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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You're

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Speaker 2: a weekly reminder that when there's bad things happening, there's

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Speaker 2: people who try well, actually, you have a lot of

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Speaker 2: reminders of this right now, but there's people who try

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Speaker 2: to do good things in response to bad things, or

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Speaker 2: even sometimes not in response to bad things, just anyway,

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Speaker 2: they just try and do good things. And I think

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Speaker 2: we should remember that. We should also remember that I'm

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Speaker 2: your host, murder Kiljoy. You actually can forget that, though,

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Speaker 2: you don't need to remember that. But what you do

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Speaker 2: need to remember is that we have a guest this week,

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Speaker 2: and you need to know that our guest is named

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Speaker 2: Molly Conger. Hi.

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Speaker 3: Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so I've never heard of you before. Do you

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Speaker 2: Do Anything? Molly is the host of one of my

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Speaker 2: favorite podcasts called Weird Little Guys that honestly, if you're

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Speaker 2: listening to the show, you've probably heard. But if you haven't,

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Speaker 2: you don't have to pause this and go listen. But

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Speaker 2: after this is done, you should go listen.

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Speaker 3: It's sort of the opposite of this show, like tonally,

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Speaker 3: it's about bad people who did bad stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like that. It's like not at the

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Speaker 2: like the Hitler scale, it's at the like I don't

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Speaker 2: think you've covered anyone I've heard of, and I have

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Speaker 2: spent a lot of time doing anti fascist work.

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Speaker 3: No, just like weird little freaks trying to be like

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Speaker 3: Junior Hitler.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but no, I have no good transition for that.

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Speaker 2: But we have a producer whose name is Sophie Hi Sophie,

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Speaker 2: that's me Hi, And we have an audio engineer named

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Speaker 2: Eva hi Eva hi Eva, Hello Eva. And our theme

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Speaker 2: musical is written forced by unwoman. And Molly has no

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Speaker 2: idea what we're going to talk about today.

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Speaker 3: It's always so nerve wrecking, like what if it's something

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Speaker 3: I can't be funny about.

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Speaker 2: What if it's something you hate? I have no idea.

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Speaker 1: Well, I actually have some news through even when you're

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Speaker 1: trying not to be funny, you're still funny.

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Speaker 2: So I've been doing this series that people might have

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Speaker 2: or might not been listening to of the previous episodes,

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Speaker 2: where I've been covering neoliberalism and the people fighting against neoliberalism.

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Speaker 2: And I just finished a four parter kind of about

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Speaker 2: this app Batistas and an intention to move into the

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Speaker 2: alter globalization movement. But I thought, let's talk about another

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Speaker 2: player in the alter globalization protests today, Mollie, we're going

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Speaker 2: to talk about the boogeyman of militant street protests. We're

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Speaker 2: going to talk about a polarizing tactic that is regularly

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Speaker 2: mistaken for a group or an ideology. It's a tactic

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Speaker 2: that has escaped containment to get used by terrible people

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Speaker 2: as well, though usually not under the same name. I

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Speaker 2: don't know whether you can guess yet or not, or

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Speaker 2: I'll just tell you.

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Speaker 3: Is it the black block?

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Speaker 2: It is, we're talking about the black block.

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Speaker 3: When you were talking about fighting globalism, I was worried

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Speaker 3: you were to talk about Alex Jones, But then I.

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Speaker 2: Remember globalization, very big difference. Okay, sorry, let's actually get

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Speaker 2: that out of the way real quick.

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Speaker 3: I just got over I just got over COVID.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, your brain's not back yet.

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Speaker 2: So there's this terribly named movement from the late nineties

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Speaker 2: early oughts. I'm not on script right now. I'm just

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Speaker 2: telling you all things. It was often at the time

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Speaker 2: called the anti globalization movement, but that was a name

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Speaker 2: given to it by the media, and some people within

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Speaker 2: the movement would call themselves anti globalization activists, but very

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Speaker 2: quickly people were like, no, that's actually not the thing

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Speaker 2: at all. We are a global movement that is about

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Speaker 2: tearing down borders. We are just against the neoliberalism that

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Speaker 2: is only tearing down economic borders of ways to extract

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Speaker 2: money from developing nations to give to rich people.

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Speaker 3: So they're anti globe emoji, guys.

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Speaker 2: I don't know whether globe emoji is. So the problem

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Speaker 2: is is that anytime someone says globalism, they're actually just

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Speaker 2: doing an anti Semitic dog whistle.

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Speaker 3: That's why I was confused. Yeah, I'm on track now.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's so hard to talk about alter globalization

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Speaker 2: movements like when right now the problem is fascism and tariffs. Right.

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Speaker 3: But okay, so we're back to black Block. I'm with it.

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Speaker 2: You ever heard of the black block? You clearly have

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Speaker 2: you guessed what we were talking about.

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Speaker 3: I've seen them around.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, coming into this, what's your conception of

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Speaker 2: the black block?

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Speaker 3: Well, one time I was getting beaten over the head

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Speaker 3: with a bicycle by a Boston police officer and someone

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Speaker 3: from the block who I will never know, whose face

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Speaker 3: I never saw, pulled me out of there. And helped

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Speaker 3: me wash the pepper spray out of my eyes. So

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Speaker 3: in my heart all they are heroes.

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Speaker 2: Fuck yeah, I feel like there's the heroic mode of

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Speaker 2: black block, and that's that's what it does, is it

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Speaker 2: helps the people around.

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Speaker 3: I just kind of like wander around process zones like oblivious,

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Speaker 3: just like I don't know, like Mannic Pixie dream girl

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Speaker 3: at the protest, like nothing back could happened to me

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Speaker 3: because I'm just a little girl, Like I'm so fucking dumb.

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Speaker 3: So I had my ass like yanked back out of

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Speaker 3: the line of fire by a stranger in a mask

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Speaker 3: several times. Cool, So thank you strangers.

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Speaker 2: The shortest possible version that I could come up with

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Speaker 2: of the black block is that it is a street

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Speaker 2: protest tactic developed by the anti authoritarian left in which

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Speaker 2: everyone wears all black and masks and gathers together in

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Speaker 2: a group, a block, as it were. And if you're

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Speaker 2: listening to this in audio format and didn't look at

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Speaker 2: the title, there's no K in block. This is more

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Speaker 2: like block like the Soviet block. That's the only other

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Speaker 2: block I know of.

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Speaker 3: A clocks, voting blocks, vote voting blocks, just what they see, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: people doing stuff together.

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Speaker 2: It's not a word we use very often, but by

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Speaker 2: everyone doing that, not voting together, but by wearing masks

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Speaker 2: and the it creates anonymity which allows individuals to do

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Speaker 2: things that they might not want to be known for doing,

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Speaker 2: like breaking laws. Most famously, the black block is known

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Speaker 2: for smashing corporate property with hammers and bricks, spray painting

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Speaker 2: graffiti onto walls, things like that. It is also known,

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Speaker 2: i think, more by participants for things like what you're describing,

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Speaker 2: of keeping people safe from police violence. When everyone does this,

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Speaker 2: when everyone dresses all in black, or rather when a

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Speaker 2: significant portion of people do this, it makes it hard

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Speaker 2: to single people out for arrest, and it makes it

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Speaker 2: hard for individuals who are arrested to be convicted because,

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Speaker 2: as the cliche goes, no face, no case, which is

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Speaker 2: not legal advice.

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Speaker 3: But you know what, it's a none of the sh

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Speaker 3: interpreted as advice or encouragement.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of me trying to explain that

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Speaker 2: this is not encouragement. Despite if you stick around a

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Speaker 2: part too, I'll tell you how to do historical reenactments

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Speaker 2: of black blocks and how you can make it make

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Speaker 2: your loss choices.

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Speaker 3: But this is not incitement.

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Speaker 2: Right, black blocks allow for people who might otherwise be

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Speaker 2: more targeted for arrest for skin color reasons, gender presentation reasons,

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Speaker 2: or some other reason to participate in rowdy actions with

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Speaker 2: a comparable level of safety. Black blocks also regularly de

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Speaker 2: arrest people. They defend peaceful protesters from police violence, and

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Speaker 2: they can distract police away from more vulnerable targets. It

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Speaker 2: is a contentious tactic, largely because it is usually accompanied

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Speaker 2: by property destruction, which is itself a contentious tactic at protests.

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Speaker 3: You can't look at a burning waimow and tell me

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Speaker 3: you don't think that's sexy. Those people are liars.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I know that's okay. This is one

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Speaker 2: of the things that would come up all the time,

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Speaker 2: right is people would always be like, oh, this alienates people,

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Speaker 2: and I'm like, think so man, A lot of people

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Speaker 2: are like that's pretty cool, Like I hate the cop

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Speaker 2: car and now the cop car's on fire. This seems nice,

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Speaker 2: but you know, teach their own. Okay, wait with the

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Speaker 2: burning weymo. Are either of you all got Speedy Black

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Speaker 2: Emperor fans, the band from the late nineties early odds. Okay, well,

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Speaker 2: this is important to approximately neither of you and some

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Speaker 2: small portion of our audience. There is a song called

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Speaker 2: the Dead Flag Blues and it starts with this long

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Speaker 2: poem that's very like apocalyptic anarchy stuff. Right. This is

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Speaker 2: a big band at the time, I swear, and the

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Speaker 2: first line is the car is on fire and there's

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Speaker 2: no driver at the wheel.

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Speaker 3: Oh my god. They predicted it.

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Speaker 2: They predicted it.

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Speaker 3: They predicted the burning weymo.

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Speaker 2: I know, which means the flags are all dead at

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Speaker 2: the top of their polls, and it means the skyline

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Speaker 2: was beautiful on fire, all twisted metal stretching upwards, everything

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Speaker 2: washed in the thin orange haze, the prophecy, and we're

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Speaker 2: going to open up our wallets and be full of blood.

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Speaker 2: So just to give everyone a heads up about what's going.

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Speaker 3: To happen, I mean, parts of revelation are coming true.

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Speaker 3: So it only makes sense that there would be modern

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Speaker 3: day prophecy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, a bunch of post rock people from Canada.

