Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hey everybody, Robert Evans here and I wanted to let
Speaker 2: you know this is a compilation episode. So every episode
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Speaker 3: Welcome to it could happen here a podcast about things
Speaker 3: falling apart and how to put it back together again.
Speaker 3: This is an episode where both happen at the same time.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Bia Wong, and we are returning to
Speaker 3: what I've realized was I think one of the earliest
Speaker 3: things we ever covered on this show in the sort
Speaker 3: of misty depths of time, which is I guess three
Speaker 3: years ago now. We talked to some organizers and tenants
Speaker 3: from the Hillside Villa Tenant Association, and a bunch of
Speaker 3: stuffice happened since then. A lot of it is terrible,
Speaker 3: some of it is cool. Well, the stuff, the stuff
Speaker 3: you've been doing is cool. The stuff everyone else in
Speaker 3: the situation has been doing is terrible. Yeah, and with
Speaker 3: me to talk about this is Janice you who's an
Speaker 3: organizer from CCUD and on a e tenant organizer at
Speaker 3: Hillside Villa or via Jesus Christ. Why am I doing Villa? Oh,
Speaker 3: I know I know more Spanish than this. I know
Speaker 3: it of Spanish. When people think that I'm Spanish to
Speaker 3: start talking to me on the street, I can kind
Speaker 3: of communicate with them. Abject failure. Yeah, welcome both to
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 4: Thank you, thank you. It's both good and bad to
Speaker 4: be back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish, I wish circumstances were better.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you for having us, and yeah for staying
Speaker 5: in contact with us and trying to stay updated with
Speaker 5: our Hillside Villa. Danna said, Unfortunately, five almost six years
Speaker 5: in and we're still trying to find a solution to
Speaker 5: this epidemic of housing in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's start there. For people who don't remember
Speaker 3: this from many, many eons in the past, can you
Speaker 3: sort of remind people of what kind of organizing has
Speaker 3: been happening and the general situation of this building, of
Speaker 3: these landlords, and of the conditions of people who have
Speaker 3: to rent stuff in La Yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Can kind of start with the bigger picture context and
Speaker 6: then an I definitely fill in.
Speaker 4: From your personal experience.
Speaker 6: But basically, hills Ibea is a building that was built
Speaker 6: in the eighties in Los Angeles, Chinatown and it was
Speaker 6: meant to be affordable housing. It had an affordable housing
Speaker 6: covenant for thirty years up until twenty eighteen, and as
Speaker 6: soon as that expired, as would be expected, the landlord,
Speaker 6: Tom Botts, immediately tried to raise rent to market rate,
Speaker 6: which for the low income, working class tenants that work
Speaker 6: at Hillside Villa, it was a two hundred percent increase,
Speaker 6: right yeah, which is a de facto eviction, Like folks
Speaker 6: who were paying eight hundred dollars in rent were now
Speaker 6: being asked to pay twenty five hundred, which is literally
Speaker 6: impossible for some tenants who are on fixed incomes. And
Speaker 6: so it was a huge issue for one of the
Speaker 6: largest buildings in La Chinatown. It has one hundred and
Speaker 6: twenty four units, multi ethnic, multi generational, and so as
Speaker 6: soon as that happened, I think one of the tenants,
Speaker 6: DONIEA Luisa, who is no longer with us, called the
Speaker 6: news channels and organizers got involved, and yeah, this was
Speaker 6: six years ago. At this point, and pretty early on
Speaker 6: in the fight, I think at the time, we were
Speaker 6: working with the District one council member at the time,
Speaker 6: Gil Cidillo, who's, you know, an establishment democrat, and he
Speaker 6: had tried to negotiate a deal with Tom Bops, the landlord,
Speaker 6: for a ten year extension that ended up falling through
Speaker 6: because Bots renegged on it, and that was I think
Speaker 6: one of the first moments where tenants realized, we cannot
Speaker 6: trust these politicians to liberate us right to actually solve
Speaker 6: the root issues, and so that's when tenants started actually
Speaker 6: demanding to use eminent domain, which is the government's power
Speaker 6: to basically seize land for public use, to actually use
Speaker 6: that power for affordable housing, and to use it as
Speaker 6: a long term solution for all of these expiring covenants,
Speaker 6: which is a city wide issue. It's not just a
Speaker 6: Chinatown thing. There's actually like thousands of buildings where covenants
Speaker 6: are set to expire in the next few years. So
Speaker 6: that was how this fight was going, and we had
Speaker 6: actually successfully pressured our city council in twenty twenty one
Speaker 6: in May, which was I think the first time we
Speaker 6: came on the show, to set aside the funding to
Speaker 6: actually do that and to actually, you know, take bold
Speaker 6: action or housing and yeah, I'll pass it over to
Speaker 6: ANII to just share from your own experience.
Speaker 7: Thanks. I don't know how I could follow that, but
Speaker 7: I'll try my best.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So, like Jennis was sharing, the convenant expired in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 5: there was already an attempt to evict my family, as
Speaker 5: I shared in the previous episode.
Speaker 7: So after that is when we all started organizing.
Speaker 5: And then shortly after the pandemic happened and everything shut down.
Speaker 5: During this time, the landlord Tombot like wasn't stopping. He
Speaker 5: was going full throttle into his mission of completely evicting
Speaker 5: and displacing all all the families living here in Chinatown,
Speaker 5: the multi generational families that have been in Los Angeles,
Speaker 5: not known nowhere else.
Speaker 7: You know this this is our home. Los Angeles is
Speaker 7: our home.
Speaker 5: So with this eviction, it meant that we'd have to
Speaker 5: first be houseless, be out on the street, and be
Speaker 5: forced to like figure something out last minute for ourselves
Speaker 5: and moved somewhere in the outskirts of Los Angeles to
Speaker 5: a place where we're not familiar with. So these are
Speaker 5: some of the things that we were facing then during
Speaker 5: the pandemic and also facing a continued rental increases which
Speaker 5: were illegal during the pandemic and is something that we've
Speaker 5: been dealing post pandemic and recently in a lot of
Speaker 5: our more current meetings. Who is like bringing that to
Speaker 5: light that these were illegal rental increases that had happened
Speaker 5: and that he actually asked the city to pay right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So we had applied to e REP, which is
Speaker 6: basically a rental relief program to support tenants, and what
Speaker 6: Bots did was he asked the government to pay him
Speaker 6: the increased rent rates, the two hundred percent increased rates,
Speaker 6: and the government fucking gave it to him.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And yet he is still demanding that tenants themselves
Speaker 6: pay back their rent debt fully. And what happened with
Speaker 6: the recent deal that was made behind tenants back, which
Speaker 6: is what we're going to get into, is that the
Speaker 6: government basically took the extra money back and are not
Speaker 6: applying it to the tenants rent debt. So that's something
Speaker 6: that we're pretty pissed off about because basically they took
Speaker 6: money that was supposed to be for tenants and just
Speaker 6: gave it back to the city government, which also doesn't
Speaker 6: even make sense because it was federal funding. So that's
Speaker 6: kind of one of the issues.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we have a situation where the landlord has
Speaker 3: stolen this money and then the city has now stolen
Speaker 3: it from him, which they have stolen federal money for themselves.
Speaker 3: Oh Jesus Christ literally literally oh God.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's all just like state sanctioned theft.
Speaker 3: You know what else is a structural problem that is
Speaker 3: causing the massive miseration of most of the population on Earth.
Speaker 3: It is the products and services that support this podcast,
Speaker 3: and we're going to go to them briefly.
Speaker 8: We are back.
Speaker 3: So is there anything else from sort of I guess
Speaker 3: like the background era of this that we want to
Speaker 3: get to before we move into like what's been happening now.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think maybe some additional context we can share
Speaker 6: is that after that made twenty twenty one council meeting,
Speaker 6: we ended up really supporting our current council member, a
Speaker 6: Nieces in her campaign to get elected. This was November
Speaker 6: of twenty twenty one. We hosted large forums in Chinatown.
Speaker 6: We really mobilized our base in CCD to turn out
Speaker 6: to vote for her. And I think a powerful anecdote
Speaker 6: is that Richard One of the longest Vietnamese tenants at
Speaker 6: hellsid Via, he's been there for over thirty years. For him,
Speaker 6: this was the first vote that he ever cast in
Speaker 6: this country. And I think that, you know, it's not
Speaker 6: a unique story. I think for a lot of our elders,
Speaker 6: it was only because of our efforts that they participated
Speaker 6: in this election. So I think a lot of the
Speaker 6: statistics show that the Asian base, the Chinatown base, was
Speaker 6: really essential to getting a Nieces elected. And in twenty
Speaker 6: twenty two, she officially got an off. She was able
Speaker 6: to beat the incumbent Gil Cidio and was the first.
Speaker 4: Quote unquote abolitionist.
Speaker 6: DSA, so Democratic Socialists of America kind of sponsored candidate
Speaker 6: to win an LAC council. And since then we've only
Speaker 6: seen her maybe two or three times. Sorry, And I
Speaker 6: to address the issues at Hill said Via. Even though
Speaker 6: during her campaign phase she rhetorically supported our eminent domain struggle,
Speaker 6: she made a lot of promises as politicians.
Speaker 4: Do, around housing in Chinatown.
Speaker 6: And yeah, I think that kind of brings us up
Speaker 6: to where we are now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let's get into what is currently happening, because
Speaker 3: dear God, it's really I don't know, things somehow getting worse.
Speaker 3: What's been happening in the last I guess immediate period.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so wow, so much has happened, and it's really
Speaker 5: hard to actually like keep track of all of the
Speaker 5: big things, whether positive mostly negative things happening. Just so
Speaker 5: much has happened over the last three years. We've been
Speaker 5: in the fight for six years. So as we were
Speaker 5: mentioning in twenty twenty one, there was a vote that
Speaker 5: happened at City Hall where there'd be an evaluation of
Speaker 5: the building in order for the city to purchase a
Speaker 5: hillside villa or last resort would be expropriate through eminent domain,
Speaker 5: although that was never something that the people in power
Speaker 5: at LAHD or that politicians really did behind and like
Speaker 5: always wanted to try something a little less radical, therefore
Speaker 5: going into negotiations, working with the landlord and having these
Speaker 5: conversations with the landlord, with LAHD, with us somewhat in
Speaker 5: the picture but mostly not in the picture. And that
Speaker 5: was done on purpose on behalf of LAHD and Tombots
Speaker 5: and the politicians at CD one. So because we were
Speaker 5: waiting for this evaluation to happen at Hillside Villa, I
Speaker 5: believe LAHD needed to do that evaluation. Well, the landlord
Speaker 5: Tombots didn't allow them to come into the building to
Speaker 5: do that evaluation because it was private property and they
Speaker 5: needed some kind of core order like permit or paperwork
Speaker 5: to allow the city LAHD to come into the building
Speaker 5: to evaluate. That actually halted the process of evaluating in
Speaker 5: order to purchase the building and actually had tenants waiting
Speaker 5: for this evaluation to happen for months, if not over
Speaker 5: a year. And you can imagine how tenants felt like
Speaker 5: if they were like suffocating under these circumstances of waiting
Speaker 5: for the city to act, for Tom Botts to allow
Speaker 5: and there was always this resistance with the landlord and
Speaker 5: with getting LAHD to get up off their ass and
Speaker 5: actually do something. Unfortunately, the chair of LAHD, her name
Speaker 5: is Anne Seul. I'm sure a lot of people have
Speaker 5: heard her name by now. She is not our friend.
Speaker 5: She's wicked in like in not a cool way. She's
Speaker 5: actually as like some conflict of interest in my opinion
Speaker 5: that shouldn't allow her to even be in that position
Speaker 5: that she's in and to have such power over a
Speaker 5: case like ours at Hillside Villa, where she was going
Speaker 5: into negotiations with tombots, and she's also a landlord and
Speaker 5: a white woman.
Speaker 7: Oh Jesus Christ, so it's a double lammy there.
Speaker 5: And yeah, she became really buddy buddy friendly with tombots
Speaker 5: and that is when negotiations began between her and tombots
Speaker 5: behind the lucha, the fight for housing, behind the organizers backs,
Speaker 5: behind communities back, and so we rallied, we protested, we
Speaker 5: did phone banks for over a year, and things were
Speaker 5: so stagnant, Like I can't even ex expressed to you
Speaker 5: how that at least that one year was. And that's
Speaker 5: part of like, since the last time we were here
Speaker 5: on this podcast was three years ago, well a year
Speaker 5: or more of that was us just waiting around for
Speaker 5: the city to actually do their job. And we can't
Speaker 5: get them to do their job, but we can protest
Speaker 5: and we can do direct action. And so we did,
Speaker 5: and we pulled up to Ansel's house, not once, not twice.
Speaker 5: We rallied the housing community to go protest at her
Speaker 5: home and to make her uncomfortable because at any moment,
Speaker 5: any of us can get kicked out of our home.
Speaker 5: You know, there's no sense of security here and we're
Speaker 5: never there to cause harm, you know, to anyone, no
Speaker 5: physical harm or anything. But we're there to also like
Speaker 5: kind of get her to understand how uncomfortable it is
Speaker 5: and how like safe she is in her own home. Right,
Speaker 5: so she called cops on us, She targeted organizers by name.
