Speaker 1: All the media, Hello, and welcome to it could happen here.
Speaker 1: I'm Andrew Siege as soon as andrewism on YouTube, and
Speaker 1: I'm here with it's James, And honestly I shouldn't see
Speaker 1: welcome to it could happen. Yeah, I should really see
Speaker 1: welcome to it is happening here, because I mean, just
Speaker 1: just a second with you, James, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: You're safe?
Speaker 3: I'm okay, yeah, I'm safe right now. We are living
Speaker 3: through wild times in the United States. Every day is
Speaker 3: a new hell.
Speaker 1: Indeed, indeed, and although I'm not in the US, the
Speaker 1: flames of that hell definitely lick the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: In weis big as tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they definitely do. I was just talking to people
Speaker 3: in Syria yesterday and like the alavis Ala white when
Speaker 3: everyone call our levies, if you want to say it,
Speaker 3: are facing quite substantial persecution currently and like one of
Speaker 3: the larger refugee accepting countries in the world isn't doing
Speaker 3: that anymore unless you're a white South African of course,
Speaker 3: and like that has these massive trickle down effects for everywhere.
Speaker 3: It's just one example of how America so goes, the
Speaker 3: US so goes, the world.
Speaker 1: You know, indeed, indeed, and not just in Syria, are
Speaker 1: the flavors of conflict tearing up with the part I
Speaker 1: think most people I now know what the situation in Palestine,
Speaker 1: the way that Israel was carrying on to genocide there.
Speaker 1: You know, the Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the civil war
Speaker 1: in Myanmar, in Sudan, the you know, struggle between India
Speaker 1: and Pakistan over Kashmir and the kashmir people who are
Speaker 1: you know, left on the on the wayside. You know,
Speaker 1: the Tamil genocide yep, taking place in in Sri Lanka.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many things happening across the world
Speaker 1: right now, it's really difficult.
Speaker 2: To keep up.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The friends in Meanma would prefer the framing of
Speaker 3: revolution to civil war. They're pretty explicit about that.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, you're right, you're right, you're right, I should
Speaker 1: be using that terminology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not appropriate everywhere, but in their case, there
Speaker 3: has been a civil war since forty eight, and it's
Speaker 3: a substantial change with the twenty twenty one revolution.
Speaker 1: Right, right, right, right, Yeah, thank you for that correction. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, I think now is a really good time
Speaker 1: to have a general almost strategic discussion on anti war struggle.
Speaker 1: And so today I really want to look at how
Speaker 1: we can come to the propaganda around war, the actions
Speaker 1: that are possible to take against militarism at home, and
Speaker 1: how we can build solidarity across.
Speaker 2: Oceans and borders.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so to understand how to actually against war, we
Speaker 1: first need to agitate against militarism.
Speaker 2: And fosse who don't know.
Speaker 1: Militarism is the belief or policy that the nation should
Speaker 1: maintain a strong military and we prepare to use it
Speaker 1: aggressively to defend or promote its interests. That involves glorifying
Speaker 1: military vish use and ideals and prioritizing military strength and
Speaker 1: readiness above other aspects of society. So it's a basic
Speaker 1: Google definition. My copy of the Anarchist Encyclopedia is the
Speaker 1: English version, which is aberged sadly, but the original French
Speaker 1: has the full unabridged Anarchist Encyclopedia. So with a bit
Speaker 1: of shaky online translation magic and managed to pull its
Speaker 1: definition of militarism as well. Miltarism is a system that
Speaker 1: consists of having and maintaining military personnel. It's essential and
Speaker 1: avolt goal is a preparation for war, the recruitment of
Speaker 1: a standing army, in the organization of the cajuris of
Speaker 1: reserve army, the accumulation, the putting in place, the maintenance
Speaker 1: in a state of service of ever more modern, more
Speaker 1: perfected war material. In short, it is the preliminary organization
Speaker 1: of war. What are the implications of that, Well, all
Speaker 1: over the world I think we can see, you know,
Speaker 1: the consequences of statism, the might makes right, pursuit of conquest,
Speaker 1: the fighting wars abroad at home for the strategic interests,
Speaker 1: ideological commitments, resource claims, whatever the case may be. The
Speaker 1: rivalries within the rule in class, and how that pleas out,
Speaker 1: and how it's that that blows back on all of
Speaker 1: our faces, you know, the profits the military industrial complex
Speaker 1: which keeps this whole system chewing on, you know, the
Speaker 1: blood of innocence, of course, the longstanding consequences and continued
Speaker 1: work of colonialism. And of course, the way is that
Speaker 1: militarism gets turned inward with this suppression of strikes, of activism,
Speaker 1: of popular unrest. When the now militarized police aren't enough,
Speaker 1: they often bring in the military itself and reports with
Speaker 1: militarism you also have the narrative component, you know, the
Speaker 1: building of patriotism that so plans the seed of fascism.