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Speaker 2: So black block isn't always an appropriate tactic, but it's

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Speaker 2: a sexy one, and sometimes people make use of it

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Speaker 2: in moments when it might not be the best tool

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Speaker 2: available in the toolbox, Partly because when people are drawn

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Speaker 2: to it. They're drawn to it, you know, but it's

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Speaker 2: an important tool that's available for people want to participate

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Speaker 2: in militant street demonstrations. And I swear I actually did

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Speaker 2: plan this as my topic before the actions of the

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Speaker 2: last week two weeks ago for you all listening Synchronicity Baby,

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Speaker 2: and this week we're going to talk about the history

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Speaker 2: of the Black Bloc from its roots in West Germany

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Speaker 2: before it's spread across the world. And we're talking about

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Speaker 2: the Black Bloc today in the context of talking about

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Speaker 2: the ultra globalization movement, where it was a fairly major

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Speaker 2: social force. And I have a few different anecdotes I'm

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Speaker 2: going to use to start this story. This is gonna

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Speaker 2: be one of those episodes where Margaret is vaguely like,

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Speaker 2: I've heard of this allegedly from a long time ago.

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Speaker 2: I don't know Statue's limitations are, but it's at least.

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Speaker 3: That I mean, as long as it's more than five

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Speaker 3: years ago, you're probably good in most states federally for sure,

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Speaker 3: unless it was terrorism.

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Speaker 2: And also, like, genuinely it would be stolen valor for

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Speaker 2: me to claim that I am much of a frontlines

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Speaker 2: activist these days, but I mus start with some anecdotes.

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Speaker 2: One the video I saw this weekend from ongoing anti

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Speaker 2: ice demonstrations where people seemingly from all walks of life

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Speaker 2: are putting their safety and liberty online to materially stop

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Speaker 2: the functioning of the state and its deportations.

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Speaker 1: Kidnapping people from their home. Yeah, business is the street.

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Speaker 2: Children, Yeah, parents, It's a nightmare and it's bad, and

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Speaker 2: it's good that people are trying to store neighbors. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Fuck ice.

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Speaker 2: Fuck Ice. Demonstrations that are happening, at least right now

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Speaker 2: as we record. I don't know, you know, you all

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Speaker 2: in the future, we'll have a different sense of what's happening.

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Speaker 3: It's probably worse by the time they hear this, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Or continuingly exciting.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I hope better.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Demonstrations seem to be aware of the weight of history,

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Speaker 2: of the fact that if we don't stop authoritarianism, there's

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Speaker 2: actually no limit to how bad things might get. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And there's a video, and I honestly don't know what

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Speaker 2: from what city. I'm literally just guessing Seattle of some

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Speaker 2: riot cops trying to grab someone who's wearing all black

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Speaker 2: and arrest this person. There are maybe eight cops. In

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Speaker 2: this video, the person being grabbed, a couple of their

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Speaker 2: friends come forward, take a hold of their friend, and

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Speaker 2: under a hail of less lethal munitions escape with their

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Speaker 2: friend pull their friend of freedom. All three of them

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Speaker 2: were dressed more or less identically, and they disappeared into

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Speaker 2: a crowd that presumably you can't talk as of the

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Speaker 2: angle of the shot, but presumably there's a crowd with

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Speaker 2: many more people dressed identically to them. So it seems

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Speaker 2: quite unlikely that the police would be able to single

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Speaker 2: out the same person or the rescue ever again. And

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Speaker 2: I don't know that there's a single action I can

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Speaker 2: point to that communicates the idea of solidarity and shared

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Speaker 2: risk more than de arresting people. Two people went at

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Speaker 2: it against eight cops and got away and rescued their friend.

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Speaker 3: It always looks like a miracle.

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Speaker 2: I know, you look at it and you're like, but

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Speaker 2: there's this kind of thing sometimes we just want it

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Speaker 2: more than them.

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Speaker 3: Because they're just at work. I mean, some of them

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Speaker 3: have this like horniness for blood, and they really just

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Speaker 3: like they love hurting you. A lot of them like

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Speaker 3: to be honest, but like they're just at work, and

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Speaker 3: like if it becomes too hard. Sometimes they will just

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Speaker 3: give up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're like, well, we can just go beat

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Speaker 2: another person soon, or like like literally in this case,

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Speaker 2: they just like fall back and start shooting people with stuff.

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Speaker 3: I'll just go beat somebody that doesn't fight back.

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Speaker 2: Totally well, And that actually even gets to what's so

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Speaker 2: useful about these demonstrations is that they're like, oh, people

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Speaker 2: fight back when we do this. That's hard. We don't

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Speaker 2: like when things are hard, you know. And to me,

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Speaker 2: this is the kind of heroism that fantasy books are

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Speaker 2: built on. I feel non hyperbolic when I say this.

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Speaker 2: And what allowed them to do this in this particular

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Speaker 2: context of this particular video was black block attire. Sometimes

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Speaker 2: the black block is not perfect, or it might not

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Speaker 2: be the right move on any given day. Not everyone

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Speaker 2: who does any given tactic is a good person even

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Speaker 2: or a sint or a hero, but it is a

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Speaker 2: powerful tool and is one of many tools available to

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Speaker 2: people when downtrodden people are fighting against the people doing

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Speaker 2: the trotting. And I like this way of phrasing it

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Speaker 2: because I'm currently obsessed with words that are derived from

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Speaker 2: other words that are no longer used. Trotting. No one trods,

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Speaker 2: but down trodden. We know what that means.

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Speaker 3: Oh, there's a word for that, for those like when

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Speaker 3: like every form of the word doesn't survive.

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Speaker 2: Oh.

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Speaker 3: I was just reading about that the other day.

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Speaker 2: My favorite is overwhelmed. Do you know what whelmed means? No,

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Speaker 2: it means overwhelmed.

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Speaker 3: Fuck, it's like flammable and inflammable.

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Speaker 2: I know, I know. Anyway, language nerds trying to talk

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Speaker 2: about history. Okay, another anecdote. I'll give you some anecdotes.

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Speaker 2: I I'll tell you the history. When I was a

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Speaker 2: baby author, I put out a book about anarchist fiction,

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Speaker 2: and for it I interviewed my hero Bursula Lquin and

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Speaker 2: we did a talk together. But this is literally just

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Speaker 2: like I can shoehorn in that I once got to

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Speaker 2: do a talk with Liquin. That's not actually the purpose

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Speaker 2: of this, but I know right exactly, and it's all

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Speaker 2: been downhill from then. But doing a talk together was like,

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Speaker 2: honestly one of the highlights of my life. We talked

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Speaker 2: about the role of anarchism in fiction for an hour

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Speaker 2: or so and then took questions. And this was interesting,

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Speaker 2: right because people came out who wouldn't have just come

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Speaker 2: out to see Margaret talk about anarchism and fiction, right,

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Speaker 2: And one man in the audience he raised his hand

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Speaker 2: and he said, and I'm paraphrasing from memory here, why

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Speaker 2: do you anarchists show up at anti war protests and

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Speaker 2: ruin them? And this is a question I had heard

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Speaker 2: a lot before, because I lived in Portland for a while.

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Speaker 2: I cut my teeth there as a protester during anti

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Speaker 2: war protests of like two thousand and two and three.

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Speaker 2: And I thought about the man's question for a second,

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Speaker 2: and I told him, what you don't realize is that

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Speaker 2: when you have these big anti war protests are honestly

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Speaker 2: protests about almost anything. The ones that you think that

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Speaker 2: anarchists have ruined were often organized by anarchists in the

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Speaker 2: first place, and maybe not solely anarchists, and not necessarily

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Speaker 2: by people who are then in the black block, right,

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Speaker 2: But people who believe in direct action are everywhere and

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Speaker 2: do an awful lot of the behind the scenes work,

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Speaker 2: way more behind the scenes work than on the groundwork,

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Speaker 2: just because literally in already to get anything done, you

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Speaker 2: have to do more behind the scenes work, which is

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Speaker 2: why we thank Sophie approximately once a week.

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Speaker 3: Thank soph You're welcome.

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Speaker 2: I actually literally, that's what we were talking about before

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Speaker 2: we got on this, talking about like, we are so

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Speaker 2: grateful that all we have to do is spend hours

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Speaker 2: and hours and hours researching things we don't have to

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Speaker 2: then also do administrative back end work because we have

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Speaker 2: producers and editors and amazing teams.

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Speaker 3: I can't send an email.

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Speaker 2: Imagine sending an email. No, I also don't.

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Speaker 1: Like sending an email, but I do it.

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Speaker 2: Because you're so brave and strong. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Total, every time I do it, I'm like, oh, you

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Speaker 1: can do it. If you do that, you can pet

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Speaker 1: a dog. You can pet a dog. Oh it works.

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Speaker 2: That makes sense. And so when I answered to this

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Speaker 2: man that there's all this behind the scenes work, I

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Speaker 2: don't think it helped him, but it was the best

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Speaker 2: I could do in terms of an answer. I think

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Speaker 2: he kind of came at that. You probably guessed by

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Speaker 2: the way I read that question.

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Speaker 3: I don't think that was a good faith question.

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Speaker 2: I'm not convinced it was. But the thing is is

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Speaker 2: that black Block was for years and I don't know

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Speaker 2: if this is still the case or not. I don't know,

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Speaker 2: but it was the most visible component of the anarchist movement.

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Speaker 2: It had black bloc, often have people with black flags,

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Speaker 2: and you know it could be easily recognized. But this

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Speaker 2: is only the tip of the iceberg, and not just

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Speaker 2: of anarchism, but of militant street demonstrations and things. And

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Speaker 2: if you thought regular protesters have a lot of thoughts,

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Speaker 2: pro and con about the black Block, wait till you

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Speaker 2: hear anarchists discuss it.

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Speaker 3: Because nobody has more opinions about the tactics of anarchists

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Speaker 3: than anarchists.

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Speaker 2: I know, I know, I read so much discourse so

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Speaker 2: that you all don't have to. So many scenes were

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Speaker 2: written in two thousand and two about.

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Speaker 1: This, But like, I'm so tired thinking about how much

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Speaker 1: you had to create.

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Speaker 3: I can't go back in time and get in that

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Speaker 3: man's face and interrogate this bad faith question that he asked.

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Speaker 3: But my feeling is is a lot of people who think, like, oh,

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Speaker 3: like the block ruined this protest, Like what what do

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Speaker 3: you mean by that? Because to my mind, a lot

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Speaker 3: of people who feel that way they saw that, like

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Speaker 3: the black Block was involved in what the newspaper would

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Speaker 3: call a clash with the police. It's like, well, who

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Speaker 3: started it?

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Speaker 2: Did that happen?

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Speaker 3: Because the block was there or was it going to

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Speaker 3: happen regardless, and the person who took that baton hit

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Speaker 3: was wearing a mask and.