Speaker 5: It was really sloppy on their end. And yeah, so
Speaker 5: I think i'll stop there in Janice. If you want
Speaker 5: to kind of add anything, I'm sure you have a
Speaker 5: lot to add.
Speaker 4: No, Yeah, that was a really borough summary.
Speaker 6: I think all I want to add is that while
Speaker 6: Box was denying the city access to the building, which
Speaker 6: we you know, questioned deeply because why couldn't a tenant
Speaker 6: just give them access to the building. Why do they
Speaker 6: need special permission from the landlord.
Speaker 4: It's all just.
Speaker 6: Smoke and mirrors, right, delay tactics put on by this
Speaker 6: trifecta of LHD, which is the LA Housing Department, So
Speaker 6: the bureaucrats and then CD one City Council District one,
Speaker 6: the politicians and then bots. They're all completely aligned with
Speaker 6: each other in their end goal of essentially protecting capital,
Speaker 6: protecting landlords.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 6: So as he was doing that, he initiated the eviction process.
Speaker 6: He started evicting tenants the you know, thirty five plus
Speaker 6: families that are deeply involved in the Tenants Association. He
Speaker 6: sent eviction papers to all of them, so and Ia,
Speaker 6: maybe you can speak to a little bit of like
Speaker 6: what that experience was like to get those papers while
Speaker 6: the eminent domain process wasn't moving forward like it was
Speaker 6: supposed to.
Speaker 5: Definitely, well, speaking on behalf of like my mom, who
Speaker 5: I live here with and.
Speaker 7: Who's lived here for over twelve.
Speaker 5: Years, and speaking on behalf of other tenants, a lot
Speaker 5: of them are elders over fifty years old, have lived
Speaker 5: here for over twenty thirty years. They definitely I felt
Speaker 5: the burden of those eviction papers and the anxiety, the
Speaker 5: heavy emotions that comes with being at fear of losing
Speaker 5: your home at any moment, the health issues that come
Speaker 5: up with that. So they definitely felt a lot of that.
Speaker 5: And as much as much as we've been fighting, as
Speaker 5: much support as we have from the community, like they
Speaker 5: still felt that insecurity of their housing. For me, as
Speaker 5: someone in their twenties and where we've been in this
Speaker 5: fight for over six years or about six years, I
Speaker 5: felt like we've gone through the eviction process and I
Speaker 5: don't fear tombots, and I don't fear his tactics or
Speaker 5: his eviction papers. So there's definitely a difference in the
Speaker 5: way that like a lot of our elders feel. But
Speaker 5: I do have a lot of trust in the organizing
Speaker 5: that we're doing the solidarity. All though things haven't necessarily
Speaker 5: been all like happy and like we're still not really
Speaker 5: getting the things that we've been demanding for, I have
Speaker 5: a lot of trust that we're going to be able
Speaker 5: to win those evictions.
Speaker 7: And we know how weak.
Speaker 5: Tom Botts is his way of thinking, and how weak
Speaker 5: their lawyers are, So we must keep pushing. There's no
Speaker 5: other way, and we will until this is over.
Speaker 7: If it is ever.
Speaker 3: Over, unfortunately we need to go to ads. Then we
Speaker 3: will come back with not ads and instead more incredibly
Speaker 3: beautiful stories of struggle. We are back. I guess I
Speaker 3: promised struggle and I didn't. I should have added and
Speaker 3: also betrayal because it's kind of the.
Speaker 8: Next part of this.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, let's talk about that and the deals that are
Speaker 3: being cut.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So at the beginning of this year, we learned
Speaker 6: that a deal had been negotiated between LHD and bought
Speaker 6: completely behind tenants backs, and we had frustrating meetings with
Speaker 6: a niece's our council member where she was not willing
Speaker 6: to take a public stance, you know, against these backdoor negotiations.
Speaker 6: And so in April of this year, about four months ago,
Speaker 6: there was another motion that was heard in La City
Speaker 6: Council when the kind of details of this deal were
Speaker 6: actually revealed.
Speaker 4: And they are just obscene.
Speaker 6: Basically, Tom Bots is being paid fifteen million dollars by
Speaker 6: the LA government and having a five million dollar loan
Speaker 6: that he has owed the city for I think the
Speaker 6: thirty years since Lasimba was first bill. He's having that
Speaker 6: loan forgiven with zero percent interest, and all of that
Speaker 6: is just to extend the affordability covenant for a mere
Speaker 6: ten years, which might sound like a lot to some folks,
Speaker 6: but in reality is not a lot at all. It
Speaker 6: just means that the children who are in middle school
Speaker 6: now will be in college and have to fight this
Speaker 6: fight another time. Right, And so that happened for Bots,
Speaker 6: great for him. Whereas tenants are being asked to pay
Speaker 6: back over one point five million dollars collectively of back
Speaker 6: rent with three percent annual interest added on, and yeah,
Speaker 6: they're eviction cases were not being dropped. They were promised
Speaker 6: to get their eviction case dropped, but what happened was
Speaker 6: that this month one of our key tenant leaders, Adela,
Speaker 6: her case was moved forward in the courts by bots.
Speaker 4: And we believe it was basically like.
Speaker 6: A test case to basically pressure tenants to sign the
Speaker 6: new contracts, you know, threatening if you don't sign, this
Speaker 6: is what's going to happen to you too. And she
Speaker 6: is supposed to have a court date in September or October,
Speaker 6: So the timing is very obvious right time this so
Speaker 6: that tenants would sign these new contracts that we were
Speaker 6: told would come out last week, it ended up being
Speaker 6: that they didn't come out till.
Speaker 4: A little bit later.
Speaker 6: And when we actually received the details of the new lease,
Speaker 6: we were even further taken aback because some of the
Speaker 6: details of this lease are just really wild. You know,
Speaker 6: it's a complete regression from any kind of tenant law
Speaker 6: or tenant protection against harassment. Some of the things that
Speaker 6: this new lease includes is that there are behavioral stipulations
Speaker 6: is what they're being called. Yeah, just that term itself,
Speaker 6: right is so cursed. But the stipulation say that if
Speaker 6: a tenant merely plays amplified sound in any of the
Speaker 6: public communal spaces of the building or records slash slanders
Speaker 6: slash harasses the landlord or management. They can be immediately
Speaker 6: evicted without a jury trial.
Speaker 3: Jesus like that.
Speaker 4: Is insane.
Speaker 6: You know, these are clearly anti organizing policies because these
Speaker 6: are some of our tools are to amplify sound and
Speaker 6: to and it's our right to be able to record
Speaker 6: landlorder management when they are usually the ones harassing us.
Speaker 6: They are always the ones harassing us, right, So that's
Speaker 6: one of the key issues with the new lease. Also,
Speaker 6: the eviction cases are not even being dropped after tenants
Speaker 6: sign this new lease. They're merely being suspended. And the
Speaker 6: court actually retains jurisdiction for six years over the eviction cases,
Speaker 6: which is not something that any of the tenant lawyers
Speaker 6: we have worked with have ever seen before. And what
Speaker 6: this means is that if the tenants are late just
Speaker 6: one day on the rent plus the debt repayment that
Speaker 6: BOTS is asking for, they can also be immediately evicted
Speaker 6: without a jury trial. And then, finally, this one is
Speaker 6: one of the kickers, is that in the lease, Bots
Speaker 6: also wrote language saying that the tenants are responsible for
Speaker 6: paying his lawyer fee, which are up to are up
Speaker 6: to thirty thousand dollars, and he is also demanding that
Speaker 6: the tenants pay his lawyer fees with three percent in
Speaker 6: Jesus Christ. So he's asking tenants to pay for their
Speaker 6: own evictions.
Speaker 4: And one of the most wild parts of this whole
Speaker 4: thing is.
Speaker 6: That Adie Nieces is doubling down on calling this a
Speaker 6: good deal. She is caught on recording at a recent
Speaker 6: protest that we did at her house saying that she
Speaker 6: would recommend that one of her family members signs this deal,
Speaker 6: which essentially signs their rights away and commits them to
Speaker 6: paying an exorbitant amount of money to get evicted.
Speaker 4: So, yeah, this is what we're dealing with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I want to kind of focus in on
Speaker 3: that last part because that is a DSA elected like
Speaker 3: that is one of the people that she ran. That
Speaker 3: was also so very specifically was you know, someone who
Speaker 3: was elected off of your organizing and is now instantly
Speaker 3: turned around and gone, I would tell my own family
Speaker 3: to pay this guy's lawyer to evict you, which is nuts.
Speaker 6: Yeah, hardly socialists, hardly progressive, hardly even liberal at this point, right.
Speaker 6: It's just such naked, blatant protection of neoliberalism. And she
Speaker 6: not only called this a good deal, she when we
Speaker 6: brought up the behavioral restrictions, she referred to those as
Speaker 6: simply good neighbor policies that we all have to abide by.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is ridiculous.
Speaker 10: Like what.
Speaker 6: So just completely normalizing the landlord, you know, maximizing his power,
Speaker 6: gaining more power than any landlord has ever had in
Speaker 6: the city, and completely restricting the tenants right to organize
Speaker 6: and to fight against harassment.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think this raises a really important question
Speaker 3: about what are we actually doing as a movement for
Speaker 3: the people who aren't involved in this, like who are
Speaker 3: involved directly in the tenants organizing, Like, if the thing
Speaker 3: that you're doing is putting people like this in power
Speaker 3: who get elected off of movement and immediately turn on
Speaker 3: them inside with landlords, is what is your political project
Speaker 3: supposed to be doing?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 3: And if this is something that you're okay with, you
Speaker 3: need to sit down and reevaluate what you actually believe.
Speaker 3: And it's something that you're not okay with, you need
Speaker 3: to sit down also and ask yourself how did it
Speaker 3: come to this? And why is this something that you
Speaker 3: think is acceptable?
Speaker 6: Mm hmm, yeah, a thousand percent so far, even though
Speaker 6: we protest today and he says last weekend, we haven't
Speaker 6: really heard from DSA folks in terms of actually publicly
Speaker 6: supporting us and publicly holding a Unie says accountable. So
Speaker 6: that's something that we would like to see ideally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like like again, like I know there are
Speaker 3: DSA people at LA listening to the show, like, please
Speaker 3: come collect your trash, like this is this is this
Speaker 3: is your problem, and you also have to be part
Speaker 3: of the solution to dealing with it, because right now,
Speaker 3: what you have is a situation where a bunch of
Speaker 3: tenants and a bunch of tenant organizers are fighting your
Speaker 3: people at the same time as they're also fighting the
Speaker 3: landlords and the rest of the city governments and the
Speaker 3: city bureaucracy. And this is this is the situation that
Speaker 3: I think is just absolutely unacceptable and that can be
Speaker 3: intervened in by people who are supposed to be doing
Speaker 3: this and haven't been.
Speaker 5: Yeah, speaking on that, I have a lot of feelings
Speaker 5: around that, and as someone that has experienced a lot
Speaker 5: of displacement in Echo Park and not happening in Chinatown.
Speaker 5: It's something that's followed me my whole life and dealing
Speaker 5: directly with the problem of like gentrification and the people
Speaker 5: coming into our neighborhoods or mostly.
Speaker 7: Like liberal folks.
Speaker 5: I know a lot of them benefit from the displacement
Speaker 5: and gentrification, and it's really easy for them to look
Speaker 5: away or just kind of like show their shoulders and
Speaker 5: just go have brunch at a new Eco Park or
Speaker 5: Highland Park cafe.
Speaker 7: So definitely thank you for calling that out.
Speaker 5: And yeah, we really need to like think radically and
Speaker 5: reimagine what it would look like to find a different
Speaker 5: solution where we're not relying on these politicians or yeah,
Speaker 5: the city to find those solutions, because it's evident that
Speaker 5: six years into our fight at Hillside Villa.
Speaker 7: It's been cyclical where we're.
Speaker 5: Asking our council members to represent us, and again and
Speaker 5: again they give us false promises and disappoint us, and
Speaker 5: there's complete hypocrisy and backstabbing on behalf of the politicians.