Speaker 1: States can survive without military is true. The state typically
Speaker 1: to ends upon some effort or some attempt at monopoly
Speaker 1: on the legitimate use of violence within the territory by
Speaker 1: some definitions. But the states which do not have militaries
Speaker 1: often can do so because they've outsourced their military functions
Speaker 1: to another state, and or because they have other systems
Speaker 1: in place to control descent, to develop a certain degree
Speaker 1: of social condition and pacify the population.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to think of states of the militaries,
Speaker 3: like in my experience, I guess you have like the
Speaker 3: Panama right, doesn't have a military. It has the Center Front,
Speaker 3: which are like the frontier protection, I guess, but essentially
Speaker 3: like a militarized border patrol. And they do have marines
Speaker 3: and stuff as well, I guess, so they kind of
Speaker 3: do have a military, but it's a kind of a
Speaker 3: renaming exercise more than anything.
Speaker 1: Indeed, the same thing of having a militarized police, but
Speaker 1: it's not a military technically, yeah, or having a militarized
Speaker 1: coast guard and it's not a military technically you.
Speaker 3: Know, yeah, yeah, you have the countries they republic the
Speaker 3: Marshall Islands, which just outsources its its militarization to the
Speaker 3: United States, right like the US. Well, I think that
Speaker 3: is a distinct thing. People in the Marshall Islands have
Speaker 3: seen the horrors of war very closely and also the
Speaker 3: dangers of militarization, right like, the United States nuked the
Speaker 3: Marshall Islands a country with which it had no quarrel
Speaker 3: with which it was not at war, just to practice
Speaker 3: in case it needed to innuk a country with which
Speaker 3: it did have a quarrel. I guess the legacy of
Speaker 3: that is very obvious and continues to this day there.
Speaker 3: But if marshal Ly's people wish to join a military,
Speaker 3: they can join the US military, and the US guarantees
Speaker 3: their security and theory that it's it's yeah, it is
Speaker 3: a distinct. For instance, if you joined the US military
Speaker 3: in the Marshall Islands wish to access your veterans benefits,
Speaker 3: the easiest way to do so is take a five
Speaker 3: hour flight to Hawaii. Like, they don't have any any
Speaker 3: any benefits for actual veterans there, So I guess in
Speaker 3: that case, like maybe it does give people a different
Speaker 3: relationship to like state violent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's I mean obviously different places to have different
Speaker 1: histories as to how they came to those arrangements. But
Speaker 1: you definitely see a relationship between colonialism and the outsourcing
Speaker 1: of military functions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: Now, historically anarchists have been anti militarists. The encyclopedias call
Speaker 1: this aspect of the anarchist struggle. The aim to disqualifying militarism,
Speaker 1: to denounce it's terrible and painful consequences, to combat the
Speaker 1: warlike and bar expert, distigmatize and dishonor war, to abolish
Speaker 1: the regime of the armies. So abolition militarism looks like
Speaker 1: material relief from the oppression military violence, the redirection of
Speaker 1: resources that go toward military toward instead things that actually
Speaker 1: benefit the lives of everyday people, you know, the reduction
Speaker 1: of pain and suffering throughout the world, the abolition of borders,
Speaker 1: which so often are the motivating force behind military exercise.
Speaker 1: And while no anarki so deny that armed strugglers necessary
Speaker 1: for defense, it's not the same as having an imperialistic
Speaker 1: or hierarchical ambition towards you know, power, over towards dominating
Speaker 1: our populations of people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this reminds me of the discussion that happened in
Speaker 3: the CNT and Spain in the nineteen thirties previous to
Speaker 3: the Civil War, even before that, right where they there
Speaker 3: was a very profound and obvious discussion on how to
Speaker 3: defend their evolution, how to defend communities whilst maintaining anti militarism.