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Speaker 2: Not you Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Right, Like we had, you know, rounds of this discourse

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Speaker 3: here in Charlottesville where I live. About eight years ago,

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Speaker 3: there was a lot of talk about the block right,

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Speaker 3: and people who had never had this experience before were

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Speaker 3: radicalized by it. In favor of the block, in favor

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Speaker 3: you know. I think a lot of people are used,

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Speaker 3: like you know, Antifa and the block interchangeably, because those

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Speaker 3: are the people who are visibly anti fascist, visibly anarchists,

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Speaker 3: visibly experienced protesters, and you have like middle aged soccer

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Speaker 3: moms getting up at city council and say, don't you

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Speaker 3: dare speak ill of those people. They saved my life. Yeah,

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Speaker 3: like that protest was going to get ruined either way.

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Speaker 3: The block didn't ruin it. They saved people's lives.

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Speaker 2: I think that that's actually one of the most important

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Speaker 2: things that comes up, is that discourse about it that's

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Speaker 2: had by people who aren't present. Looks really really different.

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Speaker 2: When I was young, I was wearing all black at

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Speaker 2: a demonstration and had a group of older women come

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Speaker 2: up and be like, we love you all. We have

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Speaker 2: developed a system to help hide you from police if

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Speaker 2: you need sweeties. And like they were like all had

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Speaker 2: costumes with like wings so that they could hold them

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Speaker 2: open and stuff, you know. And it's like, yeah, like

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Speaker 2: because actual solidarity is built in the streets together, you know,

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Speaker 2: and being brave together. And I'm going to tell one

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Speaker 2: more anecdote about the block, and this one I think

389
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Speaker 2: you'll have more information about than me, so that's why

390
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Speaker 2: I put it in. On January twentieth, twenty seventeen, Trump

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Speaker 2: had his first inauguration and there was a man named

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Speaker 2: Richard Spencer. You ever heard of Richard Spencer?

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Speaker 3: Molly Oh, Richard the name I haven't heard in a

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Speaker 3: long time.

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Speaker 2: And the reason we haven't heard his name in a

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Speaker 2: long time for anyone who doesn't know, there's this prominent

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Speaker 2: at the time right wing influencers, one of the more

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Speaker 2: important parts of the alt right. And he was giving

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Speaker 2: a speech to some media on the street when someone

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Speaker 2: in all black and a mask punched him in the

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Speaker 2: face and then ran off. That's incredible. The puncher was

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Speaker 2: never caught, remains anonymous to this day. One of the

403
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Speaker 2: most perfect crimes that's ever happened just.

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Speaker 3: On camera in Washington, d C. And heavily surveilled cops

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Speaker 3: everywhere on camera. Yeah yeah, I hope we never find

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Speaker 3: out who it was, and I hope that he never

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Speaker 3: pays for a drink.

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Speaker 2: I know. I like, there's this thing where sometimes you're like, oh,

409
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Speaker 2: that random, annoying ponk Hou's staying on my couch or whatever,

410
00:19:33,560 --> 00:19:34,320
Speaker 2: and you're like, you know what.

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Speaker 3: It could be him.

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Speaker 2: It could be him because he can't tell anybody. Nope,

413
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Speaker 2: can't tell anyone. Sucks so bad, I know, And Richard

414
00:19:43,720 --> 00:19:46,960
Speaker 2: Spencer being decked became a meme. My personal favorite is

415
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Speaker 2: the Blue Monday remix, And best as I can tell,

416
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Speaker 2: there's a direct correlation here to his star fading and

417
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Speaker 2: him becoming a joke instead of a figurehead. Is that

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Speaker 2: a So?

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Speaker 3: I wish that that narrative felt true to me.

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Speaker 2: You should fuck up that narrative.

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Speaker 3: That's fine, because it's so satisfying to me to say that, like,

422
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Speaker 3: getting punched on camera is what ruined Richard Spencer, but

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Speaker 3: it's unfortunately it's.

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Speaker 2: Not Oh great, no, no, yeah, because that happened.

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Speaker 3: In January of twenty seventeen, Unite the Right was in

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Speaker 3: August of twenty seventeen, So this is before Unite the

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Speaker 3: Right was even contemplated, right, Like, yeah, the event had

428
00:20:24,320 --> 00:20:26,720
Speaker 3: not even been dreamt up at that time, so the

429
00:20:26,880 --> 00:20:30,080
Speaker 3: planning and implementation of that rally all took place after

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Speaker 3: this moment. I think it certainly hurt his feelings very badly,

431
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Speaker 3: but ultimately what ruined him was getting sued into oblivion

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Speaker 3: and also his divorce. Oh okay, but he did deserve it,

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Speaker 3: and it is fun to look at, and I think

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Speaker 3: it still hurts his feelings to this day.

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Speaker 2: I also suspect it hurt his image among his peers.

436
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Speaker 3: Yes, yes, because he looked like a sad little dandy,

437
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Speaker 3: like he didn't take the punch.

438
00:20:54,400 --> 00:20:58,680
Speaker 2: Well, I mean he looked like what he was. I

439
00:20:58,760 --> 00:21:01,119
Speaker 2: hate to talk shit on dandy, but but you know

440
00:21:01,160 --> 00:21:03,760
Speaker 2: what I mean, like he didn't.

441
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:06,240
Speaker 3: Take it like the Hilarian figure he imagines himself to be.

442
00:21:06,680 --> 00:21:10,320
Speaker 2: Right totally. Do you know what's completely unrelated to any

443
00:21:10,359 --> 00:21:10,520
Speaker 2: of that?

444
00:21:11,920 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 3: Is it products and services?

445
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:16,040
Speaker 2: It is I hope they have no relation to any

446
00:21:16,040 --> 00:21:19,200
Speaker 2: of that unless it's positive, unless it's buy a drink

447
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:21,840
Speaker 2: for random people, because they might have punched Richard Spencer

448
00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:23,440
Speaker 2: that's what this podcast is brought by.

449
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:26,280
Speaker 3: You know, I think just live your life as though

450
00:21:26,320 --> 00:21:28,560
Speaker 3: every stranger you meet is that hero.

451
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:32,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like that parable Jesus, where like it's every

452
00:21:32,240 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 2: person I mean Jesus. Yeah, exactly. The Bible says you

453
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:37,160
Speaker 2: should be nice to everyone because they might have punched

454
00:21:37,200 --> 00:21:46,040
Speaker 2: Richard Spencer. Here's ads and we're back, Molly. I can't

455
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 2: believe you were worried that there would be a topic

456
00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:49,399
Speaker 2: that you wouldn't be able to find a way to

457
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:51,960
Speaker 2: make funny. I know, I was like, well, I don't know.

458
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:54,679
Speaker 3: What if it was like some important historical event that

459
00:21:54,720 --> 00:21:56,600
Speaker 3: everyone knows about and I just had to pretend I

460
00:21:56,640 --> 00:21:57,960
Speaker 3: knew about it, because like, what if it was like

461
00:21:58,000 --> 00:21:59,680
Speaker 3: my secret blind spot and then I felt stupid for

462
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,520
Speaker 3: an hour. That'd be horrible. That's like my greatest fear.

463
00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:05,680
Speaker 2: Oh my god. But now I have this terrible intrusive

464
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:07,440
Speaker 2: thought where I want to write a fake event, oh

465
00:22:07,440 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 2: my god, and act like everyone knows it, and then

466
00:22:10,040 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 2: have you on as the guest and tell oh, that's

467
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 2: gonna be my villain arc is when I start telling.

468
00:22:15,080 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 3: You stories, see some fake war that I have to

469
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:19,840
Speaker 3: be like, oh yeah, that war was like, that was bad.

470
00:22:20,359 --> 00:22:23,280
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that to Mollie. But some man,

471
00:22:24,280 --> 00:22:25,120
Speaker 1: oh totally.

472
00:22:25,800 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 2: No. The best is we'll get some man who will

473
00:22:27,760 --> 00:22:31,479
Speaker 2: be like, oh, yeah, totally and then like also claim

474
00:22:31,600 --> 00:22:33,640
Speaker 2: and make up facts about the fake war.

475
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:36,640
Speaker 3: Just just yes, and your way into some like obscure

476
00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:38,359
Speaker 3: seventeenth century European war.

477
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:43,440
Speaker 2: Yeah totally, but that doesn't actually exist, Like you remember, right, Yeah,

478
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 2: the papal states were just in disarray.

479
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:47,719
Speaker 3: I remember love that for us.

480
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 2: I feel like I was like caught in a terrible

481
00:22:50,320 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 2: trap earlier today because I was talking to a friend

482
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 2: at a coffee shop and they were like, actually, I

483
00:22:55,800 --> 00:22:58,240
Speaker 2: don't really know much about the Spanish Revolution, like what

484
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:00,800
Speaker 2: was the Spanish Civil War? And I was like, am

485
00:23:00,840 --> 00:23:03,520
Speaker 2: I on camera? What's happening here? Am I?

486
00:23:03,560 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 1: BEI? PI of my Like you're like, boy, how did

487
00:23:05,880 --> 00:23:06,800
Speaker 1: you come to the right?

488
00:23:06,960 --> 00:23:09,639
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just sweep everything off the table and just

489
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:10,919
Speaker 3: put down a banger.

490
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 2: But then halfway through get very self conscious about taking

491
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:18,720
Speaker 2: up space and conversation anyway. I know how to socialize

492
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 2: off microphone. I'm a socially competent person. Doesn't live alone

493
00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 2: in the mountains. By and large, the Black Block had

494
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 2: its roots in the German squatter scene the seventies and eighties.

495
00:23:29,720 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 2: We haven't talked about this particular culture before on the show,

496
00:23:32,440 --> 00:23:35,240
Speaker 2: but we've talked about a lot of parallels, like the

497
00:23:35,280 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 2: anarcho punks of the UK. People want to listen to

498
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:40,359
Speaker 2: our episodes about the band Crafts for more information about that,

499
00:23:41,160 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 2: or the squat scene of the Netherlands, which you can

500
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:44,679
Speaker 2: listen to an episode about the squat scene of the

501
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 2: Netherlands that turns vacant property into housing and vibrant cultural centers.

502
00:23:49,240 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 2: These are related scenes to the German scene that we're

503
00:23:51,840 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 2: going to talk about, but we can go back even

504
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 2: further if we'd like, and if you know me, that

505
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,960
Speaker 2: means yes, I would like. There is an anarchist group

506
00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:03,120
Speaker 2: called Black Mask in New York City in the nineteen sixties,

507
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 2: which we also tied a bunch of episodes about in

508
00:24:04,960 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 2: the episodes about Up against the Wall Motherfuckers, because that's

509
00:24:07,520 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 2: what they later became. Black Mask was a group of

510
00:24:10,000 --> 00:24:13,679
Speaker 2: direct action like art pranksters basically who later became the

511
00:24:13,720 --> 00:24:16,919
Speaker 2: famed and fabled anarchist street gang Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers.

