Speaker 1: Cool Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People. Did cool stuff? Your
Speaker 2: weekly reminder that I have a podcast, You're twice weekly
Speaker 2: reminder that I have a podcast. I'm your host, Margaret Kiljoy,
Speaker 2: and I have a show, and it's about people who
Speaker 2: do good things from my perspective, and you should just
Speaker 2: all agree with my perspective. That's the whole point of
Speaker 2: the show.
Speaker 3: That's why you're here.
Speaker 1: One of your best intros.
Speaker 2: First, thank you, thank you. And someone who doesn't have
Speaker 2: to agree with my position, but so far we seem
Speaker 2: to be on a similar page is my guest Molly.
Speaker 3: Conger, Hi, Hey, glad to be back.
Speaker 2: And someone who is also on the call and is
Speaker 2: my friend is my producer, Sophie Hi.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 3: Sophie Hi not.
Speaker 2: On the call, but listening before you, dear listener, is
Speaker 2: our audio engineer Eva hi Eva.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, she gets the first listen. What a treat,
Speaker 3: I know, I know, that's first for it. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: uncut file is full of burps.
Speaker 2: Coughs, Yeah, actionable crimes.
Speaker 3: I didn't hear anything like that.
Speaker 2: I don't know what you're talking about. And our theme
Speaker 2: music was written for us by unwoman and not listening
Speaker 2: to her music would be a crime.
Speaker 3: That's true. I think it's a federal felony.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so be a rebel and don't listen it.
Speaker 3: No wait, oh no, I backed us into a corner.
Speaker 1: Oh no.
Speaker 2: Anyway, This is part two of a two parter about
Speaker 2: the Black Bloc, a controversial and interesting tactic that has
Speaker 2: existed since at least the very early eighties that is
Speaker 2: worth paying attention to and worth understanding. And you know,
Speaker 2: I actually need the history in order to do that.
Speaker 2: But I find it neat and you probably do too,
Speaker 2: or you wouldn't be listening to history podcast.
Speaker 3: I'm learning a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if people don't know Mally conger Is, they'd
Speaker 2: be very confusing, because then you're listening to part two
Speaker 2: without part one. But Molly has a podcast called Weird
Speaker 2: Little Guys.
Speaker 3: It's the opposite of this show, and it would make
Speaker 3: me so happy if you would listen to it, or
Speaker 3: at least download it on multiple apps.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no reason not to. So the Black block tactic,
Speaker 2: we talked about how it expressed itself in Germany before
Speaker 2: there was an ultra globalization movement. The tactic looks different
Speaker 2: in different places at different times. The Dutch squatters of
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties. They were like they we're not fucking
Speaker 2: my ski masks. That's too much for us. They formed
Speaker 2: the Black Helmet Brigade and showed up to every March.
Speaker 2: For a while, Dutch squatters were pretty limited in how
Speaker 2: they'd fight cops. They were like pretty like not quite
Speaker 2: at the German level of intensity or whatever. And then
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty five, a squadron named Hans Kock was
Speaker 2: mysteriously found dead in police custody, and this was widely
Speaker 2: believed to be police murder and at the very least
Speaker 2: was neglect. They were like, ah, he was like drunk
Speaker 2: or drugs or I don't know, he's just dead.
Speaker 3: Having absolutely zero information about the situation, I'm comfortable saying
Speaker 3: that the police murdered him.
Speaker 2: The Oukham's raiser here, based on all of the times
Speaker 2: this happens all over the place, is that they murdered him,
Speaker 2: or they murdered him through a neglect.
Speaker 3: They're responsible for his death. And I'm very comfortable with that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: with saying that, not with that it happened. To hate
Speaker 3: that it happened.
Speaker 2: Yes, So squatters were like, all right, you killed us.
Speaker 2: Were mad and they're like, we're not bringing out guns
Speaker 2: because you don't want to just stand in the street
Speaker 2: and shoot at each other. That's just like never a
Speaker 2: good day, you know. But they sure started bringing out
Speaker 2: molotov cocktails and things got spicier.