Speaker 3: And that's why we didn't see like that was not
Speaker 3: a like standing army. Beyond you had affinity groups, right,
Speaker 3: and then you had like defense committees of six six
Speaker 3: to eight people, and those people like took on the
Speaker 3: role of organizing for a potential violent like in order
Speaker 3: to defend the community, right, like to use violence to
Speaker 3: defend the community against violence. But even as it became
Speaker 3: clearer and clearer that Spain was like spiraling towards conflict,
Speaker 3: they resisted the idea of establishing and I think more
Speaker 3: militarized than that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think so what it's been a really
Speaker 1: good place to look at first way, some experiments or
Speaker 1: efforts or ideas would have played out, Strategies would have
Speaker 1: played out, and I think it's really important to take
Speaker 1: those experiments and see how we can iterate on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and build upon them, because I mean what I've always
Speaker 1: admired that we've carried on this anti militarist torch. It's
Speaker 1: very important to remember the landscape US changed from war
Speaker 1: times past. You know, we're not in World War times anymore. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, the strategies and the discussions and the approaches
Speaker 1: that may have worked back then, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2: In the same way now.
Speaker 1: You don't even have to declare war officially anymore. In
Speaker 1: this day and age. You can just say that, oh,
Speaker 1: you're doing a special military operation, or you can just
Speaker 1: send billions of dollars of aid to a country that
Speaker 1: you want to support, and even troops to the countries
Speaker 1: want to support, and technically you have un declared warrior.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, not only that, you also get to
Speaker 1: unleash generational trauma and poison upon generations of people. But
Speaker 1: it's okay because you're going after some terrorists. You know,
Speaker 1: you just get to push money and supplies towards this
Speaker 1: camp or that, and whether the US is concerned and
Speaker 1: at least used to have to seek congressional approval, but
Speaker 1: as we see, that's not really a thing. Now, especially
Speaker 1: post nine eleven. You know, back in the day, people
Speaker 1: thought putting pressure on the elected officials through protest for
Speaker 1: being a and you know, there's a the b to
Speaker 1: be had to the extent to which that worked for
Speaker 1: situations like the Vietamo. But as we've seen with this
Speaker 1: song and Dance again and again and again, the protests
Speaker 1: are not hitting like they used to. You know, the
Speaker 1: response to the protest has been so it's routine at
Speaker 1: this point. You know, you just send the police to
Speaker 1: bash some heads in or a bat to get the
Speaker 1: military because the movers and the shakers on the people
Speaker 1: who can actually be reached with these protests, you know,
Speaker 1: and no matter how peaceful we proclaim our protests to be,
Speaker 1: we're talking about moneyed interests here, you know, a military
Speaker 1: industrial complex that has to have line go up. You
Speaker 1: know who who doesn't have to give a damn about
Speaker 1: some people walking on the road. You know, the system
Speaker 1: has grown since the nineteen tens, the nineteen fourteen is
Speaker 1: it has grown in such size and complexity to the
Speaker 1: point where you know, you don't have to care necessarily
Speaker 1: about a single movement, but about a single action and
Speaker 1: a protest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the two kind of combine and like what
Speaker 3: we're seeing in the United Kingdom right now, right like
Speaker 3: there's the complete dismissal of protests and this like I'm
Speaker 3: thinking a better word than imprecise, but like the vagueness
Speaker 3: of the definition of terrorism has allowed the government of
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom, in combination with the absence of a
Speaker 3: Bill of Rights in the United Kingdom, right to just
Speaker 3: be like, oh, Palestine Action and terrorists like you are
Speaker 3: the same as the Islamic State because Palestine Action undertook
Speaker 3: it in non violent direct action, right, But it's ludicrous
Speaker 3: to suggest that that that was terrorism and that it
Speaker 3: doesn't mean any reasonable definition of the term. But yet
Speaker 3: we're in a stage now where governments can declare anyone
Speaker 3: the enemy without any particular oversight. And that's the logical
Speaker 3: conclusion of two decades of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, to an extent, that has always been
Speaker 1: the case. I think what's different now is that they're
Speaker 1: not even really attempting to hide behind any sort of
Speaker 1: consistent principles or consistent standards, you know, because even back
Speaker 1: back then, you know, the artists are being called terrorists
Speaker 1: and being mm hmm true, you know, chastised for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess also, like our class system is more
Speaker 3: entrenched than it ever has been in a sense, I'm
Speaker 3: just thinking, like, wars are not fought by the mass
Speaker 3: of middle class. And like the people who become senators
Speaker 3: for the most part, right, I mean, in the US
Speaker 3: of Downs, senators will have done military service. It can
Speaker 3: sort of boost their career opportunities. I get that, But
Speaker 3: like it is not for the most part, the sons
Speaker 3: of the of the people who who start the wars
Speaker 3: who die in the wars. Right, it's indeed people of
Speaker 3: a different class in a way that even in a
Speaker 3: distinct way from the era of the World wars, right
Speaker 3: when and when large numbers of people of the middle class,
Speaker 3: especially maybe not the very privileged people that like did
Speaker 3: die in those wars. And I think like the memory
Speaker 3: of the First World War probably did have some impact
Speaker 3: on like the reticence of some politicians to dive into
Speaker 3: the second one. But we don't really have that now.