512
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:19,720
Speaker 2: The only podcast episode where we couldn't put the subject

513
00:24:19,760 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 2: in the title, and Black Mask, true to their name,

514
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:29,640
Speaker 2: wore black masks to protests. It is hard to say

515
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 2: if there's a direct line between those protests and German

516
00:24:32,119 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 2: squads and the next like fifteen years later or so.

517
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:37,840
Speaker 2: But I can tell you I've traced Black Mask and

518
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:42,560
Speaker 2: Up against the Wall Motherfuckers and like two UK radical journals,

519
00:24:42,560 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 2: and like the conversation was happening, right, this is not

520
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,200
Speaker 2: an isolated thing. These are large communities.

521
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 3: I mean, we know the fascists have international connections. There's

522
00:24:51,600 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 3: no reason to believe the anarchists wouldn't too, right.

523
00:24:53,600 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 2: Totally, and while the tactic is widely adopted by and

524
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:00,400
Speaker 2: associated with anarchists, although actually, as you point out out now,

525
00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 2: it's more of like antifa. I'm sure you've talked about

526
00:25:03,600 --> 00:25:07,440
Speaker 2: this before. What a great semantic trick they pulled when

527
00:25:07,480 --> 00:25:11,520
Speaker 2: instead of saying like antifa and they turned it into

528
00:25:11,560 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 2: antifa to make it so that it's not we're against phuh,

529
00:25:15,680 --> 00:25:17,400
Speaker 2: but instead we're just a thing.

530
00:25:18,320 --> 00:25:20,119
Speaker 3: And they always write it in all caps to like

531
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 3: it's an acronym or something.

532
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, like what is the FA short for buddy? Yeah?

533
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 2: Say it? Yeah, The answer, by the way, if you're curious,

534
00:25:27,800 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 2: is fascism. It's an anti fascist organization.

535
00:25:30,560 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 3: So when people say they're anti antifa, it's like, well,

536
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:34,040
Speaker 3: why don't you say the whole word.

537
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I didn't do great in math, but I

538
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 2: learned enough math you can.

539
00:25:38,640 --> 00:25:40,760
Speaker 3: Cancel a little bad boys that you can reduce that fraction.

540
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:44,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I have I've seen at least one

541
00:25:44,840 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 2: anti anti Antifa sticker, but I think at that point

542
00:25:48,920 --> 00:25:49,480
Speaker 2: it's a joke.

543
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:51,119
Speaker 3: It has to be.

544
00:25:51,520 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 2: Yeah. So the group that this grew out of, Black

545
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 2: Block were out of, is inspired at least as much

546
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 2: by autonomous Marxism or autonomism as it was by anarchism.

547
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 2: The late sixties was kind of lit all over the place.

548
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:08,159
Speaker 2: One of the places it was lit was Italy. Starting

549
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:10,560
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty nine, you have this new social movement,

550
00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:14,600
Speaker 2: the autonomists, and these are autonomous Marxists, And what that

551
00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,320
Speaker 2: means is like it's hard to conceive of in the US,

552
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,640
Speaker 2: where like Marxism is a bad word, right.

553
00:26:21,119 --> 00:26:24,240
Speaker 3: Not my house, fair enough, have.

554
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:26,119
Speaker 2: You far enough? Left becomes a bad wordy and not

555
00:26:26,160 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 2: really on it anyway. Whatever, So.

556
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,639
Speaker 3: But I got my husband an original English printing of

557
00:26:32,680 --> 00:26:35,479
Speaker 3: the Little Red Book for Valentine's Day last year. So

558
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,080
Speaker 3: just to give you a taste of what's going on

559
00:26:37,119 --> 00:26:37,600
Speaker 3: in our house.

560
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 2: Oh hell yeah. So in Italy and a lot of

561
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 2: other places, you have these very institutional communist parties. They're

562
00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:47,320
Speaker 2: parts of government. They're like, you know, they're not a

563
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:51,119
Speaker 2: thing to be radical around, right, and so people who

564
00:26:51,200 --> 00:26:54,879
Speaker 2: had no interest in communist party bullshit but are interested

565
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 2: in Marxism developed autonomous Marxism. And we'll probably talk about

566
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 2: more about them as some other times. But if if

567
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,280
Speaker 2: you ask me more questions, I would immediately start running

568
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 2: out of things that I can claim to know about this.

569
00:27:05,560 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 3: That thing I was afraid of happening, Like would be

570
00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 3: talking about theory.

571
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 2: Oh great, No, we're doing the tiniest bit to big

572
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:15,959
Speaker 2: questions about it. That's totally fine. In some ways, this

573
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:18,760
Speaker 2: is more of a like to like show that there's

574
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 2: this diversity of ideological stuff that created as cultural movement.

575
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 3: These are anarchist Marxists. I'm on board.

576
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 2: I have moralized right, I definitely. At one point I

577
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:31,760
Speaker 2: met this older anarchist from Japan who was at a

578
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:34,080
Speaker 2: squad I was at in the US, and he didn't

579
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,160
Speaker 2: speak much English and talking to him and he's like, oh,

580
00:27:37,160 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 2: you're anarchists, and I'm like yeah, and he was like

581
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:41,560
Speaker 2: me too, and he thinks and he goes autonomist. And

582
00:27:41,560 --> 00:27:43,160
Speaker 2: I love that that's one of the only English words

583
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:43,520
Speaker 2: he knew.

584
00:27:43,600 --> 00:27:44,399
Speaker 3: That's beautiful.

585
00:27:44,880 --> 00:27:47,160
Speaker 2: Every other conversation we had to sit there with a dictionary.

586
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 3: But I see, like anarchist Marxists, Like, I don't even

587
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 3: care that that's a contradiction because like the average person's

588
00:27:52,760 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 3: politics are incoherent and it doesn't matter totally.

589
00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 2: Like all of the random words that people have described,

590
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:02,120
Speaker 2: it's the thing that comes up constantly where you're like, oh, yeah,

591
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:06,840
Speaker 2: the like uh, you know, social libertarians or the you know,

592
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,720
Speaker 2: like republican, Like are you talking about nineteen thirty Spain,

593
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 2: you're talking about nineteen sixteen Ireland, you're talking about the US.

594
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 2: Now you're talking about the US thirty years ago, all different,

595
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,360
Speaker 2: completely different ideologies with the.

596
00:28:19,840 --> 00:28:22,040
Speaker 3: Party in other countries. That doesn't mean what I thought

597
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 3: it meant.

598
00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:25,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, but then the Liberal Party in Mexico isn't metted

599
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:28,119
Speaker 2: by Ricardo Flores mcconne the anarchists, So I don't know.

600
00:28:28,160 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 3: I'm never going to read a book. I don't even care.

601
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 2: It's all meaningless. Labels. Fuck them. Sometimes they're nice, shorthand.

602
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 2: I don't want to walk into a cafe and be like, oh, yeah,

603
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,800
Speaker 2: I'd like that food that doesn't have dairy, or like,

604
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 2: oh do you want dairy? Be like no, do you

605
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:43,200
Speaker 2: want eggs? You want no? Like do you want meat? No?

606
00:28:43,480 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 2: Oh you're vegan. Be like, oh, I don't like labels,

607
00:28:45,640 --> 00:28:49,760
Speaker 2: You're like. Shorthand is sometimes useful, but also then people

608
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 2: get really hung up on them, and then all the

609
00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 2: problems in.

610
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:56,000
Speaker 3: SOO, but no, two anarchists have the same definition of anarchism.

611
00:28:56,120 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 3: So cares.

612
00:28:57,080 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great. So you have all these youth and

613
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 2: they're like doing a big social movement in Italy in

614
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties. But then the state starts This is

615
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 2: a cycle that we've seen a million times. The state

616
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 2: starts fucking with them real bad, and they start breaking

617
00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 2: up their connection of mass movements and they're like, oh,

618
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 2: if we do anything above ground, we're going to get

619
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,320
Speaker 2: caught and go to prison for the rest of our lives.

620
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:20,360
Speaker 2: And so they go where many social movements go to die.

621
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 2: They went to Clendestinity, They went to smaller and smaller,

622
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,320
Speaker 2: more isolated clicks of people doing more and more militant action.

623
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,440
Speaker 2: They started involving guns in their things, and you know, like,

624
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 2: that's just a thing that sometimes happens, especially the late

625
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 2: sixties movements.

626
00:29:34,440 --> 00:29:37,200
Speaker 3: To be fair to these Italian anarchists in the sixties

627
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 3: and seventies, they needed those guns.

628
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 2: That's also true. Shit was dark. Yeah, I know, I

629
00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 2: was saying that, and I was like, I'm very grateful

630
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 2: for the people who hold rifles in front of Drag

631
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:48,400
Speaker 2: Story Hour right now.

632
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 3: Italian black shirts were just beating communist organizers to death

633
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:52,240
Speaker 3: in the streets.

634
00:29:52,320 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's true. So it's a completely understandable thing

635
00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:00,120
Speaker 2: that they moved into more isolated groups. The problem is

636
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 2: that when you get more isolated, you get more echo chambery,

637
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 2: you stop being able to bring in new recruits, and

638
00:30:05,680 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 2: you just become less and less of an impactful social force.

639
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:11,960
Speaker 2: And anyway, I'm not even trying to put a moral

640
00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 2: judgment on any of this. They started doing some terrorism,

641
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:17,480
Speaker 2: these autonomous Marxists, and you had all these urban guerrillas,

642
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 2: and then this big growing scene instead became increasingly isolated,

643
00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:23,160
Speaker 2: paranoid and militant to that is the best I've.

644
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:25,560
Speaker 3: Again, they weren't the only ones doing terrorism in Italy.

645
00:30:25,880 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: It's true. I'm just gonna be very fair to them.

646
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:31,440
Speaker 2: It's true. And before they did any of that, they

647
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,960
Speaker 2: inspired some folks. They inspired folks in West Germany by

648
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties who had also taken inspiration from the

649
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:41,560
Speaker 2: Dutch squatter scene and I believe anarchist punk rock. Basically,

650
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 2: the German youth were ready for this. Suburbanization had gutted

651
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,440
Speaker 2: German cities. So it's all these empty buildings, like basically

652
00:30:50,480 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 2: like not white flight out of the cities, but like

653
00:30:54,080 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 2: flight out of the cities, German flight out of the

654
00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 2: German cities. I don't know, and all these buildings, and

655
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,200
Speaker 2: people are like, yeah, we'll move into those, and we'll

656
00:31:03,200 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 2: fight for activist causes like stopping nuclear proliferation and fighting

657
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 2: for the legalization of abortion. These are the two biggest

658
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 2: causes that they were fighting for that I'm aware of.