Speaker 3: Although okay, wait a second, hold on, So you said
Speaker 3: they didn't want to bring guns, so they brought molotov cocktails.
Speaker 3: If you were listening to this in the United States
Speaker 3: of America and did the National Firearms Act, a molotov
Speaker 3: cocktail is a destructive device that was charged the same
Speaker 3: as having a gun, So legally, a molotov cocktail is
Speaker 3: a gun.
Speaker 2: Well, it's also worse than a gun because there's no
Speaker 2: legal way to have one.
Speaker 3: Right, So just think about that. Yeah, just know that
Speaker 3: that it is a federal gun crime.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: See, this is important because the next pairgraph I have
Speaker 2: is I'm really not trying to paint. This type of
Speaker 2: escalation is inherently good or situation situationally appropriate in every environment.
Speaker 2: While the use of molotovs is illegal probably everywhere, I
Speaker 2: feel like most states probably have a don't throw molotovs
Speaker 2: at cops rule somewhere on the books.
Speaker 3: You know, I imagine there's probably half a dozen different
Speaker 3: statutes you could charge that under.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the level of punishment for the act of throwing
Speaker 2: a molotov is not the same around the world. When
Speaker 2: I first went to Amsterdam, I met someone who got
Speaker 2: out of spending seven months in a low security prison
Speaker 2: for throwing a molotov at cops.
Speaker 3: I mean, if you're doing a cost benefit math, everyone's
Speaker 3: math is different.
Speaker 2: Everyone's math will be different. And if you're in the States,
Speaker 2: your math is real different.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more stuff on one side of that
Speaker 3: equal sign.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Meanwhile, back at home, when I went to the
Speaker 2: Netherlans for the first time, I met this person, a
Speaker 2: non white anarchist named Roblos Ricos, which is a very
Speaker 2: clever name, was spend seven years in prison for throwing
Speaker 2: a rock at a cop. And so I'm like, yep,
Speaker 2: because every now and then the European anarchists will be like, oh,
Speaker 2: you American anarchists don't do anything.
Speaker 3: I like, yeah, so, uh, it's different here.
Speaker 2: Crime is different here. Yeah. And also like I don't
Speaker 2: know whatever, I'm not telling anyone what to do, but
Speaker 2: I suspect that if people through all those that comps,
Speaker 2: it would.
Speaker 3: What I mean, the Marines are already at play, okay, right.
Speaker 2: So I'm literally saying nothing about this. I'm just saying
Speaker 2: the crime is a crime, and there's a.
Speaker 3: Different Streen saying this thing from the past was very
Speaker 3: cool and me saying it would be so cool if
Speaker 3: you did it now, right, just if the cops are listening.
Speaker 2: It's different. It's a serious cost benefit analysis that anyone
Speaker 2: would need to make, and it might not be the
Speaker 2: most effective way to try and solve problems. Okay. So
Speaker 2: that's probably the most caveati section of this. Score a coward, no, no, no.
Speaker 2: But it's like, okay, just simply be transparent about it.
Speaker 2: It's it's not just to like I don't want to
Speaker 2: get in trouble, right, But it's true, I don't want
Speaker 2: to get in trouble. But it's also like I don't
Speaker 2: want to get people in trouble. I do not want
Speaker 2: to suggest to people what they should do. And that's
Speaker 2: like almost why I was like, oh, I don't want
Speaker 2: to talk about it because I don't want to say
Speaker 2: anything about it, because I don't want to tell people
Speaker 2: it's cool and good or that it's bad and counterproductive.
Speaker 3: You don't want to be the Jodie Foster to somebody's
Speaker 3: John Hinckley. I get it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes nice symbolism when you draw it in art.
Speaker 2: We'll go with that.
Speaker 3: I have it on a shirt.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So I've read in one place that the
Speaker 2: anarchist punk scene of the eighties and nineties in the
Speaker 2: US made occasional use of the black Block before it
Speaker 2: broke on the world stage in nineteen ninety nine. I've
Speaker 2: also read that the first one was nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: so not the eighties. I don't know which it's true,
Speaker 2: but at first when I can tell you about it's
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. It was assembled during the anti Desert
Speaker 2: Storm protests in DC in nineteen ninety one, and they
Speaker 2: were organized through the Love and Rage Anarchist Federation, which
Speaker 2: put out a call for affinity groups, which we'll talk
Speaker 2: more about later, but it's it's you and your friends
Speaker 2: making your own decisions together, group to come in block.