Speaker 5: And you know, all of these are tactics. With the
Speaker 5: LAHD making us wait for so long, with tom Bots
Speaker 5: working with them, I think that's a tactic, is making
Speaker 5: the people the community wait for so long that they
Speaker 5: get tired, They get tired of fighting, they get tired
Speaker 5: of waiting, And unfortunately that has been a tactic that
Speaker 5: I've seen, like has gotten to a lot of our
Speaker 5: elder folks or people that are just fed up having
Speaker 5: to deal with the bureaucracy of it all. That a
Speaker 5: lot of them, kind of not everyone. For example me,
Speaker 5: I'm still believe eminent domain could have been like a
Speaker 5: more radical solution in a way for us to take
Speaker 5: that power back from the city and the way that
Speaker 5: they use these laws to benefit them that we could
Speaker 5: use like eminent domain to help us for once. But
Speaker 5: eminent domain was completely given up on on with like
Speaker 5: certain tenants that we're tired of fighting and wanted to
Speaker 5: reach an agreement and wanted to reach a deal. So
Speaker 5: then we have this fifteen year deal that is then
Speaker 5: turned into ten years because those five years that we
Speaker 5: had been fighting is included into that fifteen years. Not
Speaker 5: only that, but yeah, he gets fifteen million dollars plus
Speaker 5: his debt to the city forget or extended. I forget
Speaker 5: which one it is, but this full's a millionaire. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he has a bunch of houses in Malibu he doesn't
Speaker 5: need any more money, And it's just really disappointing that
Speaker 5: at a time like this where we know that things
Speaker 5: aren't working anymore and that things needs to change, that again,
Speaker 5: the city and the politicians are continuing to side with
Speaker 5: the landlords and continue the cyclical oppression of lack of
Speaker 5: housing and lack of accessibility to housing that affected me
Speaker 5: as a child, and that is going to affect the
Speaker 5: children that are around me now and the teenagers and
Speaker 5: the single parents. So that's why we need these better solutions.
Speaker 5: And Yeah, like Jenna said, for the two or three
Speaker 5: years that Eunice's has been around in office, we've only
Speaker 5: seen her two or three times. She doesn't know what's
Speaker 5: going on half the time. And she is actively supporting
Speaker 5: shops here in Chinatown that are gentrifying the community. Not
Speaker 5: only herself, but her office is actively trying to divide
Speaker 5: our organization and our tenant association.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think even during her initial meetings with us, she
Speaker 6: would kind of use this line of I don't want
Speaker 6: to hear from organizers, especially one of our most committed
Speaker 6: organizers is a white male lawyer.
Speaker 4: He's there with us every single week.
Speaker 6: She would specifically scapego him and you know, say, oh,
Speaker 6: I don't want to hear from a white lawyer.
Speaker 4: I'm here to hear from the tenants.
Speaker 6: And that dynamic actually like really got entrenched in our organizing,
Speaker 6: where some tenants then began to weaponize that and sow division, and.
Speaker 4: She continues to use that as a.
Speaker 6: Talking point, Like we saw during the most recent protest
Speaker 6: at her house, she continued to use both of these
Speaker 6: tactics weaponizing identity politics, which was really ironic because as
Speaker 6: she was saying that, you know, from one side of
Speaker 6: her mouth, on the other side, she's receiving advice from
Speaker 6: this white hipster musician that she appointed to her office
Speaker 6: who's literally telling her every two minutes, like what is
Speaker 6: actually on this contract because she clearly has not read.
Speaker 6: So it was just really ironic to see that play
Speaker 6: out in real time. She continued to say that she
Speaker 6: only wants to hear from tenants, even though tenants are
Speaker 6: saying the same exact things that the organizers are, but
Speaker 6: she's infantilizing them right by saying, like, oh, you wouldn't
Speaker 6: believe these things if these organizers weren't putting them into
Speaker 6: your brains. No, these tenants very much have the ability
Speaker 6: to make their own decisions and their own critical thinking,
Speaker 6: and we're offering them information that they are then you know,
Speaker 6: taking in themselves. And then ultimately, with the most recent protests,
Speaker 6: she just completely gas lit us for demanding more than
Speaker 6: she's giving. The whole vibe was basically like, why aren't
Speaker 6: you guys grateful for the ten year extension. Why aren't
Speaker 6: you grateful to me for finding two hundred and fifty
Speaker 6: thousand dollars to help you repay your debt?
Speaker 4: Maybe we're not grateful.
Speaker 6: Because when that two hundred and fifty thousand dollars runs out,
Speaker 6: tenants were on fixed incomes are immediately vulnerable to eviction,
Speaker 6: and they're vulnerable to eviction even before that if they
Speaker 6: even just blast their music too loud in the patio
Speaker 6: based on this lease. So, yeah, we are very very
Speaker 6: pissed off at CDU one right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, people, people listen to the
Speaker 3: show a lot, like you should all recognize these tactics
Speaker 3: because these are all incredibly standard union busting tactics, like
Speaker 3: the whole like dragging out the first contract negotiation, UH,
Speaker 3: trying to do divide and conquer between the union and
Speaker 3: you know, doing the Oh these are outside organizers, like
Speaker 3: the union's outside organizer. This is all just straight up
Speaker 3: union busting one oh one stuff exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that word up, because
Speaker 6: that's what we've been calling it the past year, exactly
Speaker 6: like you said, third partying the union dragging out contract negotiations.
Speaker 6: And the I think the sad thing is that tenant
Speaker 6: organizing has a lot less protections than labor organizing or
Speaker 6: a lot less you know, formalized law, so we don't
Speaker 6: have things like the NLRB that can maybe give us
Speaker 6: a little bit more teeth in fighting against unfairly por practices.
Speaker 4: So that could probably be.
Speaker 6: A whole other conversation, a comparison between tenant and labor organizing,
Speaker 6: but so many parallels as well.
Speaker 5: And then like also, she made so many promises and
Speaker 5: sweet talked so many of us, and there's this like
Speaker 5: respectability politics that a lot of even tenants became divided
Speaker 5: within our movement because they put so much trust into
Speaker 5: her office and into the in their hands, whereas other
Speaker 5: tenants were still very critical and very hard on U
Speaker 5: Niss anytime she was around, we really questioned them and
Speaker 5: a lot of the tenants didn't like that, and they,
Speaker 5: you know, demanded that we not question them and that
Speaker 5: we behave in an educated manner. But look look at
Speaker 5: what we have now. We have a contract that is
Speaker 5: completely has sold all of us out and what for,
Speaker 5: you know, for these promises and fooling the people into
Speaker 5: believing her into trusting those promises or that she would
Speaker 5: actually have our best interest. So here we are and
Speaker 5: these are some of the things that we've also been
Speaker 5: dealing with in the association.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and just to quickly add on to the point
Speaker 4: you were just making an I E. I think we've really.
Speaker 6: Learned these past few years about the insidiousness of these
Speaker 6: so called progressive electeds, right, who come from some kind
Speaker 6: of left leaning background. Aganieces comes from Law Defensa, which
Speaker 6: is a nonprofit that has organized for you know, certain
Speaker 6: kinds of reforms within prison spaces, and so she would
Speaker 6: constantly refer to herself as an organizer and weaponize that right,
Speaker 6: like as an organizer, like I know what I'm doing
Speaker 6: and you guys can trust me. Whereas with Sidillo, the
Speaker 6: previous council member, the contradictions were just obvious, like we
Speaker 6: knew this guy was bullshit, and you know, we would
Speaker 6: just be openly fighting him all the time. But in
Speaker 6: a lot of ways, us getting her elected I think
Speaker 6: made our organizing harder because of the way that she would,
Speaker 6: you know, call us her fam which should have been
Speaker 6: a red flag from the beginning, right, that's also another word. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: call your co worker, here's your family. But yeah, I
Speaker 6: think that's definitely been a huge lesson in the past
Speaker 6: few years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's I think something is not very well
Speaker 3: understood about the way that sort of campaigns are destroyed
Speaker 3: is that like someone who is nominally on the same
Speaker 3: side view is significantly more dangerous of an opponent than
Speaker 3: someone who isn't right. And I mean, like you can
Speaker 3: look at immediately after World War Two in Italy in
Speaker 3: nineteen nineteen nineteen twenty, there's this thing called the Bennio Rosso.
Speaker 9: This is the two Red years.
Speaker 3: The two Red Years culminate in what becomes known as
Speaker 3: the occupation of the factories. This is these mass sort
Speaker 3: of workers' movements sort of cumulating from all of the
Speaker 3: effects of the war and all of the sort of
Speaker 3: repression that's been happening for centuries in Italy. And what
Speaker 3: happens is instead of calling a conventional general strike, in
Speaker 3: which you know, workers leave the factories and allow boss
Speaker 3: to hold on to them, workers instead just seize control
Speaker 3: and occupy the factories they work.
Speaker 9: And this is why, you know, it's called the occupation
Speaker 9: of the factories.
Speaker 3: And in this period, right, these workers have the capitalists
Speaker 3: on the ropes.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 3: Without control of the factories, the bosses can't restart production
Speaker 3: with scabs. And more importantly, it puts the workers in
Speaker 3: the position to simply drive the bosses out entirely and
Speaker 3: restart production under the control of the workers who work
Speaker 3: in these places and who literally build the entire economic
Speaker 3: system that these capitalists have been profiting from. And this
Speaker 3: was the best chance and any country in Europe was
Speaker 3: ever going to get to defeat the capitalists once and
Speaker 3: for all. Right, this was this was the best they
Speaker 3: were ever going to have it. But the worker's oldest allies,
Speaker 3: these are the socialists and social democratic politicians in the
Speaker 3: Socialist Party opposed the occupations. And these these Socialist Party politicians,
Speaker 3: these are their friends, These are their comrades, these are
Speaker 3: these are the people who lead their unions. I mean,
Speaker 3: these are people who you know, a lot of these
Speaker 3: people have spent thirty years organizing with these people just
Speaker 3: to carve the workers movement out of sort of the
Speaker 3: stone of history. These are the people, you know, who,
Speaker 3: in a lot of cases like they had gone to
Speaker 3: war with. So when the social democrats told them to
Speaker 3: immobilize and told them to go home and told them to,
Speaker 3: you know, just give the fact the factories back to
Speaker 3: the capitalists and give up all of their leverage, the
Speaker 3: workers listened, and once they've been totally demobilized, there was
Speaker 3: no way for them to resist the fascists. Lussolini Marsha
Speaker 3: on Rome the next year, and in the wake of
Speaker 3: the socialists betrayal, the fascists would rule Italy for twenty
Speaker 3: five years. You have to be incredibly weary of these
Speaker 3: people who who take power from you know, like the
Speaker 3: most personal example to be is we have this with
Speaker 3: Brandon Johnson, who was like a you know, the big
Speaker 3: here that he was the mayor of Chicago, where I
Speaker 3: I guess technically now I don't live there, but I
Speaker 3: live there for ages. Who was you know, quote our
Speaker 3: quote unquote movement mayor and then immediately started just fucking
Speaker 3: putting migrants that had been like bust up in just
Speaker 3: like these fucking horrible conditions in camps. People were dying,
Speaker 3: people are getting fucking terrible diseases, like buildings with mold
Speaker 3: in them, like stuff that was condemned, and like all
Speaker 3: of this stuff happened, and you know, and it really
Speaker 3: kind of in a very similar way. Because this was
Speaker 3: you know, this was supposed to be one of us.
Speaker 3: The resistance to it has been really inutered. And that's
Speaker 3: a dynamic that you know, we haven't had as much
Speaker 3: in the US because there hasn't been a left in
Speaker 3: this country until really the last maybe decade, and that's
Speaker 3: stretching it. And now, you know, we need to actually
Speaker 3: get back to understanding how this kind of stuff works,
Speaker 3: because more and more the people who are going to
Speaker 3: be arresting you are people who you know, you used
Speaker 3: people used to be organizing with people, people who you
Speaker 3: used to know, and people who even when you put
Speaker 3: a mic in front of their face, will claim to
Speaker 3: be on your side.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: No, those are some really great comparisons to draw to.
Speaker 6: And yeah, I think we've definitely learned to be more
Speaker 6: vigilant collectively.
Speaker 4: It's here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there anything else that you two want to
Speaker 3: say before you wrap up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's really important to hold people accountable always.
Speaker 5: As much as they don't want to be held accountable,
Speaker 5: they still they probably won't, but they still have a
Speaker 5: responsibility to the community. And yeah, I think we need
Speaker 5: to do stick to direct action and less working alongside
Speaker 5: of politicians because at the end of the day, the
Speaker 5: same thing will happen again and again, will be sold
Speaker 5: out and it'll be a big.
Speaker 7: Waste of time.
Speaker 5: So I think the collective power of community in doing
Speaker 5: direct action always will be the solution. And that's something
Speaker 5: that I've learned more recently and the way that things
Speaker 5: have kind of unfolded with Hillside Villa. And lastly, I
Speaker 5: know there are some key demands for CD one we
Speaker 5: can share it too.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I think picking up on what you were saying,
Speaker 6: an Ie, direct action has always been our bread and
Speaker 6: butter to actually get meaningful results, and we're already seeing
Speaker 6: it after this recent protest at a Unicis's house where
Speaker 6: CD one, the city council district, is now completely changing
Speaker 6: their tun and saying oh this this lease was just
Speaker 6: a draft, like you don't have to feel pressured to
Speaker 6: sign it. You can put together a counter proposal, and
Speaker 6: that is completely not what they were saying at all
Speaker 6: before the protest. They were really really pressuring us to
Speaker 6: sign the lease, and even at the protest right a
Speaker 6: niece is recommending that a family member would sign it.
Speaker 6: So we're already seeing the results, and in our counterproposal,
Speaker 6: we plan to really highlight a few demands. First and foremost,
Speaker 6: that the rent debt is turned into consumer non evictible debt.
Speaker 6: No behavior stipulations, those are bullshit, the eviction cases actually
Speaker 6: get dismissed and not suspended in court for six years.
Speaker 4: And finally, no.