659
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 2: And so people are like, yeah, fuck yeah. Autonomy and

660
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,960
Speaker 2: squatting this is what it's about. They started squatting empty

661
00:31:17,960 --> 00:31:21,840
Speaker 2: buildings for housing and social centers that has housed bookstores

662
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:25,080
Speaker 2: and coffee houses. This is one of those words. I

663
00:31:25,120 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 2: have literally no idea, Like, here's thing, it's called infoshops.

664
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 3: We have one here it is you've been there.

665
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a very nice infoshop. Infoshop is like a

666
00:31:35,080 --> 00:31:37,640
Speaker 2: blurry word for a place with like zines and books

667
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 2: and shit you can go to and learn about radical

668
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 2: causes and things. This word very likely has its origins

669
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 2: etymologically in these German info loden infoshop.

670
00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 3: Oh that does feel very German. Now these I just

671
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,240
Speaker 3: never questioned the term. It makes it knows, but like, yeah,

672
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:55,800
Speaker 3: that makes perfect sense. It feels German.

673
00:31:56,200 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 2: I'm a because I can be trusted with my use

674
00:31:58,520 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 2: of time. I'm part of a large signal loop of

675
00:32:01,040 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 2: anarchist history nerds, and we had a recent discussion about

676
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 2: the history of the word infoshop, and I was fully

677
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 2: expecting it to be like one hundred years old. And

678
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 2: the oldest that anyone that I've seen has currently attracted

679
00:32:12,960 --> 00:32:14,920
Speaker 2: back to is nineteen ninety two in English in the

680
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 2: United States.

681
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 3: Oh, I love that.

682
00:32:17,360 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 2: But in nineteen ninety two there was like a conference

683
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 2: of all of the info shops, so clearly it goes

684
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 2: back before then. And that's besides the point. But I

685
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:31,600
Speaker 2: like words, so they started building all of this infrastructure.

686
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 2: The German West German punks. The reason I say West

687
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 2: German for folks who there was a Cold War and

688
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 2: there was East Germany and West Germany and there were

689
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 2: different countries. So they started building all this infrastructure in

690
00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 2: these abandoned buildings before the fall of the Berlin Wall,

691
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:50,720
Speaker 2: before the reunification of Germany. This was a massive counterculture

692
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,719
Speaker 2: and one that really pulled people out of regular German

693
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,720
Speaker 2: ways of life. All of these young folks had very

694
00:32:56,720 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 2: few social prospects because of this massive economic downturn, and

695
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:02,719
Speaker 2: so they started just being like, fuck it, let's just

696
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:07,320
Speaker 2: do some shit. Let's well to quote an article by

697
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 2: Daniel Dylan Young quote. Similar initiatives for alternative living as

698
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,120
Speaker 2: resistance were percolating in the nineteen eighties and in some

699
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 2: places much earlier and Holland, Denmark and elsewhere throughout Northern Europe. Eventually,

700
00:33:20,880 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 2: all of these Northern Europeans living in decentralized social groups

701
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 2: dedicated to creating non coercive, non hierarchical society, they became

702
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:30,240
Speaker 2: collectively labeled as autonomen.

703
00:33:30,920 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 3: I wonder how much of this is influenced too, So

704
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,719
Speaker 3: this is just like what the seventies early eighties we're

705
00:33:34,760 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 3: talking about. How much of this is influenced that, Like

706
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 3: these people in their twenties and thirties are born in

707
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 3: the immediate aftermath of World War Two, so like they're

708
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,719
Speaker 3: being raised by parents who are shattered in a landscape

709
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,200
Speaker 3: that is just bleak.

710
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:50,040
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of that, and I think

711
00:33:50,080 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 2: that also specifically, one of the things that I've read

712
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:56,320
Speaker 2: has said that like one of the cultural impacts here

713
00:33:56,800 --> 00:33:59,560
Speaker 2: is that they didn't get to see the late sixties

714
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:01,800
Speaker 2: early sets these radical stuff, so instead they're in this

715
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 2: like really banal time of just like one type of

716
00:34:05,720 --> 00:34:11,480
Speaker 2: like super pacivism isn't always banal, but like one particular

717
00:34:11,840 --> 00:34:14,600
Speaker 2: model of this is the way that non violence needs

718
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:16,959
Speaker 2: to be done, and it's a very non confrontational version

719
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,680
Speaker 2: of non violence. And you know, like this is kind

720
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:23,560
Speaker 2: of a like bored and poor generation because you have

721
00:34:23,600 --> 00:34:28,319
Speaker 2: this massive recession and they're like everything from before us

722
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 2: is boring and shitty. Let's become punk rockers and you know,

723
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,200
Speaker 2: do weird shit. Just honestly, that's probably a lot of fun.

724
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 2: So they're doing all of these protests and shit, they're

725
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:39,720
Speaker 2: taking over nuclear power plants.

726
00:34:39,800 --> 00:34:41,319
Speaker 3: Oh hell yeah, Okay.

727
00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's so funny too, right because the things

728
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,919
Speaker 2: that are like important issues change generationally a lot, right,

729
00:34:48,280 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 2: Like anti nuclear power plants isn't like a major issue

730
00:34:51,000 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 2: for a lot of people right now, you know.

731
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 3: I'm not interested in that at all, but yeah, time

732
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 3: period it felt urgent.

733
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,399
Speaker 2: Right exactly, And it's just so interesting to me though,

734
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 2: like EBB and Low of these things that, like, like

735
00:35:01,760 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 2: the alter globalization movement was trying to combat free trade agreements,

736
00:35:05,320 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 2: right and right now our problem with tariffs. You know,

737
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:10,879
Speaker 2: bad people will do bad things with like any hand

738
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 2: you give them, you know.

739
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 3: Right, It's not that they were wrong to have had

740
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:16,040
Speaker 3: that opinion, then, it's just that like the thing that

741
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:17,520
Speaker 3: is bad changes.

742
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:21,280
Speaker 2: Right totally. In the winter of nineteen eighty, West Germany

743
00:35:21,360 --> 00:35:23,960
Speaker 2: was like, man, we can't handle these fucking altonomen We

744
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:25,839
Speaker 2: got to fucking do something about this. Fuck it, We're

745
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,759
Speaker 2: going to evict all the squads fuck them. And this

746
00:35:29,800 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 2: seems like a very run of the mill thing to

747
00:35:31,480 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 2: do in the US because you're like not allowed to

748
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 2: live in other people's houses, right, But in the US

749
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 2: you're can evict someone if they don't pay rent in Germany.

750
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 2: This is pretty serious and offensive to the German idea

751
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 2: of justice. Is that there was an empty house and

752
00:35:44,040 --> 00:35:45,879
Speaker 2: someone was living in it because they need somewhere to live,

753
00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:47,400
Speaker 2: and how you're going to make them be homeless.

754
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like they had the right idea.

755
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 2: Yes, that is the way to understand that. It also

756
00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 2: meant that the West German government mobilized police at levels

757
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:02,719
Speaker 2: that you hadn't seen in Germany since Germany did the

758
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 2: one thing it's kind of famous for having done that

759
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 2: at one hundred percent should not have done.

760
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:09,320
Speaker 3: Rounding up a bunch of people with a large scale

761
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:12,360
Speaker 3: mobilization of it probably looked pretty pretty bad to a

762
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 3: lot of Germans.

763
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, people weren't into it fucking middle of the winter.

764
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 2: So West Germany started trying to evict the squats, and

765
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 2: so squatters started defending themselves and defending their squats. Also,

766
00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 2: people did this through massive nonviolence sit ins and things

767
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:29,440
Speaker 2: like that, but they also got rowdy, and every building

768
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,880
Speaker 2: that was evicted meant several more squatted for years. Mass

769
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:37,280
Speaker 2: arrests were met with nationwide protests. One protest saw fifteen

770
00:36:37,360 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 2: thousand Germans destroying an entire wealthy shopping district because of

771
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 2: repression of the autonomen God and return. I know, well,

772
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 2: there's this way in which it's like culturally normalized in

773
00:36:51,680 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: a way that you know, I was gonna say it's

774
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 2: hard to understand the US, but I actually think as

775
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:57,480
Speaker 2: time comes on, I actually think that these sorts of

776
00:36:57,480 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 2: tactics make more sense to more Americans.

777
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 3: I mean, that's what I'm seeing anecdotally, just like in

778
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:04,360
Speaker 3: the comment sections on things.

779
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:08,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's all this repression against the autonomen in Germany,

780
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,480
Speaker 2: and so they invent the black block. If they all

781
00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:15,239
Speaker 2: go in matching clothes, they could do what they felt

782
00:37:15,239 --> 00:37:17,680
Speaker 2: needed to be done to defend themselves against police attack

783
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 2: without being singled out for arrest. Their uniform the first

784
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:24,759
Speaker 2: black blocks was a black motorcycle helmet and or black

785
00:37:24,800 --> 00:37:28,480
Speaker 2: ski masks and all black clothing. I think black leather jackets,

786
00:37:28,480 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 2: but I actually am not one hundred percent.

787
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:31,879
Speaker 3: And if they had motorcycle helmets, they probably had cool

788
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 3: leather jackets, but.

789
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 2: It might have been bomber jackets, That's what I don't know.

790
00:37:36,160 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 2: They would have looked cool either way. Yeah, don't get

791
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,280
Speaker 2: me wrong. Many of them wore steel toed boots, people

792
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 2: brought shields and batons to fight the police off. And

793
00:37:47,760 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 2: for better or worse, being dressed this way and the

794
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 2: anonymity of the crowd brings out a certain magic. I

795
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 2: don't know how else to describe this as a crowd magic.

796
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 2: It's a dangerous and powerful and beautiful magic what people

797
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 2: can do in crowds. And it's not like what people claim.

798
00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:09,560
Speaker 2: It's not this herd mentality, it's not this it's like

799
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,640
Speaker 2: a leader full thing in a really interesting way. Anyway,

800
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 2: it makes people feel powerful. And so the Black Block

801
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 2: started doing what it eventually became famous for. It would

802
00:38:18,800 --> 00:38:20,920
Speaker 2: smash up banks and bougie stores and shit like the

803
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:24,080
Speaker 2: you know, fifteen thousand people who trashed a boogie shopping

804
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 2: district to quote Daniel Dylan Young again quote. In this way,

805
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 2: the black Block is a form of militants that mitigates

806
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 2: the problematic dichotomy between popularly executed nonviolent civil disobedience and

807
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 2: elite secret of guerrilla terrorism and sabotage. So you have

808
00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:45,440
Speaker 2: this problem right in Italy where you're like, oh, we

809
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,840
Speaker 2: have these big peaceful movements or even like we have

810
00:38:47,880 --> 00:38:49,480
Speaker 2: this kind of routy movements and the beating us all

811
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 2: up right, So we're all going to go underground, and

812
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:55,360
Speaker 2: that has its other problems. So the Black Block was

813
00:38:55,440 --> 00:39:01,400
Speaker 2: developed kind of organically grew out of needing to find

814
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 2: a solution to that, needing to be able to do

815
00:39:04,560 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 2: mass demonstrations that are actually direct action in a way

816
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:15,640
Speaker 2: that is harder to repress, and you get clandestinity without

817
00:39:15,719 --> 00:39:21,160
Speaker 2: the really high stakes that are escalated through gorilla groups.