Speaker 2: This was presumably inspired by the Autonomen's attack on neoliberalism,
Speaker 2: because that block, when they got together to protest Desert Storm,
Speaker 2: went to the World Bank Building and smashed all its windows.
Speaker 3: Had it coming, I mean, what was the building wearing
Speaker 3: I know, and it's like.
Speaker 2: One of these things where you're like, oh, it wasn't
Speaker 2: even related to the protests, and like no, but they
Speaker 2: sure are stripping all of the resources out of the
Speaker 2: developing world.
Speaker 3: Which I think actually does have a lot to do
Speaker 3: with the causes of war.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. And just to get a taste of how
Speaker 2: political discourse and terminology has and hasn't shifted, I read
Speaker 2: a lot of communicats and stuff and discourse from the
Speaker 2: early nineties about this I was saying, and the early aughts,
Speaker 2: but I read an internal communicating not like an internal
Speaker 2: like never published, you can find it online, but like
Speaker 2: meant for discussion within people doing this. A communicate from
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two about a second block that had been
Speaker 2: attempted on April fifth, either as it was a women's march,
Speaker 2: but I don't know if it was an anti war
Speaker 2: march or not, if it was just a women's march.
Speaker 2: This block, one comments or felt, had not been as
Speaker 2: much of a success. One reason behind it was the
Speaker 2: lack of solidarity from male block organizers. There was also
Speaker 2: women block organizers, and specifically the male block organizers didn't
Speaker 2: have solidarity enough with the women organizers. Women in this
Speaker 2: case spelled wimyn.
Speaker 3: Oh hell yeah, that's so early nineties.
Speaker 2: And the best part about it, from my point of view,
Speaker 2: is that this word is both women and women because
Speaker 2: it'll say A women came up and said the following
Speaker 2: women and women are spelled the same es.
Speaker 3: They're taking man and men out of it, right, So
Speaker 3: it's like, but then there's no distinguishing between singular and plural.
Speaker 2: Right besides the article that precedes it. And what's also funny.
Speaker 2: I was like, I was telling this to my friend
Speaker 2: while I was getting ready for this, and they were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: why did we hate the O? Like, I get the
Speaker 2: E in the A, but what's our problem with the O?
Speaker 1: Wait?
Speaker 3: What are they a place to O with?
Speaker 2: I w I M y N.
Speaker 3: Why did they do that?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I guess if you're gonna make up a new word,
Speaker 3: you might as well go all in.
Speaker 2: But like, that's true, it looks kind of cool.
Speaker 3: Okay, now I need to know.
Speaker 2: I know, and someone listening knows right in.
Speaker 3: If you're familiar with the etymology of these feminist neologisms
Speaker 3: from the early nineties.
Speaker 2: Because there was another one that I ran across more,
Speaker 2: which was w I M M I n oh. I
Speaker 2: used to know more about the etymology of the words
Speaker 2: like a woman and man and stuff because man used
Speaker 2: to literally I think there was a different word. Where
Speaker 2: was the word for man?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 3: Like where wolf?
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly?
Speaker 3: Or where geld which is the money you had to
Speaker 3: pay to someone's family if he murdered them.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, anyway, a more civilized time, So.
Speaker 3: We'll find out more about this situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, get to the bottom just another time. So this
Speaker 2: protester was like talking about how it was and wasn't
Speaker 2: organized effectively.
Speaker 3: And honestly the men not pulling their way same as
Speaker 3: it ever was.
Speaker 2: No, I know totally, and I like, I'm not even
Speaker 2: trying to be like, oh they spelled words funny. I'm
Speaker 2: like I'm trying to say, like everything's the same, right.
Speaker 3: And it's just like such a time capsule of the
Speaker 3: early nineties, Like if you see women spelled that way,
Speaker 3: like you know where we are.