Speaker 6: Fifteen million for Bots until a fair deal is reached.
Speaker 6: And that's a key point of leverage because CD one
Speaker 6: is acting as the escrow of the fifteen million, meaning
Speaker 6: that they're supposed to, Yeah, see if both parties, so
Speaker 6: US and Bots quote unquote like fulfill what we're supposed
Speaker 6: to with a deal before giving Bots the fifteen million.
Speaker 4: And so they have so much power over this situation.
Speaker 6: They keep throwing their hands up and saying they don't
Speaker 6: have power, but they.
Speaker 4: Can withhold the fifteen million from him until.
Speaker 6: He actually responds to some of these demands. So that's
Speaker 6: what we really want to highlight in this moment. And
Speaker 6: for folks who you know, want to kind of stay
Speaker 6: updated on the struggle.
Speaker 4: Our handle on both Twitter and Instagram, I believe is
Speaker 4: Hellside Underscore.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so feel free to check us out there and
Speaker 6: stay updated.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we'll put link to the description too. And
Speaker 3: on that note, thank you to both so much for
Speaker 3: coming on. And yeah, fuck them fuck did d you
Speaker 3: say elected? Fuck the landlords? What the hell department? I
Speaker 3: hope you hope you crushed the ball?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, fuck them all.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having us. And yeah, definitely
Speaker 5: the city a lot needs to be dismantled and reimagined
Speaker 5: and reconstructed, starting with housing and so much more. But
Speaker 5: thank you again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I encourage everyone listening to the show. Give
Speaker 3: him hell, who whoever them is in this scenario, give
Speaker 3: him hell.
Speaker 9: Welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew Siege at
Speaker 9: the YouTube channel andrews and I'm excited to discuss yet
Speaker 9: in the facet anarchus history from another part of the route.
Speaker 9: This time would take a look at the history of
Speaker 9: anarchism in Chile. In my discussion of Peruvian anarchistsyndicalism. I
Speaker 9: mentioned the cross border contacts between Peruvian and Chilean syndicalists,
Speaker 9: particularly of the IWW variety, So what else were they
Speaker 9: doing in that time? Howid's syndicalism get started in Chile,
Speaker 9: let's find out. All credit due to the work of
Speaker 9: Larry Cambone's anarchism in Chile and especially Jose Antonio Quterres
Speaker 9: Danton's eighteen seventy two to nineteen ninety five anarchism in
Speaker 9: Chile without further ado nos comensimos. During the French Revolution
Speaker 9: of eighteen forty eight that founded the French Second Republic,
Speaker 9: which was part of the so called Springtime of the
Speaker 9: People's where revolutions swept through Europe. Two notable figures of
Speaker 9: Chilean and liberal revolutionary history happened to be at Paris
Speaker 9: at the time, Santiago Arcos and Francisco Bilbao. Santiago Arcos
Speaker 9: was a Chilean liberal who lived in exile in Paris
Speaker 9: because of his father's involvement with the independence government. He
Speaker 9: rubbed shoulders with French socialists and liberals alike, and also
Speaker 9: met Francisco Bilbao upon his families whore two into Chile,
Speaker 9: they tried and failed to start a bank due to
Speaker 9: government pressure, so his father returned to Europe, but Arcos
Speaker 9: stayed in Chile, and after his father died he got
Speaker 9: a hefty inheritance and would go on to take part
Speaker 9: in various struggles around Latin America. Arcos also famously wrote
Speaker 9: Frontiers and Indians, a Question of Indians, and which he
Speaker 9: advocated for killing off of the indigenous people because it
Speaker 9: was cheaper than maintain the garrison to protect the settlers
Speaker 9: from attacks. Bit of a record scratch movement, but unfortunately
Speaker 9: typical of the time. Francisco Bilbao was another Chilean liberal
Speaker 9: who lived in Paris. Prior to his migration, he published
Speaker 9: a rather controversial article to Chilean sociability lass, Sociability Dad Chilena,
Speaker 9: which was condemned by Chilean authorities as blasphemous and immoral
Speaker 9: for its critique to the Church and state. After his condemnation,
Speaker 9: he moved to Peru, where he was condemned for criticizing
Speaker 9: the Peruvian president. So he left for Paris, and in
Speaker 9: Paris he met Arcos, and upon their return to Chile,
Speaker 9: together Arcos and Bilbau founded lassosier Dad de la igual Dad,
Speaker 9: or the Equality Society, which was marginally influenced by mutualist thought.
Speaker 9: You see, anarchism fungus came to Chile by way of
Speaker 9: the mutualist strain. Unfortunately, it was quickly suppressed by the
Speaker 9: conservative government, but not before the establishment of the country's
Speaker 9: first mutual aid society of as many of one hundred artisans.
Speaker 9: Those artisans would take part in the eighteen fifty one
Speaker 9: Chilean Revolution against the Conservative government, which unfortunately didn't succeed.
Speaker 9: After the feeling of the revolution, the conservative government began
Speaker 9: a program of political persecution against the instigators of the uprisings,
Speaker 9: which included arrests and deportations. Bilbao and Arcos were among
Speaker 9: those exiled. Other mutual societies were forming the late eighteen
Speaker 9: fifth as mutualism was caden influence among artisans like printmakers, shoemakers,
Speaker 9: and tailors. In eighteen sixty two, the mutual aid Society
Speaker 9: La Union was founded as a general mutual for all
Speaker 9: artists of all trades in Santiago and offered both workshops
Speaker 9: and medical services, and established a school for artisans and
Speaker 9: their children. By the early eighteen sixties, there were some
Speaker 9: seventy cooperatives, both consumer and producer. By eighteen seventy there
Speaker 9: were thirteen neutrals, which saved alleviate misery. In spite of
Speaker 9: economic depression. La Union branched out over a dozen cities,
Speaker 9: and in addition to education, health and welfare, it formed
Speaker 9: a philharmonic society. So why do you think these orcs
Speaker 9: became influential. It's probably because they were practicing what they preached,
Speaker 9: showing the proof of concert to their ideas through practical
Speaker 9: application of the principles of libertymutuality, solidarity and self education.
Speaker 9: In eighteen seventy two, the Chilean section the International Workingmen's
Speaker 9: Association was established in Valparaiso, which is a major coastal
Speaker 9: city in Chile. Eighteen seventy two was also the year
Speaker 9: the anarchists were kicked out of the International, so the
Speaker 9: Chilean section didn't last too long, but it did plant
Speaker 9: a seed. Libertarian ideas were spread in particularly among the
Speaker 9: nitrate miners. Keep that in mind for later. Then boom
Speaker 9: eighteen seventy nine, Chile goes to war with Bolivia and
Speaker 9: Peru and actually wins, which makes Bolivia landlocked. And that's
Speaker 9: why it still land ocked to this day. The war
Speaker 9: profited the Chilean and English nitrate mine bosses and the
Speaker 9: Chilean state, but of course the workers themselves suffered. By
Speaker 9: eighteen eighty there were thirty nine mutual aid societies responding
Speaker 9: to those needs after the war. In eighteen eighty seven,
Speaker 9: the Union Republicana del Pueblo or People's Republican Union, was
Speaker 9: formed with an anarchist platform. Not long after, with a
Speaker 9: series of strikes by rail workers, miners and others, the
Speaker 9: workers launched the first national general strike in eighteen ninety
Speaker 9: and it was brutally crushed and followed by further brutality
Speaker 9: as in eighteen ninety one, the president Bamasada tried to
Speaker 9: press through reforms against the wishes of both Congress and
Speaker 9: foreign capital interests, which led to a civil war. The
Speaker 9: workers suffered Semo Semo and Bamaceada was defeated and deposed
Speaker 9: and then committed suicide. Truly revolutionary anarchism came to Chile
Speaker 9: in the eighteen nineties through an anarchist immigrant from Spain
Speaker 9: named Manuel Chinchilla. Chilean anarchist Carlos Rquera was influenced by Chinchilla,
Speaker 9: and together they formed the Centro des Studio Socialists Center
Speaker 9: for Social Studies in eighteen ninety two and published the
Speaker 9: paper El O Primido The Oppressed. Another group of anarchists
Speaker 9: from IL Centro Sociality, the Tarbahadores or Workers Social Center,
Speaker 9: founded the journal L three to dil Pueblo the People's Scream.
Speaker 9: Among the other societies and papers forming during this period
Speaker 9: included societad the Protecti al Trabahador Imutuo Apoyo or Society
Speaker 9: for Workers Protection and Mutual Aid, and Il Proletario the Proletaria.
Speaker 9: In eighteen ninety four, the Chilean mutualists formed the Federacion
Speaker 9: de Tabahadores Chile or Workers Confederation the FTCH, which was
Speaker 9: the first national federation of workers in Chile and history.
Speaker 9: It wasn't all that radical outside the context of conservative government,
Speaker 9: that is, as it fought for social reform as well
Speaker 9: as the usual activities of education and health insurance, but
Speaker 9: it was influential. By nineteen twenty five it had more
Speaker 9: than one hundred thousand members. In eighteen ninety eight, there
Speaker 9: was a general strike in the coastal city of Ikike,
Speaker 9: and new societies were formed like Partido Obrero Francisco Bilbao,
Speaker 9: which became an anarchist group in eighteen ninety nine, and
Speaker 9: resistant societies were also formed for railway workers and carpenters,
Speaker 9: which should go on to play a major role in
Speaker 9: Santiago General Strike of nineteen oh seven. Magazines, as always
Speaker 9: were also founded, like La Tromba Irrebele and Latin Torture.
Speaker 9: We also got to see the fust demonstrations against military
Speaker 9: service and the army in Chilean history, under the slogan
Speaker 9: the army is the academy of crime. From nineteen hundred
Speaker 9: to nineteen ten, anarchists were the best organized of all
Speaker 9: the radical groups, according to Larry Gombone, particularly in print making,
Speaker 9: bacon shoemaking, and the docks. In nineteen hundred, there were
Speaker 9: thirty resistant societies concentrated in central Chile among industrial workers.
Speaker 9: The resistant societies were decentralized rotated positions, acted autonomously and
Speaker 9: were active in strikes. By nineteen ten, there were four
Speaker 9: hundred and thirty three resistant societies, the total membership of
Speaker 9: fifty five thousand. The year nineteen hundred also marked the
Speaker 9: establishment of man communales or brotherhoods within the mutualist movement,
Speaker 9: which fused the mutual aid societies were trade unions. The
Speaker 9: first Man Cuminale organized in Nikike Balloon into a movement
Speaker 9: of six thousand members, which is the majority of the
Speaker 9: nitrate and maritime workers in northern Jule. The Man Communale
Speaker 9: movement favored direct action at a much greater level of
Speaker 9: organization and solidarity than the resistance societies. The resistant societies
Speaker 9: were local, Man communales spanned large territories, uniting different trades
Speaker 9: on a city, then provincial, then national level. One of
Speaker 9: the accomplishments of these movements was the crowing presence of workers' strikes,
Speaker 9: empowered by solidarity. In nineteen oh two, harbor workers staged
Speaker 9: a sixty day strike, and in nineteen oh three there
Speaker 9: was a general strike in the port city of Alparaiso,
Speaker 9: resulting in the murder of more than one hundred workers
Speaker 9: by the state. That rebellion spread to the cities of Antofagasta,
Speaker 9: Iota and Coronet and lasted for forty three days. When
Speaker 9: the Man Communales federated in nineteen oh four as the
Speaker 9: Grand man Coominal Dolberas, they brought together twenty one thousand members.
Speaker 9: A year after their federation was the Red Week of
Speaker 9: nineteen oh five. Tired of the inhuman conditions, the cost
Speaker 9: of living, the high taxes, a workers committee known as
Speaker 9: Centreo their Studios sociated dad at the Nao Obrero called
Speaker 9: all workers to join the strike and to support the cause.
Speaker 9: By October twenty second of nineteen oh five, thirty eight
Speaker 9: thousand people had joined the uprising, including bushers, shoemakers, tanners,
Speaker 9: cigar makers, truckmen, tapestry makers, typographers, telegraphers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, bakers,
Speaker 9: and railway workers. The mayor eighteen hundred police officers tried
Speaker 9: to kill the energy on the streets, as did the
Speaker 9: ruling class funded White Guard, but despite their massacre two
Speaker 9: hundred and fifty workers, the movement continued to grow. By
Speaker 9: nineteen oh six, workers were active in the Ferracio the
Speaker 9: Tapadores de Chile or the FDCCH, and students had organized
Speaker 9: the Feracio and their Studiantest de Chile or FECCH. Unfortunately,
Speaker 9: the mancominale movement and almost died after the nineteen oh
Speaker 9: seven depression and severe military repression, the worst instance of
Speaker 9: which was the Santa Maria massacre. Of Ikike, where over
Speaker 9: three thousand minitrate miners and their supporters were killed by
Speaker 9: machine gun file after going on strike for better living
Speaker 9: conditions than the company towns built around the mines. The
Speaker 9: company towns were run by the mine owners, who owned
Speaker 9: the workers' housing, owned the company's store, monopolized all commers,
Speaker 9: employed a private police force, and paid workers in tokens
Speaker 9: instead of money. The strikers was joined by their wives,
Speaker 9: children and other workers in the city of Ahike and
Speaker 9: had set up strike headquarters at the Santa Maria School.