818
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:23,880
Speaker 3: That makes sense. They bridge the gap.

819
00:39:24,280 --> 00:39:27,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had never thought about it that way until

820
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:29,440
Speaker 2: I was reading that particular analysis of the block, and

821
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that's actually that's pretty cool.

822
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just another one of those things that you're

823
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:35,879
Speaker 3: just so used to seeing that you don't really think

824
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:38,480
Speaker 3: too hard about where this came from or what it means.

825
00:39:38,600 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like always people always did this.

826
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:43,080
Speaker 3: You see the way that it functions, But like, yeah,

827
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:44,480
Speaker 3: that's yeah interesting.

828
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 2: And tactics are tactics. They are not imbued with moral weight.

829
00:39:50,760 --> 00:39:54,320
Speaker 2: They just you know what it's like, it's like ads, hmmm.

830
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 2: I think that people should make their own decisions about

831
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,239
Speaker 2: which ads or any that they you like supporting or

832
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:05,279
Speaker 2: listening to. But now you have that choice. I have

833
00:40:05,400 --> 00:40:09,759
Speaker 2: given you choice and tim much like when you walk

834
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 2: into the grocery store and there's a million types of oreos.

835
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 2: That's the freedom that you all have. Here's here's ads

836
00:40:20,400 --> 00:40:23,640
Speaker 2: Andrew back. Do you a favorite Oreo?

837
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,239
Speaker 3: I have sea like disease, so they only Yeah, there's

838
00:40:27,280 --> 00:40:28,880
Speaker 3: just the one kind for me and I love it.

839
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 2: Are they like.

840
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:32,720
Speaker 3: Oreo makes one and they're good?

841
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:33,560
Speaker 2: Oh cool?

842
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,160
Speaker 1: Do you like original Gooden fra Ario or do you

843
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:38,080
Speaker 1: like the yellow ones?

844
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 2: Regular?

845
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 3: It's like when you go to Wendy's and you see

846
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:42,640
Speaker 3: what a frosty and they say chocolate or vanilla, and

847
00:40:42,680 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 3: it's like, I Am going to set this place on fire, Like,

848
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:47,040
Speaker 3: what are you talking about? Chocolate? I said a frosty?

849
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:49,680
Speaker 3: I don't know what vanilla? Soft serve the Trader.

850
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 1: Joe's Gluten free, JoJo's aka oreos are really good.

851
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:54,319
Speaker 2: It's good.

852
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 3: It's just the one, just the one.

853
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 2: Well, let's see.

854
00:40:59,880 --> 00:41:01,480
Speaker 3: I think we were at diversity of tactics.

855
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, ieah, And so people were embracing this tactic. The

856
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:08,239
Speaker 2: tactic to quote Liz Hileyman who said, quote coming out

857
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 2: of the stultifying political climate of the Reagan and Bush years,

858
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,800
Speaker 2: many young activists had gotten sick of protest as usual,

859
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:17,720
Speaker 2: mostly in their teens. Throughout through thirties, few Black blockers

860
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:20,319
Speaker 2: remembered the glorified nineteen sixties. They grew up on a

861
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 2: diet of well choreographed rallies, permitted marches, and planned mass arrests,

862
00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 2: and there's like not having it. So the autonomen regularly

863
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,160
Speaker 2: started winning considerations from the government. They would get this

864
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 2: or that squat legalized if the state just found it

865
00:41:35,680 --> 00:41:41,280
Speaker 2: not worth evicting it. Although actually the legalization and recognition

866
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:44,040
Speaker 2: of squats in Europe is actually part of a divide

867
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:46,319
Speaker 2: and conqueror strategy from the state too, so it's kind

868
00:41:46,360 --> 00:41:49,479
Speaker 2: of a little of a It's complicated, and the Black

869
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 2: block held a lot of symbolic importance. By dressing identically,

870
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:55,759
Speaker 2: you become leaderless and therefore much harder for the state

871
00:41:55,800 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 2: to disrupt, both in the moment and later. Anyone who

872
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 2: pays attention to American history knows that they sure like

873
00:42:01,719 --> 00:42:06,720
Speaker 2: killing protest leaders. I think that that's probably happening these days,

874
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:09,280
Speaker 2: and it's just not then a lot of the people

875
00:42:09,280 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 2: involved in like the Ferguson uprising just kind of die.

876
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, like some suspicious suicides, some obvious unsolved murders.

877
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, just like whistleblowers. So anyway, I would say

878
00:42:22,040 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 2: there's no flag bears to the black block except actually

879
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,040
Speaker 2: marching bands with flag communication. There's definitely a guy with

880
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:30,839
Speaker 2: a flag. Yeah. Yeah. And there's like ways of doing

881
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,919
Speaker 2: semaphore and stuff that people use to communicate, like hey,

882
00:42:34,200 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 2: police that way, or like we think we may want

883
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:40,120
Speaker 2: to go this way. It's fun. People developed this, and

884
00:42:40,160 --> 00:42:42,879
Speaker 2: there's a symbolic dropping of who you are in your

885
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:46,879
Speaker 2: regular life. There's this conception of the black blocker. It's

886
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:50,080
Speaker 2: one that's encouraged by the media that every black blocker

887
00:42:50,200 --> 00:42:52,400
Speaker 2: is a white, middle class, troubled young man with nothing

888
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:56,720
Speaker 2: better to do. And to me, what this ties into

889
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:01,240
Speaker 2: is how people are marginalized in others by society in general.

890
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:04,920
Speaker 2: If a person is unmarked by society, you know, if

891
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:09,919
Speaker 2: they're an unmarked person, truly normal within our society, then

892
00:43:10,600 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 2: they assume to be white, middle class, able bodied straight men,

893
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:19,160
Speaker 2: because anything else is different, even though god, what tiny

894
00:43:19,200 --> 00:43:21,320
Speaker 2: percentage of the world is white, middle class, able bodied

895
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 2: straight men. Right?

896
00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,240
Speaker 3: The default is actually not too common, is it.

897
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:28,680
Speaker 2: No, especially since a lot of those things are absolutely temporary.

898
00:43:28,719 --> 00:43:31,879
Speaker 2: Everyone is only able bodied temporarily, and you know, many

899
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:37,640
Speaker 2: people are only straight men until they meet. So people

900
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:40,480
Speaker 2: assume that if you remove identity, you put everyone in masks.

901
00:43:40,520 --> 00:43:42,399
Speaker 2: They're like, ah, that's just a white man, right.

902
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:46,520
Speaker 3: And it's also a way of like undercutting their commitment

903
00:43:46,520 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 3: to any kind of social justice cause like, oh, they

904
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:51,840
Speaker 3: couldn't possibly sincerely care about the rights of black people

905
00:43:51,920 --> 00:43:54,759
Speaker 3: or Hispanic people or immigrants, or this is just because

906
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 3: they have a fetish for violence, right.

907
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:00,120
Speaker 2: Like, so they go out and risk prison time on

908
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 2: a regular basis and get PTSD because it's fun.

909
00:44:03,800 --> 00:44:06,480
Speaker 3: None of these lies hold up, right, Like, oh, paid protester,

910
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 3: how much would you have to pay me?

911
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 2: Yeah?

912
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:10,640
Speaker 3: What is the number of zeros on the check? Where

913
00:44:10,680 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 3: you risk death in permanent imprisonment?

914
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, god damn it.

915
00:44:15,640 --> 00:44:16,480
Speaker 3: It doesn't make sense.

916
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like even the fascists probably aren't paid protesters, you know, Like.

917
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 3: I have found a vanishingly small number of instances where

918
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 3: that does appear to have happened. Like, it's not that

919
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:28,960
Speaker 3: it's impossible, is that it's not likely and it's not practical.

920
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:32,200
Speaker 2: I will say I've been a paid picketer for a union,

921
00:44:32,920 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 2: but that's different.

922
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:34,600
Speaker 3: That's a job, I know.

923
00:44:35,960 --> 00:44:39,400
Speaker 2: So these early black blocks, they were in marches with

924
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 2: like to use one example from nineteen eighty six, ten

925
00:44:42,239 --> 00:44:45,399
Speaker 2: thousand people marching, of whom a solid fifteen hundred were

926
00:44:45,400 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 2: in block. These are bigger than we see in the

927
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:52,360
Speaker 2: United States. Yeah, and they would drive back to the police.

928
00:44:52,680 --> 00:44:55,440
Speaker 2: This was the same year as Chernobyl, and so the

929
00:44:55,480 --> 00:44:58,200
Speaker 2: anti nuclear movement was like, see we told you so,

930
00:44:58,920 --> 00:45:05,480
Speaker 2: and anti that's fair, Yeah, totally nearby and bad. When

931
00:45:05,560 --> 00:45:09,239
Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan came to Berlin, he's a big, famous neoliberal.

932
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 2: Fifty thousand people, that's what he's only famous for. Uh,

933
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 2: fifty thousand people marched against him, with three thousand of

934
00:45:16,600 --> 00:45:21,160
Speaker 2: them in block. And in its way, this is interesting

935
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 2: to me because in the last series of episodes I

936
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,719
Speaker 2: did about Zapatistas, I'm largely saying that the anti neoliberal movement,

937
00:45:26,760 --> 00:45:29,879
Speaker 2: the alter globalization movement, started with Zapatistas, and I think

938
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 2: that you can say about a lot of the groundwork

939
00:45:33,239 --> 00:45:37,640
Speaker 2: does come from the Zapatistas. But these actually do predate

940
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:42,760
Speaker 2: the uprising in Chiapas of nineteen ninety four, although doesn't

941
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 2: predate the apatist is getting ready for that uprising. But

942
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 2: whatever for folks who haven't listened to the explainer I've

943
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:52,600
Speaker 2: done on neoliberalism. Well, earlier we talking about how words

944
00:45:52,600 --> 00:45:56,759
Speaker 2: are meaningless when they're in political contexts. Neoliberalism sometimes people

945
00:45:56,800 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 2: think that just means like a liberal, it's liberalism, that's new. Yeah,

946
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 2: it's more or less unrelated. They have the same etymological route.