Speaker 2: Right totally, and like specifically they were like, hey, you
Speaker 2: know there was a women's caucus that was you know,
Speaker 2: part of this, and then like the organizing wasn't quite
Speaker 2: structured enough in a way that it helped make the
Speaker 2: men actually pay attention to the women's caucus.
Speaker 3: Said, oh, the men weren't interested in the consensus based
Speaker 3: decision making that involved the women. That's crazy, Margaret, that's
Speaker 3: never happened.
Speaker 2: I know, but these are radicals, so I must have
Speaker 2: been misreading it.
Speaker 3: I bet the men participated equally in making sure the
Speaker 3: logistics like bathrooms and food and water were handled as well.
Speaker 2: Well. Those actually just take care of themselves.
Speaker 3: That's right, especially if you don't go to the women's
Speaker 3: caucus where they meet about it. Nothing change diapers when
Speaker 3: that zine got written and nothing has changed.
Speaker 2: Nope, nope. So they talk about the structure in this.
Speaker 2: It's not just a like complaining about the following. They
Speaker 2: talk about the structure. Block of any size is built
Speaker 2: from affinity groups. An affinity group is basically a very
Speaker 2: small organizing body, one that might easily be understood as
Speaker 2: you and your few friends who make decisions together. Affinity
Speaker 2: groups generally operate on consensus rather than voting what to do.
Speaker 2: The group does what everyone in the group agrees they
Speaker 2: want to do together, which makes a lot of sense,
Speaker 2: like for crime, right, if you're four or five friends.
Speaker 3: This sounds like a conspiracy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if you're hanging out with your friends, you
Speaker 2: all have to eat, and you're like, what do you
Speaker 2: want to do? You want to go to the beach
Speaker 2: or do you want to go set that building on fire?
Speaker 2: You can't vote that one, right, everyone has to be
Speaker 2: down for the crime.
Speaker 3: If it's like, you know, four to one, we have
Speaker 3: a majority, we're going to do the crime. The guy
Speaker 3: who wanted to go to the beach, each.
Speaker 2: Like should probably be able to leave and go back.
Speaker 3: You should leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah. This is not a democracy, Yeah, exactly, it's a consensus.
Speaker 2: It's a we all want to agree to do this
Speaker 2: or not. And so that's like how you build a
Speaker 2: larger group that is made up of people operating on consensus,
Speaker 2: but not consensus of the larger group necessarily, but the
Speaker 2: individuals involved are organized into smaller groups. And also makes
Speaker 2: it really funny when they're like, who's the leader of
Speaker 2: this and you're like, you fucking morons. Is this your
Speaker 2: first day at work?
Speaker 3: Do you charge of Antifa?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, So you have three to fifteen people or
Speaker 2: so who agree to go to a demonstration, to have
Speaker 2: each other's backs, to go where the others go and
Speaker 2: to not get broken up. These affinity groups then coordinate
Speaker 2: with the other affinity groups on the street, and clearly
Speaker 2: by the fact that they caucuses and stuff. They also
Speaker 2: sometimes will have like representatives from affinity groups come and
Speaker 2: talk about what they might want to do, which really
Speaker 2: does sound like conspiracy. I actually don't think that that's
Speaker 2: the way these are organized anymore. Like, really and genuinely
Speaker 2: I don't think that this is time capsule shit.
Speaker 3: I was just saying, this is this is a relic
Speaker 3: of things past. I mean, I've heard of things like this,
Speaker 3: but like in my understanding of this level of organization,
Speaker 3: those group representatives aren't coming together to then form consensus.
Speaker 3: They're just like letting y'all know, this is our hardline.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, this is like kind of direction we're thinking
Speaker 2: about taking things. Where's everyone else feeling? Yeah, And one
Speaker 2: demonstration with a black bloc, the nineteen ninety nine Carnival
Speaker 2: against Capital in London, nine thousand masks were distributed ahead
Speaker 2: of time. That's some infrastructure and that had a theme,
Speaker 2: and the masks had printed inside each one a message,
Speaker 2: and that message quote those in authority fear the mask
Speaker 2: for their power partly resides in identifying, stamping, and cataloging,
Speaker 2: in knowing who you are. Our masks are not to
Speaker 2: conceal our identity, but to reveal it. Today we shall
Speaker 2: give this resistance a face. For by putting on our masks,
Speaker 2: we reveal our unity, and by raising our voices in
Speaker 2: the streets together we speak our anger at the facelessness
Speaker 2: of power.
