you know had publicly announced a rally to
Speaker 1: harass the story or initially flashed onto that UM. But
Speaker 1: all of it is kind of following national trends, UM,
Speaker 1: because they are initially trying to make see ur t
Speaker 1: and schools be the thing that was a multitude of
Speaker 1: different groups that are trying and you know, they're looking
Speaker 1: for something that sticks, and they're looking for something that
Speaker 1: passers by any given passers by walking by. We'll see
Speaker 1: their side it if they hear it, um. But their
Speaker 1: lack of success though is because of their violence and
Speaker 1: UM not especially convincing and very human on sounding antics
Speaker 1: to where it is clear that they are not actually
Speaker 1: they're protesting what they playing themselves, they're protesting, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: they're they're losing sympathy because eventually their signs started being
Speaker 1: about Antifa instead of about Electricy protecting the children themselves.
Speaker 1: UM So their own messaging kind of probably also at
Speaker 1: fault there. But this issue is still always going to
Speaker 1: be at risk for attracting different new Nazi groups. UM.
Speaker 1: I mean we've seen Orlando and now there's a relition
Speaker 1: of Nazi surgeon together to attack Story Hour. We've actually
Speaker 1: seen some of that in New York. It was just
Speaker 1: coincidence that this one crazy into baxtor Um showing them
Speaker 1: to attack story I was the same day that perhaps
Speaker 1: other groups were, UM, don't to say too much that
Speaker 1: at the moment, because they can talk something. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was just gonna say, I mean about the you know,
Speaker 1: neo Nazis and other areas coming in protesting these drag
Speaker 1: queen Story Hours. I mean that the first bigger one
Speaker 1: we did was at Elmhurst Library. There were not only
Speaker 1: somebody who was at a neo Nazi rally in front
Speaker 1: of Trump Tower. Once we had a January six insurrectionists,
Speaker 1: and I think Holly can probably speak to those two
Speaker 1: characters a little more. But then there was some other
Speaker 1: There was another Drug Queen Story Hour where someone from
Speaker 1: g d L showed up, and I'm sure you're familiar
Speaker 1: with g d L, Robert right, Yes, yes, yeah, the
Speaker 1: Goyam Defense League. These guys around the hate bus flying
Speaker 1: the swastika there. Yeah, I mean you just said swastika.
Speaker 1: But in place people are not aware of what Goyam means.
Speaker 1: What you need to know is the Goham Defense League
Speaker 1: or hardcore Nazis. Yeah, like they are legitimate, straight up
Speaker 1: neo Nazis. They fly to the swastika, they go harassed
Speaker 1: Jewish neighborhoods, um count in those yeah, capital a Nazi. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of them went and harassed one of the Drag
Speaker 1: Queen Story Hours recently. Uh. Then he ran off and
Speaker 1: said he was going to get his friends and didn't
Speaker 1: show up with anyone else from what then? Speaking of
Speaker 1: neo Nazis, you probably know Jovie Valve. Oh yeah, Jovie
Speaker 1: and I had a conversation a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: with with my good friend Goad. Yeah, your old buddy.
Speaker 1: M hmmm. Well he showed up at UM I believe
Speaker 1: it was a pediatric health care facility. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they do gender affirming care, but he was in
Speaker 1: front of it to sign I'm sorry, I said, neither,
Speaker 1: did he? Yeah, yeah exactly. It was literally because the
Speaker 1: clinic had tried flags in the window. Yeah okay, because
Speaker 1: he was holding up a sign that said I'd rather
Speaker 1: a Nazi than a pedophile, which is just like a
Speaker 1: nonsensible and we all know, just say, you're a fucking Nazi.