947
00:46:04,120 --> 00:46:05,920
Speaker 2: But if you start with one, you're not getting to

948
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:07,759
Speaker 2: the other. I mean, like many people are both, but

949
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 2: it's just a fucking unrelated think of them separately. And

950
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 2: Neoliberalism is a set of policies and ideas that prioritize

951
00:46:15,480 --> 00:46:18,560
Speaker 2: creating a global free market with which to extract value

952
00:46:18,560 --> 00:46:21,240
Speaker 2: from developing nations to make specific groups of rich people

953
00:46:21,400 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 2: and developed nations much richer. Basically is a way to

954
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:29,800
Speaker 2: steal money from the global self. Sounds bad, It is bad.

955
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,279
Speaker 2: It means destroying unions and environmental protections in order to

956
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,959
Speaker 2: maximize profit. And maybe the first people who really felt

957
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:40,040
Speaker 2: its effects were the British working class under Margaret Thatcher,

958
00:46:40,080 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 2: who systematically gutted workers protections and organizing. Then the model

959
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:47,439
Speaker 2: soon exported all over the world. Roald Reagan did a

960
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:49,439
Speaker 2: whole lot of it here and then therefore a whole

961
00:46:49,440 --> 00:46:53,760
Speaker 2: lot of it throughout the American Empire, and everything bad happened.

962
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:57,440
Speaker 2: And one of the means by which it destroyed places

963
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:02,359
Speaker 2: is predatory lending through the World Bank and the International

964
00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:05,400
Speaker 2: Monetary Fund. That are two groups that are really annoying

965
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 2: to disinvaguate. So I'm not going to. I did a

966
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:10,799
Speaker 2: little bit of it in some other episodes. They're like,

967
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:15,680
Speaker 2: all right, your country's in trouble, we'll bail you out. Now.

968
00:47:15,719 --> 00:47:18,359
Speaker 2: You just need to accept these structural adjustment programs. It's

969
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 2: the fucking mafia. Is what a shark? Yeah, it is

970
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 2: loan sharks on a global scale with armies involved. You

971
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 2: need to accept these structural adjustment programs to restructure your

972
00:47:29,800 --> 00:47:33,440
Speaker 2: entire economy to pain back not the loan, but the

973
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 2: interest on the loan of what you owe to us,

974
00:47:37,280 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 2: and it removes country's abilities to develop stable economies and

975
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,959
Speaker 2: decent standards of living all at once. Trying to build

976
00:47:43,960 --> 00:47:47,120
Speaker 2: a stable economy after being forced into structural adjustment programs

977
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:48,560
Speaker 2: is like trying to heat a house where a wall

978
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 2: is missing.

979
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, because the cool aidue man keeps smashing through it

980
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:53,239
Speaker 3: to demand more structural adjustments.

981
00:47:56,400 --> 00:47:59,200
Speaker 2: Stop unionizing your bricklayers. Boom.

982
00:48:00,000 --> 00:48:03,000
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's what he says, right, I think, so

983
00:48:03,320 --> 00:48:04,239
Speaker 3: why does he say that?

984
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 2: Because he has kool aid neoliberalism. I'm not a big

985
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 2: fan of it. It was spreading unchecked for quite some

986
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:13,640
Speaker 2: time into a worldwide network of activists from Mexican peasants

987
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 2: to German squatters to Indian farmers banded together and stopped

988
00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,360
Speaker 2: it spread, which is a pretty fucking cool thing that happened.

989
00:48:20,880 --> 00:48:24,000
Speaker 2: And that's the ultra globalization movement, generally seen as having

990
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:27,279
Speaker 2: kicked off formally in Seattle in nineteen ninety nine, but

991
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 2: the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico were building that worldwide network

992
00:48:31,640 --> 00:48:34,839
Speaker 2: that became it starting at least nineteen ninety four and

993
00:48:35,640 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety eight. The World Bank and the International

994
00:48:39,000 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 2: Monetary Fund, those two groups that are hard to disambiguate

995
00:48:41,680 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 2: and are generally bad. They like both loan money and

996
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 2: are friends with each other, but they like loan money

997
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:50,640
Speaker 2: in slightly different ways. It's really annoying. They had their

998
00:48:50,680 --> 00:48:54,400
Speaker 2: meetings in Berlin. Eighty thousand protesters showed up from at

999
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 2: least Europe in the US and fought the cops tooth

1000
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 2: and nail I don't believe that they stopped these meetings,

1001
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 2: not one hundred percent certain, but the groundwork was laid.

1002
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 2: If you want to have secret meetings of all the

1003
00:49:05,239 --> 00:49:07,040
Speaker 2: behind the scenes world leaders, which is another thing that

1004
00:49:07,080 --> 00:49:10,920
Speaker 2: always made about conspiracy theories, like some of it's real well,

1005
00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:12,759
Speaker 2: and it's also it's behind the scenes, but it's not

1006
00:49:12,840 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 2: hidden like these people are like, oh yeah, I'm like

1007
00:49:15,680 --> 00:49:17,600
Speaker 2: the world leader does all this stuff. They just don't.

1008
00:49:17,640 --> 00:49:19,879
Speaker 3: You don't need to make stuff up about these organizations,

1009
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:21,880
Speaker 3: like the bad stuff they're doing, like you can see it.

1010
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:26,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, like like all secret pedophiles, Yeah, we know about them.

1011
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 2: We don't need to invent new ones. Like you're on

1012
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:32,960
Speaker 2: the right track, but like focus on the stuff that's real. Yeah. Yeah,

1013
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:35,800
Speaker 2: eighty one thousand people did, and they went to Berlin,

1014
00:49:36,200 --> 00:49:38,359
Speaker 2: you know, and they're like, all right, if you try

1015
00:49:38,360 --> 00:49:40,319
Speaker 2: to have these kinds of meetings, you're gonna have a

1016
00:49:40,480 --> 00:49:44,520
Speaker 2: nightmare of a riot that people will not forget. And

1017
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:47,480
Speaker 2: to make sure that most cities want to have nothing

1018
00:49:47,480 --> 00:49:49,960
Speaker 2: to do with this kind of summit, and in this

1019
00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 2: big protest, there's an awful lot of black block I

1020
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:56,160
Speaker 2: don't have the number of it blocks in these protests.

1021
00:49:56,200 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 2: Another thing that they would do is that they would

1022
00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 2: take perimeter positions at the front, back, and or sides

1023
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 2: of these big marches and basically exists as a shield

1024
00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 2: that protects the rest of the march from snatch squads

1025
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:11,440
Speaker 2: and police harassment. They would build reinforced banners, which are

1026
00:50:11,480 --> 00:50:15,880
Speaker 2: like more literal shields, but several people long, and sometimes

1027
00:50:15,960 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 2: you just have like a giant flag or banner that's

1028
00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:20,840
Speaker 2: like eight feet tall and it's just literally to block

1029
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:25,520
Speaker 2: view of you know. The alto nomen of Germany were

1030
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 2: largely gone by the late nineteen nineties. Most of the

1031
00:50:28,840 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 2: squads were eventually evicted, although if you became legalized and legalizing,

1032
00:50:33,520 --> 00:50:35,880
Speaker 2: some of them pulled pressure off. Was like a pressure

1033
00:50:35,920 --> 00:50:39,160
Speaker 2: release valve thing. Legalized squatters were sometimes, but not always,

1034
00:50:39,200 --> 00:50:41,839
Speaker 2: afraid to work in solidarity with non legalized squatters because

1035
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 2: they're like afraid of losing their styles.

1036
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like it's good that you won that concession,

1037
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 3: but like was that given to you because you won

1038
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 3: or because they knew it would break you?

1039
00:50:52,520 --> 00:50:55,760
Speaker 2: Right, Which is actually a really important way to understand

1040
00:50:55,760 --> 00:50:59,719
Speaker 2: reform as any political movement, is that there's this quote

1041
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:01,840
Speaker 2: from Malatesta my favorite man who's ever hidden in a

1042
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 2: creative sewing machines to escape Italy to radicalize the bakers

1043
00:51:04,920 --> 00:51:05,719
Speaker 2: of Argentina.

1044
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:07,960
Speaker 3: Not a competition there, I know, but he's.

1045
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:11,120
Speaker 2: The best one. Malatus as a quote when he's talking

1046
00:51:11,160 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 2: about reformism where he's like, we must take all possible

1047
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 2: reforms as an army marching forward, taking ground, like we

1048
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:22,160
Speaker 2: need to see this as like we won this, not oh,

1049
00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:25,239
Speaker 2: they gave this to us, like and so it's not

1050
00:51:25,440 --> 00:51:28,400
Speaker 2: how do we appease them to be get given more crumbs?

1051
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 2: We say, great, you've given us crumbs. Now we want

1052
00:51:31,120 --> 00:51:35,720
Speaker 2: the whole fucking cake. And it's still the same act,

1053
00:51:35,880 --> 00:51:39,560
Speaker 2: Like we want gay marriage, we got it. We hope

1054
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 2: we keep it, you know, but don't go home. Yeah, exactly.

1055
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:47,879
Speaker 2: So when the Berlin Wall fell, the German left moved

1056
00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:50,959
Speaker 2: from this sort of squadron activism into anti fascism because

1057
00:51:51,000 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 2: of a large neo Nazi scene that developed in East Berlin.

1058
00:51:54,560 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 2: And it's been a long time since I've been in Berlin,

1059
00:51:57,239 --> 00:51:59,319
Speaker 2: but there was very clear delineations. I would state these

1060
00:51:59,320 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 2: anarchist squads and they'd be like, hey, this is an

1061
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 2: anarchist neighborhood. Don't go into that neighborhood at night alone.

1062
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 2: Maybe just don't even go into that neighborhood period. Anyone

1063
00:52:09,480 --> 00:52:11,439
Speaker 2: from one factor and another is caught and the others

1064
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 2: would likely get beaten or hospitalized.

1065
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:14,960
Speaker 3: Oh like gang turf.

1066
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sometimes the problem when you're like, oh Antifah

1067
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:21,759
Speaker 2: and regular Fu just sometimes if they stay in stasis

1068
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 2: with each other, create history is messy.

1069
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:26,160
Speaker 3: It's complicated.

1070
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:30,439
Speaker 2: Yeah. While I was there talking to people about this,

1071
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:32,399
Speaker 2: this is the first time that I heard people talking

1072
00:52:32,440 --> 00:52:35,280
Speaker 2: at length about one major problem of the black block tactic.