Speaker 3: That's a long message to be on the inside of
Speaker 3: the masks.
Speaker 2: There's also multiple ellipses, and the version I found I
Speaker 2: suspect it was longer.
Speaker 3: How was this like a piece of paper tucked inside?
Speaker 3: Was it like sewn in? I need the logistics here,
Speaker 3: Like what was the manufacturing process for nine thousand masks
Speaker 3: with a whole paragraphic.
Speaker 2: The way it was described it was like printed inside.
Speaker 2: I'm like, was it like are they printing with like
Speaker 2: a therma print where you can print.
Speaker 3: On a tag?
Speaker 2: Well, I was thinking like almost equivalent silkscreen, you know,
Speaker 2: like a way to print onto fabric. It could have
Speaker 2: been as.
Speaker 3: Somebody would have to be like manually turning these inside
Speaker 3: out to get the message, like this is a process. Yes,
Speaker 3: I've never met an anarchist who could have pulled this off.
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Late nineties built different into weird projects.
Speaker 4: Magpie just SAIDU them kids, No, at least a dozen
Speaker 4: people had to have the same idea that they remained
Speaker 4: committed to without disagreeing for like several weeks.
Speaker 2: That's true. I will say one. I've been to a
Speaker 2: demonstration where people took their school's resources to make thermoplastic
Speaker 2: clear riot shields, to make hundreds of them by using
Speaker 2: like industrial manufacturing processes. And there's also just the fact
Speaker 2: that like on some level, like some people are actually
Speaker 2: just like working class at work at factories and shit, you.
Speaker 3: Know that's true. But like usually when you work at
Speaker 3: a factory, you don't have access to just like using
Speaker 3: the factory.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 1: I'm necessarily enjoying all the side comments.
Speaker 3: I need to see a picture of this. Is there a.
Speaker 2: Picture I not that I have found?
Speaker 3: There might be one, please, if you are a sixty
Speaker 3: year old punk show it to me, please.
Speaker 2: I also think the Okham's raiser here is even though
Speaker 2: it says printed on the inside, it might be that
Speaker 2: there is a piece of paper inside.
Speaker 3: Right, there was like a little hand bill that was
Speaker 3: handed to everyone as well.
Speaker 2: That's that is the most likely situation.
Speaker 3: That's still very impressive that they were able to do this.
Speaker 3: I'm still very impressed, but I have questions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough, and also to walk back my kids
Speaker 2: these days, the way that we're built different now is
Speaker 2: substantially more confrontational and interesting to me. The twenty twenty
Speaker 2: uprising was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in
Speaker 2: my life.
Speaker 3: I don't want the anarchist to think I'm making fun
Speaker 3: of them. I am making you can make fun of
Speaker 3: Them's fine, We're having a good time, though it is
Speaker 3: out of love. Like I said, Yeah, oh.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just afraid of being like the old grouchy person.
Speaker 2: You were better in the anti globalization eraic we were.
Speaker 3: It's different. Things are just different now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And do you know what, I don't have a
Speaker 2: transition for it ads.
Speaker 3: I hope that this ad is for some kind of
Speaker 3: home screen printing setup where I could make nine thousand
Speaker 3: masks with a weird poem inside.
Speaker 2: Hell, yeah, what poem did you picked?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 3: I don't know. That had a sort of a poem
Speaker 3: energy to it that like the message, the little sort
Speaker 3: of beef vendetas sort of situation.
Speaker 2: It does have a very vief for Vendeva, although before
Speaker 2: the movie came out, I would do with the and
Speaker 2: or speech of soger Era being like, we are the
Speaker 2: thing that explodes when there's too much friction in the air.