Speaker 9: They were given an hour to disband or be fired upon.
Speaker 9: When they stood firm, a certain General silver Renard, known
Speaker 9: as the Butcher of Ikike, gave US troops the order
Speaker 9: to fire upon the strikers, their wives, and their children.
Speaker 9: One eyewitness said quote on the central balcony stood thirty
Speaker 9: or so men in the prime of their life, life
Speaker 9: quite calm, beneath a great Layan flag, and surrounded by
Speaker 9: the flags of other nations. They were the strike committee.
Speaker 9: All eyes were fixed on them, just as all the
Speaker 9: guns were directed at them. Standing they received the shots
Speaker 9: as though struck by lightning. They fell, and the great
Speaker 9: flags fluttered down over their bodies. There was a moment
Speaker 9: of silence as the machine guns were lowered to aim
Speaker 9: the school yard and the hall occupied by a compact
Speaker 9: mass of people who spilled over into the main square.
Speaker 9: There was a sound like thunder as they fired. Then
Speaker 9: the gunfire ceased and the foot soldiers went into the
Speaker 9: school by the side doors, firing as men and women
Speaker 9: fled in all directions. End quote estimates vary, with conservative
Speaker 9: estimates placing the death toll of over two thousand, while
Speaker 9: Jose Touterres Danton's account reckons as many as three thousand,
Speaker 9: six hundred. In any case, if all three thousand of
Speaker 9: those miners were members of the Grand Man Comunale Delbreras,
Speaker 9: that had mean roughly fifteen percent of the movement was
Speaker 9: laughtered in one massacre, a significant tragedy for show. Following
Speaker 9: the massacre, the movement formed the Feracion Obrera de Chile
Speaker 9: or FOCCH, which aimed to pull together all the organizations
Speaker 9: involved in the struggle, whether anarchists, Marxists or liberals. It
Speaker 9: was co created by the Ones falter in Mancominalys and
Speaker 9: grew in militancy until I had fully adopted anarchistiniclist principles.
Speaker 9: Even the trade unions outside of the FOCCH were anarchist cynicalist,
Speaker 9: but eventually the Synacalists and FOCICH would be overtaken by
Speaker 9: the Marxists following the rise of the Soviet Union and
Speaker 9: the deeper intentions between Anarchists and Marxists. Also in the
Speaker 9: nineteen tens, the famous Chilean poet Pablo and the Ruder
Speaker 9: was Robin Schoulers of the Anarchists, though he eventually became
Speaker 9: a Communist of the Marxist fariety. Meanwhile, the student org
Speaker 9: FCCH established a popular university to link workers and students
Speaker 9: and develop popular education. In nineteen twelve, the Federacion Obrera
Speaker 9: Regionale de Chile FOOR or FOT was formed, while nineteen
Speaker 9: nineteen marked the launch of the Chilean IWW, which expanded
Speaker 9: to nineteen cities and a ten thousand strong membership. All
Speaker 9: the while the strikes continued. Nineteen nineteen marked yet another
Speaker 9: general strike. The nitrate minds weren't as profitable as they
Speaker 9: once were, creating more attention as workers were laid off.
Speaker 9: The state was in debt and with domestic disarray, it
Speaker 9: needed a distraction, so it tried to spark yet another
Speaker 9: war with Peru. Thankfully, the war never happened when it
Speaker 9: looked like it would be. It was roundly condemned by
Speaker 9: the FECCH, as they should, but nineteen nineteen was also
Speaker 9: the year that reactionaries broken too the fcch's headquarters and
Speaker 9: burned down the building. While archiss workers were being jailed,
Speaker 9: tortured and murdered all the way into the nineteen twenties. Still,
Speaker 9: by nineteen twenty five, there were two hundred and fourteen
Speaker 9: syndicates in Chile, posting the active participation of more than
Speaker 9: two hundred thousand people, and it was the first year
Speaker 9: where Chilean dedication of the IWW was able to participate
Speaker 9: in an IWA Congress. Santiago had a wrench strike, and
Speaker 9: yet still work of blood was being spilled and tortured,
Speaker 9: and then a coup happened in nineteen twenty five. Carlos
Speaker 9: Ibaniez took power and by nineteen twenty seven sort of
Speaker 9: fully abolished the labor movement. Union offices were raided, anarchist
Speaker 9: groups disbanded, and journals shut down. The labor movement persisted,
Speaker 9: the ideas lived on, but the anarchists were hit particularly hard.
Speaker 9: Next we'll find out what happens in the rest of
Speaker 9: the twentieth century for the anarchist movement in Chile. We're
Speaker 9: back talking about the history of anarchism in Chile. We
Speaker 9: almost gave Das Sayer and arrest of the Sierra Bene.
Speaker 9: Let's see what they get up to for the rest
Speaker 9: of the twentieth century. In nineteen thirty, the indush tree
Speaker 9: that Chile had been relying on for years, the one
Speaker 9: that had caused so much strife for workers across the country,
Speaker 9: had suffered a major blue. German scientists discovered a synthetic
Speaker 9: nitrate there was far cheaper than the natural one. Nitrate
Speaker 9: has used in both foot liizer production ammunitions manufactory. So
Speaker 9: with the cheap alternative to the form found in the ground,
Speaker 9: the meager livelihoods of thousands of workers was now under threat.
Speaker 9: The mine owners may have had to reshuffle their finances
Speaker 9: a bit to recover from the loss of the booming industry,
Speaker 9: but it was the workers who dealt with the worst
Speaker 9: of such a crisis. They faced famine, mass migration, and overcrowding,
Speaker 9: compounded by the existing economic pressures of the worldwide recession.
Speaker 9: The nineteen thirties. Crisis hit the population hard, but they
Speaker 9: kept strikeing regardless. The dictatorship of Colonel Carlos Ibanie's fell
Speaker 9: in nineteen thirty one due to all that popular unrest.
Speaker 9: Then things went from bad to worse. The center of
Speaker 9: workers struggled. The city of Santiago, the headquarters of the
Speaker 9: Ferracion Obrera de Chile or FOCCH, where organizations of all
Speaker 9: flavors had worked together, came under attack in April nineteen
Speaker 9: thirty four. The police and the White Guards, which were
Speaker 9: a group of capitalists funded meadheads, opened fire on the compound,
Speaker 9: killing seven workers and a child, while badly injuring around
Speaker 9: two hundred others. In June of that same year, nineteen
Speaker 9: thirty four, four hundred and seventy seven peasants were slain
Speaker 9: in Alto, Biobio, Rankiel and Lonqui May, all fairly small
Speaker 9: towns in the countryside of Chile. Two years later, in
Speaker 9: December nineteen thirty six, the Ferracion Obrera Regionale de Chile
Speaker 9: or FRCH or FORT and the Chilean IWW worked together
Speaker 9: to form the Conferracion General de Trabajadores or CGT. It
Speaker 9: was their anarchist alternatives, the communist and socialist founded Workers
Speaker 9: Confederation of Chile or CTCH, which they saw as more reformists. Together,
Speaker 9: they fought to achieve the eight hour workday, Sundays off,
Speaker 9: indemnity for accidents at work, monetary recognition for years of service,
Speaker 9: the right to retirement, and the right to an old
Speaker 9: age pension. Meanwhile, the Chilean Anarchist Federation or FACCH got
Speaker 9: active and sent some brigades to support their comrades in
Speaker 9: the Spanish Civil War. During the Civil war period, anarchism
Speaker 9: had another upswing of popularity in Chile, but since the
Speaker 9: reformist Union had legal and institutional back in, since the
Speaker 9: anarchists were being heavily repressed, and since there was some
Speaker 9: disorganization among them, the anarchists had started to lose their popularity.
Speaker 9: Anarchist cyndicalism had declined significantly going into the nineteen forties,
Speaker 9: while reformist cynicalism stayed strong under the control of the socialists,
Speaker 9: Communists and Christian Democrats. In nineteen forty six, eight workers
Speaker 9: were murdered and many more were seriously injured by the
Speaker 9: police dogs at Bulmes Square in Santiago. The persecution of
Speaker 9: workers and particularly anarchist workers continued into nineteen forty seven
Speaker 9: as Pisagua, a notorious and Tuoman camp once used to
Speaker 9: detain key folks from the Carlossi when he has dictatorship,
Speaker 9: was transformed into a concentration camp for socialists, communists, anarchists
Speaker 9: under President Gabrielle Gonzalez Fidela. The notorious Chilean dictator Augusto
Speaker 9: Pinochet had a stint run in the camp in that
Speaker 9: time as well, so, of course, fearing for their lives,
Speaker 9: anarchist organizations had to go underground. Even underground, they were
Speaker 9: able to accomplish some radical work. For example, the Luisa
Speaker 9: Michelle Cultural Center, renamed in the nineteen fifty three to Luisa
Speaker 9: Michelle Libertarian School, which sought to educate female workers and
Speaker 9: later children as well. It had at a time over
Speaker 9: seventy students. He was able to last for a decade
Speaker 9: up until nineteen fifty seven, despite authoritarian repression. In nineteen
Speaker 9: fifty the anarchist syneclist Ernesto mirandl brought together twelve federations
Speaker 9: and several syndicates into the Movimento Unitario Nacionaletraes or Month
Speaker 9: or Movement for Workers Unity. Prior to the Formation of
Speaker 9: the Month, Miranda got started in the workers movement at
Speaker 9: the age of twenty way back in nineteen thirty two.
Speaker 9: While working in the shoe industry, he fought the local
Speaker 9: Nazis and the police were taking part in various unions
Speaker 9: and unitary committees for in the formation of Month. Nineteen
Speaker 9: fifty three saw the formation of the Central Unitaria the
Speaker 9: Trebadores or CUT, Chile's United Labor Center. The initial aims
Speaker 9: and principles of CUT were drawn up by members of
Speaker 9: the Confederacio and General de Tabahadores or CGT, and anarchist
Speaker 9: syncalists filled the shoe worker, printer and maritime unions. In
Speaker 9: the CUTS Declaration, the workers proclaimed that the amountcipation of
Speaker 9: the workers is the work of the workers themselves and
Speaker 9: that quote the present capitalist system based on private ownership
Speaker 9: of land, instruments, and means of production, and exploitation of
Speaker 9: man by man, which divides society into antagonistic classes exploited
Speaker 9: and exploiters, must be replaced by a social economic system
Speaker 9: that abolishes private property until a class less society is reached.
Speaker 9: In which man and humanity are assured of their full development.
Speaker 9: The Central Workers Union will carry out a revindicative action
Speaker 9: within the principles and methods of the class struggle, maintaining
Speaker 9: its full independence from all governments and partisan political sectarianism. However,
Speaker 9: the Central Workers Union is not an apolitical union. On
Speaker 9: the contrary, representing the conjunctions of all sector of the
Speaker 9: work in masses, its humanimatory action will be derived above
Speaker 9: the political parties in order to maintain its organic cohesion.
Speaker 9: The trade union struggle is an interiral part of the
Speaker 9: general class movement, the proletaria and the exploited masses, and
Speaker 9: as such a connoty must not remain neutral in the
Speaker 9: social struggle and must assume its proper leadership rule. Consequently,
Speaker 9: it declares that all trade unions organizations for the defense
Speaker 9: of the interests and goals the workers within the capitalist system,
Speaker 9: but at the same time the organizations of class struggle
Speaker 9: that points to the economic emouncipation of the workers as
Speaker 9: their goal, that is, the socialist transformation of society, the
Speaker 9: abolition of classes and the organization of human life to
Speaker 9: the abolition of the oppressive state. Endcode. The cut tried
Speaker 9: and failed to call a general strike in nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 9: partially because, unbeknownst to them, the communist and socialist groups
Speaker 9: within the CUT had reached their own agreement with the government.
Speaker 9: By nineteen fifty seven, the CUT were severely split. The
Speaker 9: Anacho Synicalists abandoned it in protest of its involvement in
Speaker 9: an electoral pact with the FRAP the Friende Amplio Popular,
Speaker 9: a left wing party during the lead up to the
Speaker 9: presidential election in nineteen fifty eight. The anarchist Synicalists rightfully
Speaker 9: believed that the CUT getting involved with the political party
Speaker 9: would compromise working class independence. However, that act of protest
Speaker 9: would also diminish the influence of the anarchists and the
Speaker 9: union movement. Nineteen fifty seven also marked the rise of
Speaker 9: Elmo Vimiento Libertario, Theie de de Julio or the Seventh
Speaker 9: of July libertarian movement, the Bratiada. The anarchists, Centrade unionists
Speaker 9: from Osorno, Temuco, Concepcion, Dinares and Talca were dispersed after
Speaker 9: leaving the CUT. It unfortunately dissolved a decade later as
Speaker 9: his participants got involved in other organizations. Ernesto Miranda, one
Speaker 9: of the co creators of Month, went on to create
Speaker 9: Committee the Defenser the Revolution Cubana, although by nineteen sixty
Speaker 9: the Anarchist Federation FAH was already warning of the Cuban
Speaker 9: Revolution's involvement with Russia. Miranda later went on to form
Speaker 9: the MIR the Movemento de Squierreta Revolutionaria the revolutionary left
Speaker 9: wing movement, in nineteen sixty five, alongside anarchist synclist Cultario
Speaker 9: Blest and Trotzkis Enriqueesepulveda. Cultario Blest had previously visited Cuba,
Speaker 9: which had impressed upon him the need for insurrectionary action.