Speaker 1: Indeed, so we criticize this particular approach of the protest
Speaker 1: and I know that the inevitable question is, so what
Speaker 1: can we even do at this point? And you know
Speaker 1: this is why I consider it very important to take
Speaker 1: a step back and look at what is actually keeping
Speaker 1: the system going right, and what's keeping the system going
Speaker 1: is and it's always been labor. Right, not to say
Speaker 1: that labor and labor struggles to be all and all
Speaker 1: of our politics, but it is to say that if
Speaker 1: we want to make a significant impact, that is what
Speaker 1: we have the greatest control over our labor. And so
Speaker 1: when I talk about things we can do to affect change,
Speaker 1: I always had to take it back to the ongoing
Speaker 1: process of social revolution. The things you do to oppose
Speaker 1: and of things you do to propose, you know, on
Speaker 1: the opposing side of things, that includes counter messaging. You know,
Speaker 1: even though we may not have the resources of mainstream
Speaker 1: media or government communications, we have weight of mouth, we
Speaker 1: have trust between ourselves, and we have alternative media that
Speaker 1: can be, especially in this day and age, just as
Speaker 1: powerful if sparked right, Especially considering the fact that the
Speaker 1: general sentiment, the populist sentiment, has, whether coming from a
Speaker 1: leftist direction or a right dist direction, the general sentiment
Speaker 1: has been moving toward anti establishment politics. The anti establishment
Speaker 1: sort of momentum is what's growing right now. And the
Speaker 1: issue of course being that sometimes that anti established and
Speaker 1: momentum can be hijacked, such as what Trump did you
Speaker 1: know to get himself elected the first time he rode
Speaker 1: that wave and you know, this whole Epstein situation, we
Speaker 1: may see that foundation of his base potentially crumbling.
Speaker 2: A part of it.
Speaker 1: But we have to look at what is actually motivating
Speaker 1: people right now and how they can be reached. An
Speaker 1: alternative media with an anti establishment message message is I
Speaker 1: think one of the better ways to do so. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, wherever you see it, it needs to be
Speaker 1: out there, you know, on social media or through other
Speaker 1: avenues calling out the ridiculous Cassius bellies used to manufacture
Speaker 1: consent for you know, to be wary of potential forced
Speaker 1: flags can be used as a justification for military action
Speaker 1: to consistently poor calls in the narratives that have allowed
Speaker 1: you know, nationalists and and xenophobic sentiments to become the
Speaker 1: force that they have become today. And of course even
Speaker 1: engaged in that messaging. Of course, try not to let
Speaker 1: campus on infect your counter message in either. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: that's how you get people who are you know, they gung,
Speaker 1: who are about a free Palestine, and then they start when
Speaker 1: they ask them about Ukraine all of a sudden, it's
Speaker 1: actually really complicated. It's actually the fault of the US
Speaker 1: and the EU and need to and not Russia, even
Speaker 1: though Russia is the one who actually invaded and is
Speaker 1: actively killing people and this strial infra short as we speak. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: I mean there's conversation to be had about the US
Speaker 1: and what's the EU, and about NATO obviously, but it's
Speaker 1: very clear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very uncomplicated.
Speaker 1: Who's actually killing people right now?
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, there is one country which is taking
Speaker 3: the children right and trying to like re educate them
Speaker 3: give them to families, in Russia, which is committing murders
Speaker 3: of civilians. Like, we don't have to resort to like
Speaker 3: ten year geopolitical trajectories to say that it's wrong and
Speaker 3: it should be opposed exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And also I want to make this point about counter
Speaker 1: messaging because it's a consistent gripe I've had, In fact,
Speaker 1: one of the main reasons I started my channel in
Speaker 1: the first place. With your comment message in whether it's
Speaker 1: in person or on the Internet or wherever, don't stay
Speaker 1: perpetually on the back foot, you know, the words, don't
Speaker 1: just counter message. Yeah, you know right now, and it's
Speaker 1: what irritates me so much. The right wing sets the conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you have people they say, oh, we want
Speaker 1: to talk about critical race theory, and then everybody's talking
Speaker 1: about critical rais theory because they talk to where they
Speaker 1: want to target trans people, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: we have to scrabble to respond to all their erroneous
Speaker 1: and ridiculous claims about trans people. Yeah, that comment message
Speaker 1: is an important, is important, but it cannot be all
Speaker 1: that we do, right Yeah, and this is a bit
Speaker 1: how to that feel. But you know, of course I'm
Speaker 1: not the one who is partiality liketoral approaches. But you
Speaker 1: can see some of that not just counter message in
Speaker 1: but also actively messaging taking place with Zora Mum Danny's strategy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, when you look at how he speaks, how
Speaker 1: he addresses some of.