Speaker 3: It's beautiful. Yeah, I hope it's an advertisment for something
Speaker 3: I can use to make nine thousand masks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and here's that ad and rebec. I'm actually particularly
Speaker 2: excited about the way that you can use someone gambling
Speaker 2: to print onto masks.
Speaker 1: Mine would be from this pub that I just googled
Speaker 1: that is called.
Speaker 2: I Like Dogs.
Speaker 1: I like dogs, big dogs, little dogs, old dogs, puppy dogs,
Speaker 1: a dog that is barking over the hill, a dog
Speaker 1: that is dreaming very still, a dog that is running
Speaker 1: whenever he will.
Speaker 3: I like dogs.
Speaker 1: And it's by a person called Margaret wise Brown, who
Speaker 1: I have no idea who they are and if they're
Speaker 1: good or not.
Speaker 3: Who Margaret wise Brown is?
Speaker 1: No am I supposed to so be am. I supposed
Speaker 1: to like good?
Speaker 3: Naight, move.
Speaker 1: That makes sense, you know, I do know how much
Speaker 1: person is. You're right, I'm not good at remembering names
Speaker 1: unless it's basketball players.
Speaker 3: I don't know if she hooped.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the poem about it would be pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I liked that her name was Margaret and the poem
Speaker 1: was about dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, anybody who has a dog that dreams still not mine?
Speaker 2: Oh my dog dream my dog.
Speaker 3: Dreams not still. I'm sorry. It's big red bar not
Speaker 3: little Red Bar. What am I fucking thinking?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jesus, fake fan, Yeah I know I got fully shamed.
Speaker 1: You're out here not knowing your facts.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: When I was five, me and my sister we got
Speaker 3: cats for Christmas with the shelter, and so I got
Speaker 3: to name my own cat. I'm five years old, Like,
Speaker 3: what am gonna name this cat? And I decided to
Speaker 3: name her after my favorite page from my favorite book
Speaker 3: from when I was little. You know, I was. I
Speaker 3: was five years old. I was a big girl. I
Speaker 3: didn't love good Night Mood. I was too big for that,
Speaker 3: but it was my favorite book when I was little.
Speaker 3: So I named my cat good Night Kittens, like the
Speaker 3: entire phrase good night kittens. That's pretty good from good
Speaker 3: Night Moon, because good night kittens, good night mittens, you know,
Speaker 3: good night bull of mush et cetera. So for fifteen years,
Speaker 3: we just had a full grown cat whose name was
Speaker 3: kittens plural. So much. What do we where? Where the
Speaker 3: World Trade Organization?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking about next yeah oh hell yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Well then we're not going to do the deep dive
Speaker 2: on it, because that's a future series of episodes.
Speaker 3: Were going to Seattle, Baby.
Speaker 1: This person is like a good person. Will somebody message
Speaker 1: me and let me know, because I've seen fabulous pictures
Speaker 1: of her with a dog, and I would like to
Speaker 1: know if this is a person.
Speaker 3: I should like?
Speaker 2: Is this the poet?
Speaker 1: Yes? I would like to know if this is a
Speaker 1: person I should like or if this is a problematic
Speaker 1: person which I should hate. And I refuse to do
Speaker 1: my own research because I'm really, really, really tired.
Speaker 2: I'll just do an episode on it. So November nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety nine, the Black Block hit the mainstream in a
Speaker 2: way that it never had in the US and probably
Speaker 2: hadn't anywhere in the world, even though as substantially smaller
Speaker 2: Black Blocks than the ones in Europe, because it participated
Speaker 2: in dramatic rioting against the World Trade Organization in Seattle,
Speaker 2: the famed Battle of Seattle. And We're going to talk
Speaker 2: about the actual alter globalization protests soon, So I'm not
Speaker 2: going to give a blow by blow of the Battle Seattle.