Speaker 1: Why is that the choice. It's so funny because there's
Speaker 1: like pictures of him with the swastic netflace, like doing
Speaker 1: the Roman salute, Like, dude, everyone knows you're a Nazi. No,
Speaker 1: he's completely unashamed. And that's the weirdest part about him,
Speaker 1: because you know, he learned an interesting lesson about wearing
Speaker 1: just a you know, a maga hat in a bar
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn a few years ago. If anyone knows what
Speaker 1: incident I'm talking about, Oh yeah, So I find it
Speaker 1: interesting that this actually did not deter him from ever
Speaker 1: leaving his house again, you know, nearly losing his entire nose,
Speaker 1: um so, and then still deciding to just double down
Speaker 1: and actually start carrying the Nazi flags, thinking it will
Speaker 1: go better this time. Um and Apparently he just hes
Speaker 1: trying to make Nazi ship. He's trying to make his
Speaker 1: name again in two like Jovi val Is, he's he's expired,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't seem to realize that he's one of them.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm gonna do is I'm going to
Speaker 1: show up and I'm gonna have nobody with me, and
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be standing in front of a closed
Speaker 1: pediatric clinic, like with a sign telling people all they
Speaker 1: see from a distance is the word pedophile and the
Speaker 1: word Nazi. Like I mean, he did had his one
Speaker 1: little body with him in fairness, according to his own
Speaker 1: videos that he posted of the encounter, and that buddy
Speaker 1: of his, whoever he was, could be heard saying, uh
Speaker 1: something like, hey man, you know I can't fight. Actually
Speaker 1: I saw the video that got posted on Telegram and
Speaker 1: he said, Jovie, I can't find I can't find man,
Speaker 1: I can't fight. And you can also hear Jovi yelling
Speaker 1: what are you doing? What are you doing as he
Speaker 1: gets tossed into like a construction area, And he's such
Speaker 1: an embarrassment to like even other Nazis. They're even making
Speaker 1: fun of him online. I mean, somebody literally said the
Speaker 1: why does jovie always get his ass kicked? This is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: He is he is the kind of he is the
Speaker 1: kind and generation of Nazi that other Nazis consider cringe
Speaker 1: like fucking jovie valve ate him so much. At the
Speaker 1: same time, though, it is a little bit alarming because
Speaker 1: all of this attention on UH figures such as jovie
Speaker 1: Val failing every time and like stepping on rakes metaphorically
Speaker 1: every time he goes outside, it does kind of open
Speaker 1: a nerving vacuum up to like, oh, what, I can
Speaker 1: be a way better Nazi than that. So that is
Speaker 1: the part that concerns me. If the constant attention is that, um,
Speaker 1: you know, jovie Val did not succeed in organizing a
Speaker 1: transphobic Nazi rally outside of a closed pediatric clinic. Okay,
Speaker 1: I guess that's a win. But who else sees that
Speaker 1: and sees and thinks, oh, we can do so much better,
Speaker 1: Because we do have a problem with unidentified Nazis throughout
Speaker 1: New York City. There's you know, there's been increases in
Speaker 1: all sorts of graffiti all over the subways, um Nazi
Speaker 1: literature being put on trains and lefted places it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so who is seeing this and how what
Speaker 1: is the messaging exactly to say that you won't succeed
Speaker 1: if you try this either, just because you know Jovi
Speaker 1: keeps getting his ship rocked, like we need you to
Speaker 1: know he will you will do get your ship. I
Speaker 1: mean that's the most important thing, at least in my experience,
Speaker 1: and that is mostly as an observer. I'm not an organizer,
Speaker 1: but I've I've watched what's happened in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1: And the reason why these people don't rally in Portland's
Speaker 1: the way they used to is they were faced with
Speaker 1: consequences and that required I mean that was there was
Speaker 1: not a simple process. It took fucking five years and
Speaker 1: a lot of people got broken bones and a number
Speaker 1: of them got killed. But like that is that is
Speaker 1: the thing people like, These people's lives have to be created.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that is a real problem
Speaker 1: is that at it's a lot easier to created people
Speaker 1: for rallying, or it used to be. Number one, it
Speaker 1: used to be easier to create people's lives because they
Speaker 1: were willing to rally with Nazis. But also now the
Speaker 1: right has succeeded in mainstreaming these two specific things, going
Speaker 1: after drag queen story our events and going after reproductive
Speaker 1: healthcare clinics and the people using them, to such a
Speaker 1: degree that it's gotten a lot harder to ruin people's
Speaker 1: lives over this sort of thing. That's that's true. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, there is an increase in so
Speaker 1: many of them who are just unabashedly that way post
Speaker 1: their full names, addresses, photos, they say, you know, identifying