Speaker 9: Upon his return to Chile, Blest formed the Third of
Speaker 9: November Movement M three END to promote revolution and unite
Speaker 9: the revolutionary life left against electoralism. Before the MIR was founded,
Speaker 9: there was the MFR, the Movement of Revenue Starying Forces
Speaker 9: in nineteen sixty one, which brought together non line anarchists, trusteists, maoists,
Speaker 9: socialists and communists in the trade union work. With the
Speaker 9: growing involvement of communist parties that eventually took over the
Speaker 9: anarchists were eventually sideline in the MR, and it was
Speaker 9: quickly known as a fully mL org. The MIR persists
Speaker 9: to this day. Another organization was also founded in this time,
Speaker 9: the VP of Van Guardia Organizata del Pueblo, which rejected
Speaker 9: the authoritarianism of the MIR with an ideological blend of
Speaker 9: anarchism and anti authoritarian Marxism. Both MIR and vop were
Speaker 9: doing their thing and would play struggles and getting their
Speaker 9: finance in through bank robberies, but this wouldn't last and
Speaker 9: both groups should also faced repression and reaction from the authorities.
Speaker 9: Then came nineteen seventy with the election of Popular Unity
Speaker 9: candidate of Salvador Allende to the presidency. Allende was considered
Speaker 9: a democratic socialist, the first Marxist democratically elected in Latin America.
Speaker 9: Allenda declared an amnesty for all political prisoners and even
Speaker 9: to con members of VOPI as part of his personal
Speaker 9: guard or Crupo de Amigo's personalities gap. By nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 9: they already warned the president that the right was plotting
Speaker 9: to overthrow the government, but the president didn't take them on,
Speaker 9: so they took matters into their own hands and executed
Speaker 9: one of the key plotters in the coup plans for
Speaker 9: that they were punished. In nineteen seventy two, workers began
Speaker 9: to take over their workplaces as the US had imposed
Speaker 9: a trade and credit embargo in retaliation for the nationalization
Speaker 9: of US ow and copper minds. Neighborhood committees took goods
Speaker 9: from the work of control factories and distributed them amongst
Speaker 9: the communities. The FDR or friend Dated Trabahadori's revolution Scenarios
Speaker 9: or Revolutionary Workers Front, played a major role in this process.
Speaker 9: Proven that workers were quite capable of running a factory
Speaker 9: by themselves, and their government and bosses were no longer necessary.
Speaker 9: But for all his alleged socialist credits, Allende couldn't believe
Speaker 9: this was possible, so he sent observers to give orders
Speaker 9: within the affected factories. Meanwhile, peasants were taken over land
Speaker 9: and organizing through the MCR or Moving Miento de Campesinos
Speaker 9: serv Scenarios or Revolutionary Peasants Movement. The government was feeling
Speaker 9: the pressure applied from without and within. By nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 9: Henry Kissinger and the other demons of the US did
Speaker 9: a test run coup, but the people barricaded the neighborhoods
Speaker 9: and factories from the police and army. Being the first
Speaker 9: elected president of Latin Miracle, Allende was patient zero for
Speaker 9: a pattern of interventions that would plague the region for
Speaker 9: years to come. After the three years of presidency and
Speaker 9: a second coup attempt, a Costo Pinochet took power in
Speaker 9: a US backed coup in nineteen seventy three. A few
Speaker 9: months after the first cop attempt, tanks rolled on the
Speaker 9: streets of Santiago. Thousands were tortured, raped and murdered. Anarchists
Speaker 9: were disappeared. Those that escaped death found themselves in concentration camps,
Speaker 9: many of which were ironically established on the remains of
Speaker 9: the old Nitride Mind villages. All political parties and trade
Speaker 9: unions were banned. Some courses at universities were closed down,
Speaker 9: denounced as the home of revolutionary sentiment. The secret police
Speaker 9: direction intell Hinteria National called folks in Fair. The executive
Speaker 9: would be thrown into the sea and Pinochet would go
Speaker 9: on to rule for nearly seventeen years. In nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 9: anarchists Cultario Blessed and Ernesto Miranda would activate a Committee
Speaker 9: of Defense of Human Rights, the Code which would become
Speaker 9: of vital importance for those persecuted by the dictatorship. They
Speaker 9: would record the rights violations and rescue and help escape
Speaker 9: those being persecuted. In nineteen seventy seven and seventy eight,
Speaker 9: the Kodas managed to organize the first event during the
Speaker 9: dictatorship to commemorate International Worker's Day, which helped to disrupt
Speaker 9: the fair people had of the dictatorship. Six years after
Speaker 9: the coups, heading into the eighties, despite the oppression, the
Speaker 9: anarchists were starting to reorganize. Alongside libertarian leading members of
Speaker 9: the former Popular Unity Coalition. They created the Umbrella group
Speaker 9: Socialist Ideas and Action PAS and took part in the
Speaker 9: struggles against the dictatorship in the eighties. In nineteen eighty,
Speaker 9: syndicates affiliated with Norway's IWA was able to secure the
Speaker 9: freedom of europe members who had been in prisoned for
Speaker 9: nearly a decade, exchanging the m prison one for exile,
Speaker 9: while the Marxist mir managed to assas Saint the chief
Speaker 9: of Army intelligence from her Reverergara Campos and a few
Speaker 9: other significant military figures, as well as bombing US affiliated corporations.
Speaker 9: In nineteen eighty two, textile workers went on strike despite
Speaker 9: the risk of oppression, and they were joined by a
Speaker 9: solidarity strike by nineteen eighty three, when children and teachers
Speaker 9: wouldn't attend school, people wouldn't buy anything, and workers would
Speaker 9: stay home. The police tried to disrupt the marches of
Speaker 9: the people. Two were killed as a result and one
Speaker 9: hundreds were arrested or wounded. But between nineteen eighty three
Speaker 9: and nineteen eighty four, mass protests became more frequent and
Speaker 9: the people defended themselves against the police with molotovs, stones
Speaker 9: and barricades. While anarchists were involved in these struggles, anarchists
Speaker 9: ideas went to focus. The focus was on top leand
Speaker 9: the dictator. However, by nineteen eighty four you had a
Speaker 9: libertarian magazine called Lavois, the latter he is most circulating.
Speaker 9: In nineteen eighty seven, the anarchist black flags reappeared in Santiago.
Speaker 9: Concepcion and social centers were also established with an anarchist streak,
Speaker 9: such as a Center for Social Studies Elduende the ELF
Speaker 9: and Santiago and the Collectiva Anarquista Libracion cal Conceptcion, both
Speaker 9: under the umbrella of the Taira. The Analyst in NiCl
Speaker 9: Social the Studio for Social Studies and Analysis, which was
Speaker 9: created with the aim of Brighton and Space for the oppressed.
Speaker 9: A newspaper called Akrata Anarchist was published by Collectivo Anarchista Conceptcion,
Speaker 9: and the Bulletin Liberacion by the cal Accion Director was
Speaker 9: published by Anarchist Comrades in Santiago. For nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 9: Pinochet had to accept defeat and stepped down. By nineteen ninety,
Speaker 9: liberal democracy had returned somewhat to Chile. In the nineties,
Speaker 9: several anarchist groups formed, disappeared, and regrouped, and several anarchists
Speaker 9: publications were printed and spread. The ID the Anarchist inter Cities,
Speaker 9: Federation Veracio and Alarquista Interciodana, the cham Or Jubetures and
Speaker 9: Time Militaristas the Mallow, the Movement Too Anarchistas, Luis Cole,
Speaker 9: the FAI Conceptcion, Collectivo Cultural Libertario, Bnartesta, Conceptsion, Read Anarchista,
Speaker 9: and various other groups in Viallemana, Osorno, Tinuco, Concepcion, Paparaiso Santiago,
Speaker 9: et cetera. Jose Antoniogo terrest Anton, the author of one
Speaker 9: of the historical accounts I referenced took part in several
Speaker 9: of these orcs as well as their own collective Arboronegro
Speaker 9: returned to delegations the IWA Congress in Spain in December
Speaker 9: of nineteen ninety four and took over the work of
Speaker 9: the IWW in Chile. As of the twenty first century,
Speaker 9: several collectives and individuals are disseminated in anarchist ideas and practices.
Speaker 9: Anarchist book fairs have been hosted in Santiago, and the
Speaker 9: Anarchist Federation Santiago has been working in organizing an anarchist platform.
Speaker 9: Anarchists inspired or adjacent movements have lit the streets against
Speaker 9: the government, protest formations, review central authorities, and indigenous Mapuche
Speaker 9: activists carry on their deco nil struggle against the state
Speaker 9: by various means, sometimes bordering on an arcchic and the
Speaker 9: mapuch struggle in Chile, by the way, is a fascinating
Speaker 9: story that really deserves its own episodes, which I hope
Speaker 9: to explore in the future. Anarchist activists have also continued
Speaker 9: to be killed by the police or other reactionaries following
Speaker 9: the return of democracy, such as Claudia Lopez ben Aches
Speaker 9: in nineteen ninety eight and Honey Carrikeo Yanez and Juan
Speaker 9: Cruz Magna in two thousand and eight. Chilean anarchists have
Speaker 9: also allegedly been set in bombs around the country meant
Speaker 9: to cause damage to law enforcement, security forces, banks, and
Speaker 9: transnational corporations property, but also caused an occasional injury or
Speaker 9: death to people. Cambone also writes the mutual aid societies
Speaker 9: still function and in a society where the welfare state
Speaker 9: is practically non existent, mutual aid plays a much greater
Speaker 9: role than elsewhere. Cooperatives both agricultural and consumer are found
Speaker 9: in Chile, although you don't have the same level of
Speaker 9: economic influence that similar movements have in Western Europe or Canada.
Speaker 9: And there are other libertarian oriented developments as well. Between
Speaker 9: Christians and ex Marxistanists who rejected the Van Guard Party
Speaker 9: formed local based committees working in progracis. They function as
Speaker 9: mutual aid societies and centers to organize local issues. I
Speaker 9: hope that the people of Chile, like everywhere else, can
Speaker 9: find true freedom after overst century of anarchist struggle. I
Speaker 9: hope they can find revolutionary success. Until that day, this
Speaker 9: has been andrew sage of Andrewism. It could happen here
Speaker 9: given the historical context of anarchism in Chile. Where am
Speaker 9: I to go next? Hopefully far? All power to all
Speaker 9: the people of peace?
Speaker 11: Hi, Hi, everyone to it could happen here. It's me
Speaker 11: James today and I'm joined by Sharen and also Almato,
Speaker 11: who was a volunteer. Was father a non violent protective
Speaker 11: presence volunteer in Palestine.
Speaker 8: How are you doing today?
Speaker 12: I'm good?
Speaker 10: Thank you, Yeah, thanks so much for being here.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, we appreciate it. So we met through a
Speaker 11: mutual friend who is also a volunteer with you. And
Speaker 11: the reason that that frame contacted me was that unfortunately
Speaker 11: the IDF shot you. And that's obviously a pretty shitty situation.
Speaker 11: And would you be okay with just beginning by recounting
Speaker 11: the incident. I don't know if that's something you're okay
Speaker 11: going back to, just because I think the fucking wantonness
Speaker 11: of the violence is so stark that I think it
Speaker 11: might help people to hear it.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 13: So I volunteered with FAZA and we go to a
Speaker 13: demonstration in Beta every Friday. The aim is to go
Speaker 13: back to their land was stolen from them. I think
Speaker 13: there's a settlement called Avatar Avtar on the Palestinian land
Speaker 13: and their aim is just to go back to it
Speaker 13: and plant the Palatini your flag. So we get there
Speaker 13: and they're doing Juma prayer and then after Duma prayer
Speaker 13: is when they start chanting, so like not even it
Speaker 13: was like between five to ten minutes when they started
Speaker 13: shooting tear gas at us. You're in the prey after
Speaker 13: the prayer, after the prayer, yeah, So the prayer went
Speaker 13: without an incident, and then afterwards was when they shot
Speaker 13: tear gas at us, multiple tear gas canisters, and then
Speaker 13: once they started firing live rounds. We hid behind a
Speaker 13: concrete wall. Tear gas still being shot at us, and
Speaker 13: then live rounds as well. You could see the dust
Speaker 13: coming off of the concrete walls as they shot. And
Speaker 13: then once it seemed like they were coming down from
Speaker 13: the tower, I think Palestines were running because they thought
Speaker 13: they were coming, so we ran and we went over
Speaker 13: a concrete wall. We ran for I don't even know
Speaker 13: how long, but once we got to a clearing and
Speaker 13: they thought it was safe, we regrouped with everyone. So
Speaker 13: the road going up to where we were there were
Speaker 13: Palestinians still running down. There's palestinian is running to the right,
Speaker 13: and we just waited maybe thirty seconds, and then someone
Speaker 13: told us to go, so we ran with them, and
Speaker 13: then we got to rest for like five minutes, had
Speaker 13: a quick smoke coffee, some people had teeth. But then
Speaker 13: some Palestines were moving towards the street to our right,
Speaker 13: so we followed them, a couple of us and some
Speaker 13: of them stayed. And as we were approaching there, this
Speaker 13: was the road that went straight up to the watchtower.