Speaker 2: But the core of why the Seattle protests against the
Speaker 2: World Trade Organization, another one of these neoliberal organizations. The
Speaker 2: reason these protests were so effective they successfully shut down
Speaker 2: the meeting of the World Trade Organization was not because
Speaker 2: a few hundred people wearing all black broke a bunch
Speaker 2: of Starbucks windows, but that a coalition of environmentalists and
Speaker 2: labor progressive and radical like used from the bottom and
Speaker 2: the left tactics and organization to borrow a phrase from
Speaker 2: the Bapatistas, this idea from the bottom and the left,
Speaker 2: it means like the bottom a little bit class wise,
Speaker 2: but it means like organizing from the bottom up instead
Speaker 2: of from the top down. They coordinated mass direct action
Speaker 2: to shut down downtown Seattle and shut down these protests.
Speaker 2: It was a movement of movements, and it brought together
Speaker 2: all sorts of different people to fight alongside one another.
Speaker 2: And if you're thinking, Molly, I know Sophie's thinking this.
Speaker 2: That feels like when the free peoples of Middle Earth
Speaker 2: banded together at the end of the Third Age in
Speaker 2: the Battle of the Ring to defeat Saron.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I was like.
Speaker 3: Oh, I was just thinking that like, to be honest,
Speaker 3: one of the only things I know about the nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine Seattle World Trade Organization protests. So what I'm
Speaker 3: writing about a we're little guy. I write like a
Speaker 3: full timeline of his life, like every djil I can
Speaker 3: find about, just like I don't even use ninety percent
Speaker 3: of it, but I make this like full robust timeline
Speaker 3: of a person's life. So the only thing I know
Speaker 3: about the ninety ninety nine Yettle World Trade Organization protest
Speaker 3: is that a guy who was convicted of a federal
Speaker 3: crime for lying on his background check form when he
Speaker 3: joined the military. His parents met there because his mom
Speaker 3: was making soup. She was like a food not bombs girl.
Speaker 2: Oh that's so heartbreaking, I know.
Speaker 3: And his parents met there and then he was conceived
Speaker 3: shortly thereafter, and he is a Nazi. Oh my god,
Speaker 3: we're not our parents, you know.
Speaker 2: No apple was caught by the wind and taken to
Speaker 2: the Nazi grove, fell far from the tree. That's so sad,
Speaker 2: I know. I mean. Also, people who's George Orwalls's great
Speaker 2: piece on nationalism where he, like everyone, redefines words whenever
Speaker 2: he feels like it, and he talks about it as
Speaker 2: like an allegiance to the idea of being very about something,
Speaker 2: and he uses it to talk about how many leftists
Speaker 2: became Nazis, because so many leftists became Nazis.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes you see a guy and you think, oh,
Speaker 3: one of these days we're going to be on opposite
Speaker 3: sides of the line, aren't we.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, during these protests, before they fucked and made Nazis,
Speaker 2: some of the anarchists, not all the anarchists, got together
Speaker 2: to form a black bloc to attack symbols of neoliberalism
Speaker 2: and capitalism, like the aforementioned Starbucks windows sort of the
Speaker 2: most famous part of this, but.
Speaker 3: I forgot Starbucks was that old Starbucks?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh breaking Starbucks windows was like
Speaker 2: that was like the thing. There's a against me song
Speaker 2: about throwing bricks through Starbucks windows that's about Seattle.
Speaker 1: Because it started in Seattle. Yeah, which you can't go
Speaker 1: into Seattle without somebody telling you that.
Speaker 2: Yeaeah. Totally. And these protests. The destructive part of the protests,
Speaker 2: which is a smaller portion of it but got a
Speaker 2: lot of the media attention. It directly and materially contributed
Speaker 2: to the escalation of the conflict, which was likely necessary
Speaker 2: for the tactical victory of shutting down the protests, is
Speaker 2: my argument. If things hadn't gotten spicy, they probably would
Speaker 2: not have caused enough chaos to stop the meeting from
Speaker 2: being able to happen. It was also pretty much the
Speaker 2: reason why the press was unable to downplay the demonstrations
Speaker 2: like they've been doing to every demonstration they could find
Speaker 2: for so long, and the reason that these protests got
Speaker 2: so much press us, almost all of which was negative.