Speaker 2: The badly the doarguments are made against him.
Speaker 1: His rhetorical strength and popularity in part lies on his
Speaker 1: refusal to carry on the conversation on the enemies too,
Speaker 1: you know, so they will go at him for something
Speaker 1: and he's going to spit it right back around to
Speaker 1: talking about the things that it's just really master to
Speaker 1: people to set the conversation to get people to respond
Speaker 1: to that, because all other responses toward him have been
Speaker 1: trying to distract from his actual message in and his
Speaker 1: ability to steal on message is something I find really admirable,
Speaker 1: despite you know, my concerns about the vestment of energy
Speaker 1: and electoral strategies.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, there are certain things we can
Speaker 3: admire about those people if we don't agree with everything.
Speaker 3: And I do think like in that sense something I
Speaker 3: think about a lot with like messaging and countermessaging, especially
Speaker 3: around war. It's like I've spent some time in the
Speaker 3: Anes and what people call Java, and like one of
Speaker 3: the framings that I've consistently seen, and it's mostly in
Speaker 3: like the Libleaning mass media, I guess, is that people
Speaker 3: went to Rajaba to fight against Is or Dash or Isis,
Speaker 3: whatever you want to call it, right, and like in
Speaker 3: doing so, that is how the revolutionary Jarba is not
Speaker 3: understood by most people, right, and they have taken the
Speaker 3: power away from it in their framing of it, because
Speaker 3: people didn't just go. Some people did go justify I
Speaker 3: right that there they went because they saw what I
Speaker 3: was doing. They understood its inhumane and they wanted that
Speaker 3: to stop, and that's admirable. But people also went because
Speaker 3: they saw what people were building in Rajava and they
Speaker 3: thought that was beautiful and they wanted to defend it,
Speaker 3: and that's admirable too. And sometimes the messaging around specifically
Speaker 3: ra Java, Mia and Mar to an extent right their
Speaker 3: international volunteers there too, and of course that like folks
Speaker 3: from the AMMA who have picked up weapons who never
Speaker 3: thought they would, and they didn't just do it to
Speaker 3: oppose the hunter. They did it because like in there,
Speaker 3: despite all the horrible things about war then and like
Speaker 3: it should be avoided at all costs. In the conflict,
Speaker 3: they have built liberated spaces and they've experienced freedom and
Speaker 3: they have experienced how that feels, and they've built a
Speaker 3: revolution that is beautiful in spite of the war, not
Speaker 3: because of it, and they want to defend that. And
Speaker 3: I think that's a messaging that we should we should consider, right,
Speaker 3: because the messaging that everything has to be against something
Speaker 3: bad always sort of it presupposes so that there can't
Speaker 3: have been something good, and in some cases there has
Speaker 3: been something good, and like we won't fully understand what
Speaker 3: was happening there unless we understand that, and I think
Speaker 3: we should push back on that messaging what we see it,
Speaker 3: especially in the great legacy media.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely, and that really connects to the you know,
Speaker 1: the other aspect of the social revolution paradigm, because it's
Speaker 1: not just about opposing and so it's proposing that that's
Speaker 1: something different. Yeah, and that is often far more energizing
Speaker 1: and then simply talking about everything that's wrong.
Speaker 2: With the world. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: And I think also for those who maybe have concerns
Speaker 1: about the risks of oppositional messaging, there's another area where
Speaker 1: you can direct your energy to support the opposition without
Speaker 1: necessarily actively being involved in it, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: not enough to just oppose the system. You have to
Speaker 1: build something else, and you could be part of that
Speaker 1: building something else, you know, swim a message and you
Speaker 1: want to be able to readirect people's energies to the
Speaker 1: actual frustrations and interests, you know, to re center the
Speaker 1: conflicting the lens on the actual divisions of society, such
Speaker 1: as class, to make moneyed interests known. And you know,
Speaker 1: even though it's never been easy to be anti war,
Speaker 1: you know, especially in the center of empire, and in
Speaker 1: many ways technologies is today have empowered much greater repression.