Speaker 1: or doc see them is not there's just actually almost hyeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like most like a large chunk of the country is
Speaker 1: totally fine if you're a crazy bigot. Our right is
Speaker 1: radicalizing in a sort of gradual case over the course
Speaker 1: of many years. UM. And what's happening with UM people
Speaker 1: who are countering them is that there is this density
Speaker 1: of media and pundits sort of UM looking down their
Speaker 1: nose at the decorum of countering them. So, you know,
Speaker 1: we we look at Penn State, UM students showed up
Speaker 1: in mass, hundreds of them, UM significantly outnumbered the Proud
Speaker 1: Boys that did show up, the fascist that did show
Speaker 1: up and successfully shut the event down. But there's still
Speaker 1: this like armchair pungentry reflex to say, oh, well they
Speaker 1: didn't do it right. There's no like that. It's not
Speaker 1: the right way to protest. And I think, um, what
Speaker 1: Barry is sort of Verry mentioned earlier about everyday anti fascists,
Speaker 1: and that's again like with your neighbors and recognizing that
Speaker 1: it's not this weird, um inaccessible, like isolated group of
Speaker 1: people who solely show up very militant and in black
Speaker 1: block and they've got like all this training and all
Speaker 1: these like slogans and slang and words, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's none of that iconography. Because that is also
Speaker 1: the conservative media i e. Andy Know constantly refers to
Speaker 1: all sorts of things as oh, this is just antifa,
Speaker 1: and the purpose of that is to make it seem
Speaker 1: like you can't do that too, when in reality he uh,
Speaker 1: Andy know that little ship stain. He referred to the
Speaker 1: defense of the successful defense at the elm Elmhurst Library.
Speaker 1: He claimed that it was Antifa militants when I happen
Speaker 1: to know there was a pastor who was there, there
Speaker 1: was a nursing mother with her infant and her toddler
Speaker 1: who was there. There were librarians present, and there were
Speaker 1: people who showed up because they were in the neighborhood
Speaker 1: and they heard that far right extremists were going to
Speaker 1: try and grass And sure enough, just like Tom mentioned,
Speaker 1: there was a J six insurrectionist who tried to get
Speaker 1: into the building. I recognize, Yeah, he tried to rush in.
Speaker 1: I recognized him. His name is Mitchell Bosh. He's best
Speaker 1: known for getting arrested for taking a knee in a
Speaker 1: burger king. Get arrested, okay, hoodie, Yeah, this guy tried
Speaker 1: to rush in and I don't know how it happened,
Speaker 1: but all of a sudden, my arm was hooked into
Speaker 1: his arm, twisting his upper body slightly, so he didn't
Speaker 1: have a good he didn't have good leverage to try
Speaker 1: and burst into the building where I knew that if
Speaker 1: he got in, he would refuse to leave until he
Speaker 1: was physically removed by police, So then he could then
Speaker 1: go online and say that he was fighting for freedom
Speaker 1: and collect bullshit don'tations for bullshit legal funds. So getting
Speaker 1: all back to this though, is that the media and
Speaker 1: like these these pundits and everything they are complicit in
Speaker 1: making it harder for people to build community. But people
Speaker 1: need to understand it is literally your neighbors. It is
Speaker 1: your local librarians, it is your uh friends, it is
Speaker 1: your coworkers, it's regular people. The same way people showed
Speaker 1: up to protest in they you know, ow should I
Speaker 1: bring a sign? Should I bring a bottle of water?
Speaker 1: Should I bring my a d what should I bring?
Speaker 1: And they just showed up and they mark you can
Speaker 1: do the same thing because when you have a significant
Speaker 1: number of people, you don't need to worry about being
Speaker 1: militant because you outnumber them. And across the board, if
Speaker 1: you look at data, the positions and the politics that
Speaker 1: these people hold and the things that they're pushing are
Speaker 1: in the significant minority of opinion. A majority of people
Speaker 1: are totally fine with trans people. They're totally fine, but drugs,
Speaker 1: story are like, it's not a thing. But people aren't
Speaker 1: showing up to remind them that their opinion is the minority,
Speaker 1: that they are outnumbered. Yeah. I was going to say
Speaker 1: I agree with that last point. And unfortunately the problem
Speaker 1: seems to be about our kind of cultural um inability
Speaker 1: to agree on the definition of violence and how even
Speaker 1: though people are okay largely with queer and trans people
Speaker 1: and protecting trans kids, um and they definitely do not
Speaker 1: support Nazis. Um, they still do not think that um
Speaker 1: any kind of militant action, including violence against these people
Speaker 1: is ever appropriate. Um and just a direct response to
Speaker 1: the Penn State thing that goes beyond punditory, even because
Speaker 1: Penn State itself released a statement saying that, um, that
Speaker 1: it does not condone violence without saying who started the violence?