Speaker 13: We saw them on before, so there was still some
Speaker 13: tear guys shot at us and some live rounds as well,
Speaker 13: but we saw them actually coming down from the tower
Speaker 13: this time, and before you know they even drove down,
Speaker 13: there was Palestines to our left that were running. So
Speaker 13: whenever we see them running, we know that it's a
Speaker 13: threat they think may be fatal, so we're running. We
Speaker 13: actually could run to the Alli grows behind us. And
Speaker 13: as we were running, just making sure all my comrades
Speaker 13: were good, I hear a loud bang and then I
Speaker 13: feel a pain in my leg. I thought it was
Speaker 13: like a tear gas canister that hit my leg because
Speaker 13: it just felt like a blunt force, but I've never
Speaker 13: felt that pain before, and one of my comrades were
Speaker 13: helping me up while I was still running and limping.
Speaker 13: And then finally once we got to a clearing, that's
Speaker 13: when all the palestins ran to me and carried me
Speaker 13: away to the pickup truck, which then went to the
Speaker 13: health clinic or the emergency clinic in Beta.
Speaker 12: After that, the army.
Speaker 13: Trucks blocked our away while I was in the ambulance
Speaker 13: when I was transferred, and then there's two checkpoints afterwards,
Speaker 13: and the two checkpoints they demanded to see who was inside,
Speaker 13: which delayed my care further. And then finally getting to
Speaker 13: Rafitia Hospital, Jesus swept fucking hell.
Speaker 10: Classic of them to block the ambulance for so many times.
Speaker 11: It's yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'm really glad that it
Speaker 11: wasn't like an arteriobled or something when that time would
Speaker 11: have been a life and death.
Speaker 8: Yeah, those minutes, right, it's a really good point.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 13: I was smiling because I was like, I don't know
Speaker 13: what just happened to me, but I'm hope, I hope
Speaker 13: I'm okay, And also I know I'm here for Palestine,
Speaker 13: so you know, yeah, I kept smiling, but I didn't
Speaker 13: know what was happening. And thankfully it was no artery
Speaker 13: or bone, so I was very late.
Speaker 11: Yeah, and do you know what right for your show with?
Speaker 11: Because I know they sometimes used like smaller calibers for
Speaker 11: crowd control.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 12: From what I heard was sixteen American name.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 8: So yeah, they're just really game for it. Un believable.
Speaker 8: I'm glad you're okay.
Speaker 11: I like, just we spoke about this before, but just
Speaker 11: so listeners, like, you're healing up, you feel like you're
Speaker 11: on the path to at least physical recovery.
Speaker 13: Yeah, absolutely, Like, uh, So I got shot and one
Speaker 13: week later I went from wheelchair, the crutches, the cane.
Speaker 13: I'm still in the cane, but I can move around
Speaker 13: pretty well like indoors. Like when I'm outside. I have
Speaker 13: to use the cane because my leg buckles and the
Speaker 13: hole in the front bagsit wound is still healing. It's
Speaker 13: not fully closed yet, but a lot better.
Speaker 10: Did the bullet go straight through?
Speaker 13: Yeah, I went straight through, no fragments. I believe they
Speaker 13: had to do surgery to stitch me up, but also
Speaker 13: to take the dead tissue out and I think they
Speaker 13: had to put together some muscles as well.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Jesus.
Speaker 11: So, like I want to talk about a couple of
Speaker 11: things regarding this. First of all, I think like a
Speaker 11: uusit in Yeah. Yeah, so like a foreign military shot
Speaker 11: at US citizen right as you're a no senator representative.
Speaker 11: Any of these people who are supposed to give a
Speaker 11: single fuck about this like reached out to you.
Speaker 12: Now, so it was just the embassy.
Speaker 13: The embassy didn't contact us, maybe the same day I
Speaker 13: was shot just a little bit later, but no representatives
Speaker 13: here in the United States have reached out to me.
Speaker 11: Yeah, that's pretty reprehensible. Yeah, do you want to give
Speaker 11: people a representive? Who those might be? I don't want
Speaker 11: to like dox you and where you live, but.
Speaker 12: I'm in Jersey City.
Speaker 13: There is a vacancy actually for one of the representatives,
Speaker 13: so that is one reason why. But the other ones, yeah,
Speaker 13: Jersey senators, local politicians, nobody has reached out.
Speaker 8: Yeah, nobody's reached out.
Speaker 11: Yeah, And I think, like we said this again before,
Speaker 11: but like it's not that your leg is more important
Speaker 11: than someone's child's life in Gaza, right, Like that's I
Speaker 11: don't want to imply that for a second, but like, yeah,
Speaker 11: you know, the assist of states as it is today
Speaker 11: works in a certain way, and in theory, those people
Speaker 11: should care about you. And like, I think it really
Speaker 11: gets us to something else I wanted to talk about,
Speaker 11: which is that like the existence of Palestine, like as
Speaker 11: as it is today and as it wishes to be
Speaker 11: in the future, much like you know other places I've
Speaker 11: worked in Kurdistan, in the liberated parts of Myanmar, is
Speaker 11: a threat to the system of states and governments as
Speaker 11: it exists today. And like, at some point you decided
Speaker 11: that the government and right into your senator or whatever
Speaker 11: tweeting people do wasn't enough or wasn't going to work,
Speaker 11: and you decided that, like you wanted to put your
Speaker 11: body in between the people trying to kill the people
Speaker 11: and then people trying to survive. So can you talk
Speaker 11: us through that journey? Like have you always been invested
Speaker 11: in in the Palestinian cause?
Speaker 8: Is it something that you became aware of at some point?
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 13: So I'm part of the Philippine Movement on a Bayon
Speaker 13: part of Bayon and the National Democratic Movement in the Philippines,
Speaker 13: So through them I was in contact and collaboration with Palestinians,
Speaker 13: and that's when I started to understand Palestinian struggle. And
Speaker 13: actually I was at the protest in New York recently,
Speaker 13: and it came full circle because Nerdane within our lifetime,
Speaker 13: stated that she actually started it because of the National
Speaker 13: Democratic Movement and our work together and our studies. So
Speaker 13: because I also saw Palestinian standing for the liberation of
Speaker 13: the Philippines, we always had that connection or I had
Speaker 13: that connection with Palestinians, and it grew over time, and
Speaker 13: the escalation of October seventh really had me just disregulated
Speaker 13: because I'm a teacher in Jersey and for the first
Speaker 13: few months it was so hard for me to It
Speaker 13: was like I was just going on autopilot because how
Speaker 13: could we, you know, just go on with our daily
Speaker 13: lives seeing this these atrocities happening every day.
Speaker 12: And once it was the end of the year, it
Speaker 12: was hot.
Speaker 13: A smoking cigarette, I put my CAFA on the gate
Speaker 13: outside of our school and then I came out because
Speaker 13: I had to bring the snacks in for my students
Speaker 13: for the last week of school and it was gone,
Speaker 13: so I had to buy another one, and when I did,
Speaker 13: it came with a really beautiful handwritten postcard from Palestine
Speaker 13: and it was just talking about thank you for supporting
Speaker 13: us through these difficult times. And then it's had invitation
Speaker 13: to visit. So that was what prompted me to like
Speaker 13: research and ask other friends in the movement, and then
Speaker 13: they told me about FASA, and then I took the
Speaker 13: orientation and training and I went over during my summer break.
Speaker 11: Yeah, great, to ease your summer, We'll just stop for
Speaker 11: some advertisements here and then come back.
Speaker 8: We are back.
Speaker 11: Unfortunately you've had toism to some advert so hopefully you've
Speaker 11: skipped them. So I wanted to ask about like that journey,
Speaker 11: the journey to Palestine. Now, I imagine it's very difficult,
Speaker 11: and like how did it feel. I guess like this
Speaker 11: is a cause you've been invested in for some time, right,
Speaker 11: and then you've seen these horrific things, and then suddenly
Speaker 11: you're on the ground, like was to be in solidarity
Speaker 11: with people like I know my experience at the border
Speaker 11: has been that, Like, I would much rather be like
Speaker 11: in it, even if it's terrible, than at home seeing
Speaker 11: pictures of it.
Speaker 8: I wonder how it was for you.
Speaker 13: Yeah, for me, I've always just wanted to visit Palestine,
Speaker 13: and I want to be in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Speaker 13: As a Filipino American, I've seen Palestine's there the support
Speaker 13: of Filipinos. I've been there in the streets with them,
Speaker 13: you know, when they supported Americans, the black Americans, you know,
Speaker 13: against police brutality. So it just felt like a duty
Speaker 13: as an organizer, as a revolutionary to you know, show
Speaker 13: the same solidarity back, as well as knowing that I'll
Speaker 13: be in a beautiful place with beautiful people under horrible circumstances.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I wish more people.
Speaker 11: And it's not just Palestine, right, we have these revolutions
Speaker 11: that we talk about in these causes that we talk about,
Speaker 11: like and I understand it's not always easy. People have
Speaker 11: commitments financial and interpersonal, and but like, if you can go,
Speaker 11: you should go.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Do you feel like your solidarity grew because you experienced
Speaker 11: solidarity in return? Right, like somebody ran towards gunfire to
Speaker 11: pick you up at some point? Do you feel like
Speaker 11: a more profound sense of solidarity after that experience, having
Speaker 11: also experienced like setle colonial violence.
Speaker 12: I guess absolutely.
Speaker 13: It's like you know, before I'm talking about it, we
Speaker 13: talk about in circles, and I did have the privilege
Speaker 13: to be able to go. You know, you're not a
Speaker 13: lot of people have the financial ability, mental ability, physical capabilities.
Speaker 13: So I'm lucky on that end as well. But if
Speaker 13: one is willing and able in all those different aspects,
Speaker 13: they should go if they can, especially during all of
Speaker 13: the harvest right now, which is an escalation of settler
Speaker 13: violence that we've seen recently, and even the Israeli army.
Speaker 12: So I get updates from.
Speaker 13: Kuspa right now and I just see everything that's happening still,
Speaker 13: and I know all of harvest is a huge economic
Speaker 13: thing for the Palestinians. So yeah, it'd be great for
Speaker 13: anyone that's able to go.
Speaker 10: Yeah, leading up to you getting shot and maybe after,
Speaker 10: can you describe maybe what the environment was like like
Speaker 10: on the ground, how people were living your experiences with
Speaker 10: the idea of me before that, Like, can you just
Speaker 10: walk us through what that was like on the ground.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 13: So my first day there, I was in and we
Speaker 13: were just getting the money that we need. We got
Speaker 13: some groceries I believe I had. I only had like
Speaker 13: two pairs of clothes I packed leg and then we
Speaker 13: had dinner with the Palestinia. Family, very beautiful collective dinner
Speaker 13: and when you have lunch or dinner there, you know,
Speaker 13: it's not like a quick thirty minutes and you're gone.
Speaker 13: You're there for like three hours. Even if we have
Speaker 13: different language barriers. It's just very beautiful culture and people.
Speaker 13: And then I get shot the second day.
Speaker 14: The second day good, yeah, yeah, so second full day,
Speaker 14: and so I think I was the first person shot
Speaker 14: at a demonstration there.
Speaker 13: So people were ready for I guess the usual tear
Speaker 13: gas and live rounds, but I don't think anyone is
Speaker 13: expecting anyone to get shot that day, including me. But yeah,
Speaker 13: so I was healing in the hospital, I heard the
Speaker 13: Israeli army came into Kusra, and you know, we had
Speaker 13: the amount of people we had on the ground, and
Speaker 13: one person had to kind of stay around me. So
Speaker 13: I was scared and feared for my people over there.
Speaker 13: And then another day goes by, the next day after that,
Speaker 13: I'm back in town, and then there was reports of
Speaker 13: a seller that was killed, and then we heard that
Speaker 13: all the settlements there was a call to attack Cusra.
Speaker 13: So right when I get back, we're already on Hylert.
Speaker 13: We're watching making sure nothing was happening. Thankfully, nothing did
Speaker 13: to happen that day, but then, yeah, it happens like
Speaker 13: every other day where either the Israeli army comes in
Speaker 13: or settler's attack in Kusra. We also try to open
Speaker 13: the gate between the town, because the Israeli Army put
Speaker 13: a gate between the town so people can't travel with
Speaker 13: you know, within the town, and we tried opening it,
Speaker 13: but they have the key, and a peaceful demonstration turned
Speaker 13: into the IDF or the IOF coming with like twelve
Speaker 13: soldiers intimidating folks, loading up some kind of automatic weapon
Speaker 13: pointing tear gas. At a few days after that, they
Speaker 13: came into town at night shot up the town. A
Speaker 13: few days after that, Israeli army was guarding settlers really
Speaker 13: close to town, were actually in town.