Speaker 1: You know, in Russia, individual and mass protests are met
Speaker 1: with severe oppression, massive finds, geo sentences, et cetera. In
Speaker 1: the US you can face police brutality, censorship, even deportation.
Speaker 1: And in Israel, I haven't seen or heard anything from
Speaker 1: the Israeli populus in terms of resisting what Israel is
Speaker 1: doing to the Palestinians. But I know that those who
Speaker 1: do stand against the mandatory conscription do face jail time
Speaker 1: for their refusal. So it's not easy to be anti war,
Speaker 1: especially in militarized and empire building territories. I get that
Speaker 1: stress and that worry that opposition is still necessary, but
Speaker 1: there's other things.
Speaker 2: But we can we do it than just messaging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there are things that take on less risk,
Speaker 1: such as building an alternative, and there are things that
Speaker 1: take on more risk. Now protests, even peaceful protests, are
Speaker 1: no longer risk free, endeavers. And I know when most
Speaker 1: people hear what you know, we need to push back,
Speaker 1: they hear, okay, let's organize a protest. Honestly, we could
Speaker 1: use a bit more imagination in this day and age,
Speaker 1: Like I said, the protest is not hitting like it
Speaker 1: used to. It's become like a pressure valve or a
Speaker 1: tool of path it that could be tolerated for a
Speaker 1: time and then met with repression the moment it's time
Speaker 1: to wrap it up. And they have a couple of
Speaker 1: reasons why protests are not you know, able to do
Speaker 1: as much. You know, they have the moneyed interests. You know,
Speaker 1: they can end up being divided according to various arguments
Speaker 1: of a strategy. And I'm sorry to say this, but
Speaker 1: protests as of late it haven't accomplished very much besides
Speaker 1: getting people mutilated or jailed or worse in the past
Speaker 1: few years. And in fact, a lot of the resources
Speaker 1: that could be spent you know, building alternatives are being
Speaker 1: spent instead on you know, paying people's bonds and getting
Speaker 1: people out of jail, prison relief, that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Not to say those things are not necessary, you know,
Speaker 1: don't don't leave your comrades to trot and jail. But
Speaker 1: I think we need to consider the free data that
Speaker 1: we've basically been giving away to through laying class in
Speaker 1: the form of pictures, names, addresses, identifying data that they
Speaker 1: can be used to repress or just erupt or infiltrate
Speaker 1: protesters and protesting organizations down the line, as James Herod
Speaker 1: and s another James. As James Herod wrote in the
Speaker 1: Weakness of our politics of protest, we have been getting
Speaker 1: some of these critiques of protests from He says, thus,
Speaker 1: instead of powerfully concentrate in our mental and physical energies
Speaker 1: on solving this problem, to eliminate this obstacle to defeating capitalism,
Speaker 1: we are taking to the streets once again merely protested,
Speaker 1: merely incasion of what is basically mindless activism. Later, he says,
Speaker 1: it's easy to agree on what to protest against. The
Speaker 1: list of things that needs to be stopped on the
Speaker 1: capitalism is long, so long, in fact, we don't even.
Speaker 2: Need to agree.
Speaker 1: There's plenty to choose from, so just pick something that
Speaker 1: suits you. Perhaps this is why I'm meant so many
Speaker 1: activists got involved in protesting. It's not so easy, though,
Speaker 1: to figure out what we want to replace capitalism with,
Speaker 1: to work out convincing arguments about how it will possibly work.
Speaker 1: And they set about creating such a social world, especially
Speaker 1: since so little energy has been devoted to the task
Speaker 1: end quote. And you know, I get why protests are popular.
Speaker 1: You know, as he says, it has a low barrier
Speaker 1: to entry. You just have to show up. And in
Speaker 1: a society that has been so deliberately atomized were mass
Speaker 1: collective action as we made so difficult, protests has become
Speaker 1: pretty much a very easy avenue to get those things done. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, protests can work in Sydney instances for
Speaker 1: them and any goals, but I think that those uses
Speaker 1: are diminishing day by day in the cost benefits analysis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm just thinking about Like there was a letter
Speaker 3: Georgio World wrote to one of his readers on the
Speaker 3: subject of anti fascism where all were was lamenting that
Speaker 3: the anti fascism that he was encountering in England right
Speaker 3: in between his participation in the Spanish Civil War and
Speaker 3: the Second World War or was always centered on hate
Speaker 3: and like it's sort of an idea. We get the
Speaker 3: two Minutes of Hate later in nineteen eighty four, right,
Speaker 3: but maybe it comes from here, and like it never
Speaker 3: proposed an alternative. It just said it pointed to something.