1073
00:52:36,000 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 2: Tactics can be used by anybody. Anybody can slip in, well,

1074
00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:42,919
Speaker 2: anyone can slip into a black block. But that actually

1075
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:45,560
Speaker 2: doesn't happen much that I'm aware of, right, because there's

1076
00:52:45,560 --> 00:52:48,000
Speaker 2: always the like, oh, the police instigators are going to

1077
00:52:48,000 --> 00:52:49,640
Speaker 2: get in there, and I'm like, a person through the

1078
00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:51,839
Speaker 2: brick was an instigator? No, it wasn't. And the reason

1079
00:52:51,880 --> 00:52:53,799
Speaker 2: I can tell you this is that enough people get

1080
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:56,880
Speaker 2: caught throwing bricks and then they go to prison and

1081
00:52:56,920 --> 00:52:59,799
Speaker 2: I know them, yeah, like I am friends with them,

1082
00:52:59,840 --> 00:53:02,239
Speaker 2: and they were not cops. They were just there and

1083
00:53:02,320 --> 00:53:04,319
Speaker 2: like they might not even have thrown the brick. They

1084
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:09,319
Speaker 2: just you know, you could disagree with what they're doing, but.

1085
00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean they were a part of it.

1086
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:16,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the German neo Nazis would just have black blocks.

1087
00:53:17,360 --> 00:53:18,640
Speaker 2: They should have to wear a different color.

1088
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 1: Just what.

1089
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:23,319
Speaker 2: It's not confusing you would think that, but think about well,

1090
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 2: one American fascist group does do the all white but

1091
00:53:27,160 --> 00:53:30,600
Speaker 2: I mean, like, what is the modern cop uniform but

1092
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:34,120
Speaker 2: fucking black block. Yeah, I'm Patriot Front.

1093
00:53:34,120 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 3: They all dress alike. I mean, it's a stupid outfit.

1094
00:53:36,400 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 3: It's not as cool as black block, but they all

1095
00:53:38,280 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 3: dress identically. That's very intentional. Yeah, they invented like Uncle

1096
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:46,480
Speaker 3: Sam block because they're wearing like khakis in blue.

1097
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:52,560
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, it's so Jesus, imagine taking yourself seriously. It's

1098
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:55,120
Speaker 2: like not they are we the Batti's sketch? Which everyone

1099
00:53:55,160 --> 00:53:56,959
Speaker 2: loves the are we the battiest sketch? But I don't

1100
00:53:56,960 --> 00:53:58,840
Speaker 2: because I also wear all black all of the time

1101
00:53:59,239 --> 00:54:02,600
Speaker 2: and like not afraid to put skulls on stuff. But

1102
00:54:03,520 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 2: if you're like, are we the dorks, you.

1103
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 3: Know, make sure you get the right matching windbreaker.

1104
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:17,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, Paul, that's not the right windbreaker. Yeah, grow up. Yeah, God,

1105
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:25,680
Speaker 2: the fucking boat shoes kill me. Oh. So that's the

1106
00:54:25,719 --> 00:54:29,000
Speaker 2: origin of the black block, How it's been used elsewhere

1107
00:54:29,040 --> 00:54:32,440
Speaker 2: over the decades, and how anyone at home who would

1108
00:54:32,480 --> 00:54:36,040
Speaker 2: like to just do some costuming for fun to go

1109
00:54:36,080 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 2: to anime conventions. How to put those together we'll talk

1110
00:54:40,120 --> 00:54:41,799
Speaker 2: about in part two.

1111
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 3: Are we going to get into what kind of dye

1112
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:46,439
Speaker 3: you should be using to make sure your blacks match.

1113
00:54:46,520 --> 00:54:48,480
Speaker 3: I think that's a huge point of contention.

1114
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 2: I see you hung out with goths. My strongly held

1115
00:54:52,800 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 2: opinion about black and how it changes color. This is

1116
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,400
Speaker 2: really as a goth and not as an anarchist. Black

1117
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 2: looks better and it fades in the sun, then in

1118
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:01,680
Speaker 2: the wash.

1119
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:03,800
Speaker 3: Okay, that's good advice.

1120
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:06,840
Speaker 2: It fades to brown in the sun, and it fades

1121
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:08,120
Speaker 2: to blue in the wash.

1122
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:09,760
Speaker 3: I hate a green faded black.

1123
00:55:10,760 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so if you pair the two it fades

1124
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:16,919
Speaker 2: nicely too. You can still wash your clothes, Margaret says,

1125
00:55:16,920 --> 00:55:20,160
Speaker 2: you can wash your clothes, but looks good if it

1126
00:55:20,160 --> 00:55:22,080
Speaker 2: fades in the sun. No, it's not actually going to

1127
00:55:22,120 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 2: be a very like. This is not gonna be a

1128
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:26,000
Speaker 2: how two episode, and people are gonna have to do

1129
00:55:26,200 --> 00:55:29,200
Speaker 2: their own research and or talk with folks. Actually, it's funny.

1130
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, go to someone and block and

1131
00:55:30,680 --> 00:55:32,160
Speaker 2: just ask him how to do it. But that's actually

1132
00:55:32,160 --> 00:55:36,080
Speaker 2: literally how I got into radical politics. I went up

1133
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:38,959
Speaker 2: to someone out of demonstration and was like, what's this about,

1134
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:42,840
Speaker 2: and explained anarchism, I know, explained anarchism very succinctly, and

1135
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:44,200
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's kind of interesting. I was like,

1136
00:55:44,200 --> 00:55:45,279
Speaker 2: do you have an extra mask? And he was like,

1137
00:55:45,320 --> 00:55:46,560
Speaker 2: I do, and he gave me a mask.

1138
00:55:46,880 --> 00:55:49,239
Speaker 3: Oh that's really cute and not usually how it would go.

1139
00:55:49,719 --> 00:55:52,719
Speaker 2: No, probably not, but I was like, I don't know,

1140
00:55:53,400 --> 00:55:56,840
Speaker 2: already wearing all black, but that's just again goth. But

1141
00:55:58,000 --> 00:55:59,600
Speaker 2: Molly got an thinking of all my plug.

1142
00:56:00,080 --> 00:56:03,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, listen to my podcast We're Little Guys anywhere you

1143
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:07,279
Speaker 3: get your podcasts. It's like this show but opposite, and

1144
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:08,520
Speaker 3: it will make you sad.

1145
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:13,360
Speaker 2: Yay, I it doesn't make me sad. I like laughing

1146
00:56:13,360 --> 00:56:19,360
Speaker 2: at these people. Yeah, well, I mean, yeah, the subjects

1147
00:56:19,360 --> 00:56:21,040
Speaker 2: of your episodes are jokes.

1148
00:56:20,920 --> 00:56:21,720
Speaker 1: Plenty of hahaha.

1149
00:56:22,440 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. People should listen to that. I listen to it

1150
00:56:24,560 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 2: while doing the yard work and building things in my garage.

1151
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 2: This sounds sketchy woodworking. I do it while the woodworking,

1152
00:56:32,680 --> 00:56:36,400
Speaker 2: so people should listen to it also people should Okay.

1153
00:56:36,560 --> 00:56:39,640
Speaker 2: My other plug is that the way to not let

1154
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:42,359
Speaker 2: movements get divided is to not let people divide them,

1155
00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:44,880
Speaker 2: not to try and stop people from doing divisive things,

1156
00:56:44,880 --> 00:56:46,520
Speaker 2: because people are going to do what they feel drawn

1157
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:51,879
Speaker 2: to do. But nothing scares the state more than when

1158
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,360
Speaker 2: not only are people taking militant action to stop people

1159
00:56:55,400 --> 00:56:58,120
Speaker 2: being kidnapped in their homes, but when people who aren't

1160
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:02,880
Speaker 2: doing that militant action vocally support or materially support, although

1161
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 2: not in a criminal way. The people taking those actions,

1162
00:57:05,800 --> 00:57:09,440
Speaker 2: the people who are bringing lunch and sunscreen to people

1163
00:57:09,440 --> 00:57:11,600
Speaker 2: who are out there risking themselves, or the people who

1164
00:57:11,680 --> 00:57:14,040
Speaker 2: just to say no, matter what I would think of

1165
00:57:14,040 --> 00:57:16,960
Speaker 2: the tactic, I care a lot more about my neighbors

1166
00:57:17,400 --> 00:57:21,000
Speaker 2: than I do about whether or not someone threw something

1167
00:57:21,080 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 2: at an ice agent.

1168
00:57:22,360 --> 00:57:24,080
Speaker 3: And you know what, when people say, oh, that just

1169
00:57:24,120 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 3: gives the police an excuse to they were going to

1170
00:57:26,400 --> 00:57:28,880
Speaker 3: do it anyway. If they had to invent an interviews,

1171
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:30,520
Speaker 3: if they had to fake an excuse, if they had

1172
00:57:30,520 --> 00:57:33,440
Speaker 3: to recreate one out of their ass later on, out

1173
00:57:33,440 --> 00:57:35,760
Speaker 3: of thin air. They're going to do it anyway. I've

1174
00:57:35,800 --> 00:57:37,680
Speaker 3: been at protests where I got beat by a cop

1175
00:57:37,720 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 3: after somebody broke a window. The cop didn't beat me

1176
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:41,800
Speaker 3: because somebody broke a window. I'm not mad at the

1177
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 3: guy that broke a window. That cop wanted to hit me. Yeah, yeah,

1178
00:57:46,240 --> 00:57:48,320
Speaker 3: live your life, don't try to control other people.

1179
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:51,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, and don't support people. If you're listening to this

1180
00:57:51,640 --> 00:57:52,720
Speaker 2: in your ice, quit your job.

1181
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 3: They don't even make that much money. I looked at us.

1182
00:57:55,680 --> 00:57:56,520
Speaker 3: If they're doing this.

1183
00:57:56,440 --> 00:57:57,919
Speaker 2: For they're doing it for the love of the game.

1184
00:57:58,000 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 2: I thought they make cop money, which is ridiculous, not

1185
00:58:00,480 --> 00:58:00,880
Speaker 2: that good.

1186
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:04,040
Speaker 3: Honestly, you joined the SS for fifty k, grow up?

1187
00:58:04,400 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, fuck that, You get a nonprofit job making that

1188
00:58:06,800 --> 00:58:10,800
Speaker 2: money anyway. See Old Wednesday.

1189
00:58:11,960 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1190
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,

1191
00:58:17,760 --> 00:58:21,000
Speaker 1: visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out

1192
00:58:21,080 --> 00:58:24,480
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

1193
00:58:24,520 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: your podcasts.