Speaker 12: And then a couple.
Speaker 13: Of days after that too, I think one of the
Speaker 13: last days I was there, they raided the town. They
Speaker 13: shot like twelve tear gas canisters like two to three,
Speaker 13: like flash bangs, and then like three live rounds and
Speaker 13: they shot a boy in the back. Thankfully he's also okay.
Speaker 13: And then after I left, settlers attacked international volunteers, US
Speaker 13: citizens as well with rocks and Dioeft shot like five
Speaker 13: other Palestinians as well.
Speaker 12: So it's just continual violence. You know. What I faced
Speaker 12: that one day is what they face every day.
Speaker 11: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like they go and get to
Speaker 11: go home like it it's at home. Can you explain
Speaker 11: for people who aren't familiar, right? I think a lot
Speaker 11: of people have come into solidarity with Palestine in the
Speaker 11: last eleven months, which is fine. You don't have to
Speaker 11: know like textbooks of history to be like genocide is bad.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 11: So, like you're in the West Bank, right, can you
Speaker 11: explain where that lies in relation to Gaza and what
Speaker 11: is happening in the West Bank, especially right now in
Speaker 11: the last few days and weeks. That is extremely concerning
Speaker 11: and I don't know how to fred it like terrible.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 13: So the decimation of Gaza on Israel's end is a
Speaker 13: response to October seventh escalation, even though October seventh was
Speaker 13: a response to, however, many decades of oppression that they've faced.
Speaker 13: So Gaza is being decimated, but Israel wants more land,
Speaker 13: the greater Israel that they've been advertising. Settlers want to
Speaker 13: move into Gaza. Settlers want to continue to move into
Speaker 13: West Bank, the West Bank. Also from reports, Israel gave
Speaker 13: authority or something of being able to get more land,
Speaker 13: which is Palestinian land. So what kind of authority do
Speaker 13: they have over that all the legal settlements, But they're
Speaker 13: trying to just take all the land that they can get,
Speaker 13: whether it's in Gaza, whether it's in West Bank. So
Speaker 13: they're obviously connected because it is Palestine. But now they're
Speaker 13: just going into the West Bank because there's further resistance
Speaker 13: now as well, and there has always been just a
Speaker 13: lot more quiet than Gaza at the moment because I
Speaker 13: guess of the government that's over them in Palestinian authority.
Speaker 13: But yeah, it's all connected and they want to just
Speaker 13: squash any kind of resistance there is, whether it's in
Speaker 13: the West Bank and Gaza, as well as just trying
Speaker 13: to take as much land as possible before international intervention happens,
Speaker 13: which we haven't seen because the US continues to supply
Speaker 13: weapons and arms to Israel.
Speaker 11: Yeah, apparently what happened to you isn't going to stop
Speaker 11: that like nothing else is, I know, what is just
Speaker 11: for people who aren't familiar, the West Banks are much
Speaker 11: larger geographical area.
Speaker 8: Bank refers to the Jordan River.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 11: Setl colonialism is a term that people are familiar with, right, like,
Speaker 11: and it happens, it's not. I'm not saying it doesn't
Speaker 11: happen in America because it still happens every day. Like there,
Speaker 11: It's a process that we continue to create. It's not
Speaker 11: one that stops in nineteenth century, right. I don't want
Speaker 11: imply that, but like where you were is the bleeding
Speaker 11: edge of Setla colonialism.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 11: It's a family being kicked out of their house. It's
Speaker 11: people not being allowed to go back to their homes.
Speaker 11: Do you have a sense of like what does that
Speaker 11: look like? Because it's incredibly violent, right, and incredibly inhumane.
Speaker 11: No reasonable person would think that like, oh yeah, this
Speaker 11: seems normal and cool. Can you explain, like perhaps how
Speaker 11: that would appear for one family or for the farm
Speaker 11: or the village.
Speaker 13: So in Kusra, there has been a good amount of
Speaker 13: resistance even before October seventh from the leaders.
Speaker 12: There and the community.
Speaker 13: But even with that, three months before it looked like
Speaker 13: settlers coming into town, a whole wave of them burning
Speaker 13: eleven houses.
Speaker 12: I believe it was cars.
Speaker 13: Attacking people with Israeli army there not stopping anything. I
Speaker 13: believe it was Muskvaryata, where other activists are, where they
Speaker 13: literally come to the land say this is ours, try
Speaker 13: to destroy instructure.
Speaker 12: Like water wells.
Speaker 13: They come in and literally say God told me this
Speaker 13: is my land, and I'm here and try to settle there.
Speaker 13: There's I guess I saw a place where the Israeli
Speaker 13: occupation forces would guard around a mosque, not for the
Speaker 13: Muslims there, but for settlers to come in and pretty
Speaker 13: much making a synagogue for however long.
Speaker 12: It looks like someone coming in and claiming.
Speaker 13: That your home is theirs and destroying any infrastructure so
Speaker 13: you don't come back, whether it's the home, the streets, water,
Speaker 13: whatever it is.
Speaker 10: Yeah, I keep thinking about like one, how much it
Speaker 10: didn't matter that you were American. But I keep thinking
Speaker 10: about Rachel cor and how maybe that was the most
Speaker 10: like egregious recent example I can think of of an
Speaker 10: American citizen. I think she was twenty three when she died,
Speaker 10: got run over by a fucking bulldozer from the iof
Speaker 10: nothing happened. Her parents are still trying to remind the
Speaker 10: world what happened, like year after year, and so it's
Speaker 10: not surprising to me that no one reached out to
Speaker 10: you and that there is no outrage. But it's just
Speaker 10: really frustrating that it really doesn't matter, like it you
Speaker 10: could have, like you could have lost your life and
Speaker 10: no one would have bad an eye in government. Like
Speaker 10: it really really just makes my blood boil because it's
Speaker 10: I don't know, That's what I've been thinking about for
Speaker 10: a tiny bit. It just reminded me of that and
Speaker 10: how there's a protection being American where you're on the
Speaker 10: ground in Palestine at all.
Speaker 13: Yeah, when we're there, our power comes from having a
Speaker 13: passport somewhere else and our phone. Right why we go
Speaker 13: there to volunteer to create a buffer between the Israeli
Speaker 13: army settlers and the Palestinians. And it shows their complete
Speaker 13: disregard the caveat there is that they said it was
Speaker 13: a mistake, which they went straight through my leg, So
Speaker 13: I don't know what kind of mistake goes straight through
Speaker 13: my leg. But also someone was arrested and heard that
Speaker 13: they thought I was Palestinian, So it just shows even
Speaker 13: more so the complete disregard for Palestinian life, whether they
Speaker 13: thought I was or not, that they would just shoot me.
Speaker 13: And yes, there was two US citizens that were recently
Speaker 13: attacked by settlers and the IOF did not do anything,
Speaker 13: you know, only a little bit after they said, you know,
Speaker 13: stop throwing rocks, but the damage is done. Yeah, our
Speaker 13: government has complete disregard for Palestinian lives because there was
Speaker 13: also a lot of Palestinian Americans that have been dead. Ye,
Speaker 13: and our lives are my life or others that are
Speaker 13: just American with another nationality have you know, I guess
Speaker 13: a little bit more value in their eyes. But because
Speaker 13: they don't want outrage, international outrage. But yeah, our government
Speaker 13: they haven't reached out to me, which showcases that they
Speaker 13: don't care about US citizens that support Palestine. Even Biden
Speaker 13: said that, you know, if a US citizen got hurt,
Speaker 13: you would do something, and nothing has happened.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 11: Yeah, I think it's kind of illustrative, right, Like we're
Speaker 11: supposed to live in a democracy, and like here they
Speaker 11: are like choosing the interests of a state to do
Speaker 11: what is extremely clearly and like it's very widely agreed
Speaker 11: upon illegal, and to do so in a genocilal manner,
Speaker 11: and they're going to back that over your right to
Speaker 11: not be shot in the leg.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 10: I do think it's it's funny maybe that's not the
Speaker 10: right word, but the fact that they thought you were
Speaker 10: a Palestinian, as if that was a good enough excuse
Speaker 10: to shoot.
Speaker 8: Yeah yeah, yeah, oh oh oh.
Speaker 10: That explains it, of course, Like okay, sure that makes
Speaker 10: me so so mad.
Speaker 11: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, God, we mistook that person for a
Speaker 11: person whose life doesn't matter.
Speaker 10: Like, yeah, it's shameful.
Speaker 8: You know what, you're really giving it away?
Speaker 11: Yeah, And I think, like, I know, it seemed to
Speaker 11: me that our government is not going to solve this, right,
Speaker 11: like it realistically in the election, you know, there are
Speaker 11: third parties and stuff. I'm going to vote for someone
Speaker 11: who said nice things about a Sade, but like, you
Speaker 11: don't have a box you can take that will make
Speaker 11: this stop in November, right, And the only way we
Speaker 11: can do anything is with solidarity. So like, what do
Speaker 11: people do? Like how you've been there, you've seen it, Like,
Speaker 11: how do people most effectively be in solidarity?
Speaker 9: Yeah?
Speaker 13: I think the biggest thing is national pressure that we've
Speaker 13: seen all across the globe, which has showcased some results
Speaker 13: in other countries not here, where arms exports are actually
Speaker 13: at least some are being banned or restricted all together.
Speaker 13: But here, I think it's continuing to build up anti
Speaker 13: impeerless organizations like on By and like the many pro
Speaker 13: Palestinian organizations, like many revolutionary Black organizations, and then uniting
Speaker 13: and come in together to create a power that is
Speaker 13: beyond the two party system and uniting with everyone that
Speaker 13: is pro Palestinian that does want to see true democracy
Speaker 13: in the United States and all across the globe. Because
Speaker 13: I was one person and people call me a hero,
Speaker 13: but for me, the Palestines face this every day, the heroes,
Speaker 13: and we should be uniting to support them in their liberation.
Speaker 13: And sometimes it looks like building those organizations. Sometimes it
Speaker 13: also looks like going to Palestine and joining things like FAZA,
Speaker 13: like International Solidarity Mission to you know, be a buffer
Speaker 13: as much as we can, even though it's showcased that
Speaker 13: they don't care. And I think when we unify, we
Speaker 13: would be able to pressure, especially when we have good organizations,
Speaker 13: to pressure elected officials to really divest from the two
Speaker 13: party system and people that support genocide and have that
Speaker 13: pressure amount to more than the lobby for Israel or
Speaker 13: you know, people lobbying for arms for Israel, to have
Speaker 13: that outweigh the pressure financially that they have politicians.
Speaker 10: Yeah, that's very informative and really appreciate sharing your experience. Yeah,
Speaker 10: thank you for all the work you do.
Speaker 11: People might want to support your healing, they might want
Speaker 11: to support father, they might want to support international diary mission,
Speaker 11: they might want to find out more about how they
Speaker 11: can be that buffer. Do you have any suggestions on
Speaker 11: where people could do any of those or all of
Speaker 11: those things.
Speaker 13: Oh, I don't have a personal fund right now, which
Speaker 13: is fine going back to work teaching, but there are
Speaker 13: people that need funds to be able to participate, especially
Speaker 13: during the all of the harvest. So following a Faza
Speaker 13: faz three a underscore pa L is somewhere to follow,
Speaker 13: as well as Defend Palestine dot org. They're both connected,
Speaker 13: so you can follow the news on what's happening on
Speaker 13: the ground as well as I believe contacting them. There's
Speaker 13: a general fund for folks that want to travel to
Speaker 13: Palestine but are not able to, so there's a general
Speaker 13: fun for that in the future. My friend was going
Speaker 13: to make a T shirt to help fund the Palestinian
Speaker 13: Ambulance Center over there that I got a first aid
Speaker 13: training with Amado Sison on there. So I don't know
Speaker 13: if it'll work here, but over there desnin'tly. So there's
Speaker 13: a lot of different things. I know there's the different
Speaker 13: camps that are being raided right now. I think there's
Speaker 13: some fundraisers for them as well. In Gaza there's plenty too.
Speaker 13: But in any way that people can contribute to any
Speaker 13: of those things, you know, it always goes a long
Speaker 13: way for them.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and that's pretty great.
Speaker 11: Thank you, Tarantia. You wanted to say to people a
Speaker 11: mother before we finish up.
Speaker 13: Yeah, I hope that one day, folks, persons listening right now,
Speaker 13: if you're capable and able to join up to see
Speaker 13: the beauty of Palestine. The landscape, it's gorgeous outside of
Speaker 13: the settlement. The people are so loving and caring, and
Speaker 13: the culture is just amazing. And I just hope that
Speaker 13: you will be able to see Palestine one day, whether
Speaker 13: it is to be in solidarity with them as a
Speaker 13: protective presence or just to see it. And hopefully one
Speaker 13: day in Shallah it's free and we are all.
Speaker 12: Able to visit.
Speaker 2: So hey, we'll be back Monday with more episodes every
Speaker 2: week from now until the heat death of the Universe.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 10: Thanks for listening.