Speaker 3: It said bad, something I've tried not to do in
Speaker 3: my journalism. Right, It's very often we do this a
Speaker 3: journalists too. We point something and say bad, and we
Speaker 3: don't look for the waste that it could become better.
Speaker 3: And so like protesting can become such an identity for
Speaker 3: people like you see it. I'm just thinking of like
Speaker 3: every time I get sent a link to Instagram, right,
Speaker 3: which is a platform I don't really participate on, but
Speaker 3: I will look at things and they'll be like, oh,
Speaker 3: San Diego protest news, san Diego protester, so Cow protester,
Speaker 3: and like, I think we should resist that being an
Speaker 3: identity because we want to build something beautiful as well
Speaker 3: as oppose what is bad. And if we don't have
Speaker 3: something beautiful to propose, what do we do out there?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Exactly?
Speaker 1: And you know there's room for protests. I don't want
Speaker 1: to give off the impression and that there isn't you know,
Speaker 1: But for all the lovely talk about peaceful protests, that
Speaker 1: works when there's an actual threat backing up those protests.
Speaker 1: You know, you don't just do the peaceful protest. You know,
Speaker 1: Gandhi didn't single handedly win India's independence by marching peacefully.
Speaker 1: You know, there has to be something back, and it's
Speaker 1: up or else It's going to be very easy to ignore.
Speaker 2: And suppress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that protests should not be our
Speaker 1: default right now. They are our default, and I think
Speaker 1: they are better uses of all collective time, energy and resources,
Speaker 1: even though protests are very easy compared to some of
Speaker 1: the things.
Speaker 2: That are more necessary right now.
Speaker 1: You know, but if protest is where you're dead set
Speaker 1: on funneling energy, I would just say that you should
Speaker 1: at least learn d r S strategies. You know, their
Speaker 1: resources online to get some information on that. De arrest strategies,
Speaker 1: you can look it up. But if it's possible, if
Speaker 1: you see the situation playing out, you know, try not
Speaker 1: to sit by and let your comrades get pulled away.
Speaker 1: You know, it is very possible the numbers on your
Speaker 1: side to prevent the police from harassment targets and taken
Speaker 1: away people. You know, there's other stuff you can do
Speaker 1: as well besides protests that I keep alluding to, because
Speaker 1: you know, sadly the media is no longer you know,
Speaker 1: a safe space to share things in depth in some cases.
Speaker 1: But just remember that the key is actual disruption. You know,
Speaker 1: the media will not be with you, it'll be trying
Speaker 1: to manufacture consent on everything that you do. Manufacture consent
Speaker 1: against any action taken on the things that you do.
Speaker 1: And the only way to counteract that is to maintain
Speaker 1: relationships on the ground, to maintain actual local solidarity. Because
Speaker 1: once you have those local relationships, in that local solidarity,
Speaker 1: there's no amount of things that the media can do
Speaker 1: the media could stir up that can vent the people
Speaker 1: who see that you're on their side, see that you're
Speaker 1: stand up for them.
Speaker 2: To turn a gention. Right.
Speaker 1: What problem happens is when you don't have any relationships,
Speaker 1: you don't have any networks, you don't have any community building,
Speaker 1: You just doing stuff. The messaging is unclear.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That's where I think the media could really pounce on that.
Speaker 1: I would also say, you know, sabotage, you know, hit
Speaker 1: their pockets.
Speaker 2: And the main thing.
Speaker 1: The thing that I've been alluded to earlier, is to strike,
Speaker 1: you know, to organize strikes to use ther labor power.
Speaker 1: Worker's power still comes from a participation in production and
Speaker 1: the threat of withdrawing our participation. We have to realize
Speaker 1: that in this time we're living in, even the effectiveness
Speaker 1: of strikes have come under threat in two ways. The
Speaker 1: first way is that the permanence of employment is not
Speaker 1: what it used to be. And with the rise and
Speaker 1: spread of AI, you know, you have to ask yourself
Speaker 1: how long will strike since ITTA in fields be effective anymore.