Speaker 1: A k. The Proud Boys, who are amazing people. Um,
Speaker 1: they said that, Uh, just because you don't agree with
Speaker 1: a speaker and their right to free speech. Okay, UM
Speaker 1: hate full tour of Gavin mckinnesson the Proud Boys. UM
Speaker 1: that there is no excuse for violence. So they denounced
Speaker 1: the content of the message as well as the response
Speaker 1: to the message. So we're kind of in this limbo
Speaker 1: where people who have the voice to send these messages
Speaker 1: are still playing the meat at the dinner table both sides.
Speaker 1: Surely we can come to a peaceful resolution and then
Speaker 1: blaming the side that actually is militantly opposed to it
Speaker 1: and how to overcome that, I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: do think the like Tolly also said, every day anti
Speaker 1: fascism is a pretty good start. Yeah, I mean with
Speaker 1: everyday anti fascism, like the right does this gradritt organizing
Speaker 1: and gets people to like tacitly agree with what the
Speaker 1: Proud Boys and these fascist groups do. I think there's
Speaker 1: plenty of like normal people who would tacitly agree with
Speaker 1: what we're doing on this side of things. Um, but
Speaker 1: I mean you looked at like I think it was
Speaker 1: a somebody campaigning for me. It was Rohn de santis Abert,
Speaker 1: you know about this. It was like a literal neo Nazi.
Speaker 1: Who got it was a ruby Rubio and it was
Speaker 1: the guy was a member of the He was a
Speaker 1: Cuban fascist who was a member of the League of
Speaker 1: the South. Like there was a journalist online who was
Speaker 1: like this is awful. Somebody's like he's literally a Nazi.
Speaker 1: And then you look up this journalists like history of
Speaker 1: articles she's written and one was like this is why
Speaker 1: you should be friends with the Nazi or I'm paraphrasing,
Speaker 1: but that's literally like we should be friend Nazis. Like
Speaker 1: it's it is ridiculous how so much of the mazed
Speaker 1: dream is like, let's come to the table and be polite.
Speaker 1: I mean, I really think, and I think a lot
Speaker 1: of other people think when it comes to Nazis and
Speaker 1: fascists in the far right, you have to make it
Speaker 1: as costly as possible, whatever that means to you. You
Speaker 1: have to make it as costly as possible for them
Speaker 1: so they are deterred from doing this. Organizer. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that's the most durable conclusion certainly that I have.
Speaker 1: It seems like what y'all have experienced too and are
Speaker 1: continuing to experience. Is there is there anything else you'll
Speaker 1: wanted to get into about about what's been happening in
Speaker 1: with with these events before we kind of close out
Speaker 1: for the day. The only thing I could think to
Speaker 1: add was that that it's not over. And um. People
Speaker 1: might think, oh, they stopped coming to Drug Story hours
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, but they're going to find the next thing,
Speaker 1: the next issue, the next clinic, the next hospital, the
Speaker 1: next healthcare provider, the next family was trans children. Uh,
Speaker 1: they have dresses, they have names, they know where to go.
Speaker 1: They're just looking for when they feel most emboldened to
Speaker 1: do so. Um. And it's kind of it's hard to
Speaker 1: communicate that because people think, oh, Okay, that was a
Speaker 1: successful action. You know, we're done, We're done with them
Speaker 1: for now. But I don't know, it's it's it's just
Speaker 1: it's really hard to communicate the message that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like head on this level, this is the this
Speaker 1: is the hardest thing to not just to get across
Speaker 1: to people, but to kind of like actively except for yourself,
Speaker 1: because it's it's one of the most frustrating realities of
Speaker 1: living in our society, and there's no way to get
Speaker 1: around it, which is that like not being eaten by
Speaker 1: these people is the result of constant vigilance against them,
Speaker 1: Like they win if you don't continue showing up and
Speaker 1: one day in in in the bright blue yonder, I
Speaker 1: do believe that if people continue showing up and continue
Speaker 1: making it clear that their cause is hopeless, these people
Speaker 1: will I'll drink themselves to death or whatever. But um,
Speaker 1: you know that's that's not an immediate term sort of thing. No,
Speaker 1: I know, And I mean for just my personal note, like, yes,
Speaker 1: that is exactly the mode I'm in now. And I
Speaker 1: mean I'm a Jewish anti fascist organizer. It's almost this
Speaker 1: kind of history repeating itself ancestral need um to keep
Speaker 1: at it. And I'm one of many people, um in
Speaker 1: the same kind of mindset towards not an option to
Speaker 1: rest and wait until they you know, strike when they
Speaker 1: think we're not looking. Yeah, but it's it's you know
Speaker 1: obviously yeah. I mean we have like, we have evidence
Speaker 1: that they are looking for the next thing. We have
Speaker 1: evidence that um. You know, there's this one woman who
Speaker 1: got heavily involved with UM, the anti Vacks group New
Speaker 1: York Freedom Rally UM, and she would go on you know,
Speaker 1: Instagram live stream saying a lot of like transphobic stuff,
Speaker 1: but she never transferred that over onto public spaces until
Speaker 1: this week, where she reiterated the same points that she
Speaker 1: was making in the privacy of her home on that
Speaker 1: live stream to her little audience. She's now saying it
Speaker 1: on a stage that she's sharing with the candidate for governor,
Speaker 1: leez Eldon. Um. She's she's repeating these same things. So
Speaker 1: it's showing also that they are finding it. They're finding
Speaker 1: themselves more comfortable in saying these uh, bigoted things and
Speaker 1: pushing more extreme things and expecting for their followers and
Speaker 1: their friends to follow suit. There's people who have shown
Speaker 1: up to these harassments of drag story art who have
Speaker 1: said directly to me that they don't really agree with
Speaker 1: the harassment itself, but that their friends are they're doing
Speaker 1: the harassment, and so they're showing up for them, and
Speaker 1: that's a very quick road to they are going to
Speaker 1: decide to care about this very deeply and go very
Speaker 1: hard about it. But what has worked is when people
Speaker 1: show up and make it not happy and not good
Speaker 1: for them, when their footage is ruined, when their sound
Speaker 1: bites are sucked up, when they are blocked from doing
Speaker 1: the thing that they're trying to do to generate that
Speaker 1: content to feed that like bigoted beast. When people show up,
Speaker 1: when those events keep happening, that's a big thing, is that,
Speaker 1: like the venues that host these events need to not
Speaker 1: cancel them because when those venues cancel, it tells the
Speaker 1: biggests that they are winning. And what needs to happen
Speaker 1: is the venue is feeling brave to put out calls
Speaker 1: for community support the same way that had been in Eugene.
Speaker 1: Because when that then you put out that ask, they
Speaker 1: got hundreds of people and they outnumbered the biggests ten
Speaker 1: to one. I was just gonna say, I was I'm
Speaker 1: very heartened by like how supportive the UH people in
Speaker 1: the neighborhoods and libraries have been whether they're allowed to
Speaker 1: officially support anything or not, it's been you know, nice
Speaker 1: to know that people are happy we're there. And also
Speaker 1: I would really love to see a meme of Jovie
Speaker 1: Val stepping on a rake. You have that image in
Speaker 1: my head? Yeah, Um, was there anything else we wanted
Speaker 1: to get to? Uh? Self defense is community offense defense
Speaker 1: and if people are interested. Um. People in New York
Speaker 1: created something called I fact Fund where you donate funds
Speaker 1: and then people who want to receive individual first aid
Speaker 1: kits um can request one and receive one for free. Um.
Speaker 1: And it was created in honor of a anti fascist
Speaker 1: badass named torch Um who is always present a UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if if people wanted to check that out,
Speaker 1: it's uh. The Twitter account is just at I fact Fund,
Speaker 1: I f a k fund um if they want to donate,
Speaker 1: I think it's uh cash app is I fact Fund.
Speaker 1: I think you know someone else could look it up
Speaker 1: to check dollar sign Fund. Oh I'm sorry, Dollar Signed
Speaker 1: I fact Fund, Thank you whatever. Yeah, um, And you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's just a matter of like knowing that we
Speaker 1: keep us safe in every sense of the word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think that's a that's a perfect note to
Speaker 1: end on. Thank you all for your time, Thank you
Speaker 1: for continuing to be out there in the streets. Um
Speaker 1: and everybody else, get out there and make a fascist
Speaker 1: stay worse. It could Happen here as a production of
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
Speaker 1: visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
Speaker 1: us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
Speaker 1: for It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone
Speaker 1: media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.