Speaker 1: You know, I have my doubt that EI will ever
Speaker 1: reach a point where it can replace people. But honestly,
Speaker 1: for a lot of these companies, they don't necessarily care
Speaker 1: about whether it's capable of replacing people or not. They
Speaker 1: will still try and use it to replace people. So
Speaker 1: we have to be cognizant of the fact that this
Speaker 1: is the direction they're pushing things in, and we have
Speaker 1: to be able to stand up against that before we
Speaker 1: reach a point where between AI and you know, the
Speaker 1: nature of temporary work of the gig economy, it becomes
Speaker 1: harder and harder to organize ourselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I've noticed that it's made strikeing
Speaker 1: so difficult and that we have to be aware of,
Speaker 1: is the pacification of the domestication of unions. Right, there
Speaker 1: was a time historically were a powerful, influential revolutionary even
Speaker 1: for us, such as not the case today. Unfortunately. You know,
Speaker 1: they have some legislation put in place that many unions
Speaker 1: are terrified of crossing. Every I has to be dotted,
Speaker 1: every ts to be crossed, and so the things that
Speaker 1: would actually make union action the most effective after the
Speaker 1: things that unions nowadays will refuse to do, sympathy strikes,
Speaker 1: general strikes. And so what can we do if we
Speaker 1: are in an industry where the union is collaboration with management,
Speaker 1: with union is utterly reformist to the union refuses to
Speaker 1: actually step up and represent the people are supposed to
Speaker 1: represent it. And this is where historically wildcat illegalist strikes
Speaker 1: have had to come into play. Strikes that do not
Speaker 1: depend upon legality, that do not sit back and wave permission,
Speaker 1: that carry far more risks, of course, that are far
Speaker 1: more difficult to organize, but are going to be necessary
Speaker 1: if we want to liberate ourselves from this constant capitulation
Speaker 1: toward the machine. In the article Striking against the Work
Speaker 1: War Machine by Jeff Schantz and PJ. Lily, they said,
Speaker 1: quote wartime strikes and sabotage partly because their illegal and
Speaker 1: unsanched of nature bring rank and file workers together outside
Speaker 1: of union structures. Workers have to make crucial decisions about
Speaker 1: for this strike directly in face to face meetings or
Speaker 1: on the picquet lines. Bureaucrats who are left to their
Speaker 1: fundamental role of broken with the bosses can be relegated
Speaker 1: to this sidelines and such situations in Germany in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: illegal strikes help us sweep the union structures right out
Speaker 1: of workplaces. Strikes increasingly took on an anti union as
Speaker 1: well as anti boss character, with wildcats occurring in crowing
Speaker 1: numbers throughout the armor this and beyond. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to of course pull on this example because this is
Speaker 1: not a unique issue. Right Even historically where unions have
Speaker 1: stood against the struggle of workers against more or against
Speaker 1: you know, actually defending the class interests, the rank and
Speaker 1: file have had to organize themselves importantly, So that's also
Speaker 1: something to keep in mind. Yeah, and last but least,
Speaker 1: I just want to see to s ry briefly on
Speaker 1: the proposed side of the social revolution equation when it
Speaker 1: comes to anti war struggle, and as usual, this is
Speaker 1: going to take solidarity materially, not just saying that we
Speaker 1: stand in solidarity with such and such and such, actually
Speaker 1: share an aid, share a notes, supporting refugees and going
Speaker 1: fully the because this, I think is where a lot
Speaker 1: of our energy needs to be right now. Our efforts
Speaker 1: to oppose are going to be for the most part
Speaker 1: to us as long as we don't have an underlying
Speaker 1: structure that we are building upon that be a seeken
Speaker 1: to defend and to spa You know, we are not
Speaker 1: at a position right now where we pose muchever threat yet,
Speaker 1: and we also have to consider that merely posing a
Speaker 1: threat is not going to liberate us by itself. So
Speaker 1: I want you to consider, as we you know, wrap
Speaker 1: up this episode, what you can do to put forward
Speaker 1: that our seriences to actually try to create the new
Speaker 1: social arrangements that we think should replace capitalist statust militarist order.
Speaker 1: And this is something that I talk about on my
Speaker 1: channel of course. I talk about building the commons, building
Speaker 1: alternative media, autentsive economy, and developing our powers, our drives,
Speaker 1: and our consciousness. And so you can check that out
Speaker 1: if you'd like. Unfortunately, this is it is happening here,
Speaker 1: and don't forget you could check out the YouTube, the Patreon,
Speaker 1: et cetera, or Power to all the people Peace.
Speaker 2: It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 3: You listen to podcasts, you can now find sources for
Speaker 3: it could happen here, listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks
Speaker 3: for listening.