Speaker 2: All press is good press, maybe hard to say. And
Speaker 2: it also sparked a debate that goes on in radical
Speaker 2: movements to this day about the appropriateness of black block
Speaker 2: and the appropriateness of property destruction of demonstrations. The black
Speaker 2: block makes for a powerful media image, one that is
Speaker 2: regularly villainized by both the press and by some advocates
Speaker 2: for strict nonviolence policies. This powerful image is a double
Speaker 2: edged sword. Protests that would have scarcely made the news
Speaker 2: at all get a ton more attention when things are
Speaker 2: on fire or broken. Militant action is always polarizing, and
Speaker 2: maybe it always will be, but there are people who
Speaker 2: are turned off by this. It is worth remembering that
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty, when someone burned down the third Police
Speaker 2: Precinct in Minneapolis in response to the police murder of
Speaker 2: George Floyd, a Monmouth University survey revealed that fifty four
Speaker 2: percent of a Americans supported the arson of the police station,
Speaker 2: which means burn the fucking cop shops down. Hold higher
Speaker 2: than either presidential candidate at that time.
Speaker 3: And don't let Atlantic magazine tell you fucking otherwise, I.
Speaker 2: Know because this one the source for that in this
Speaker 2: is Newsweek. That's like, that's a conservative publication. Yeah, direct action,
Speaker 2: including militant direct action, is actually apparently less polarizing than
Speaker 2: electoral candidates are. That's my spiciest take of the day.
Speaker 3: You know, you may not, I don't know, you may
Speaker 3: not like the look of a broken window, but do
Speaker 3: you like it more or less than you like looking
Speaker 3: at a four year old child crying as she's being
Speaker 3: snatched from the arms of her mother.
Speaker 2: Right, And you could say to yourself, why are they related?
Speaker 2: And then you have to say, well, even if they aren't,
Speaker 2: is one person against that and another person doing it?
Speaker 2: You know, is one person trying to stop that by
Speaker 2: a means that they consider appropriate In which case, your
Speaker 2: problem is not ethical, it's strategic, and people get really
Speaker 2: hung up on that difference and think that strategy is
Speaker 2: ethics and it's not. Got wild eyed and glad there's
Speaker 2: an audio medium. But you're right, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: You know, I personally, I'm not going to break a window,
Speaker 3: but I'm not going to take a picture of it
Speaker 3: when someone else does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the same people who are doing that are often
Speaker 2: the same people who will physically stop the police from
Speaker 2: beating people and grabbing people who are trying to do things.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to tell you to break the window.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to tell you to not break the window.
Speaker 3: But if you break the window and you get arrested,
Speaker 3: I will wait in the parking lot for you to
Speaker 3: get out.
Speaker 2: That's a good way to put it. Yeah, totally, Because.
Speaker 3: When we do jail support, it doesn't matter what you did.
Speaker 3: We're just waiting here in the parking lot for you
Speaker 3: to get out. So this is not an endorsement of
Speaker 3: the window breaking. I'm just saying we'll be out here
Speaker 3: with snacks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was people waiting outside with snacks after I
Speaker 2: got out of jail. When the night you got arrested,
Speaker 2: wearing all black.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The WTO protests got negative press attention, but this didn't
Speaker 2: stop any activists, partly because I think this is an
Speaker 2: interesting tangent about media. The argument during the altra globalization
Speaker 2: era was that mainstream media is structurally part of the
Speaker 2: state apparatus of control, that, to paraphrase Nom Chomsky, the
Speaker 2: state isn't powerful enough to control everyone with an iron fist,
Speaker 2: like we're seeing this now right, like we're actually literally
Speaker 2: more of us than there are of them, because the
Speaker 2: run of the mil conservative voter is not willing to
Speaker 2: get out on the streets to protect ice.
Speaker 3: Much getting up off your gouge to protect the police.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Because the police aren't powerful enough to control everything with
Speaker 2: an iron fist, they use media apparatus to manufacture the
Speaker 2: consent of the governed. This is the argument, and it's
Speaker 2: I'm going to explore that tangent more depth one day.
Speaker 2: But the anarchist Noam Chomsky saying this about the manufacturing
Speaker 2: of consent in nineteen eighty nine was part of what
Speaker 2: led the alter globalization movement to develop its own media infrastructure,
Speaker 2: much of which was built around a brand new idea,
Speaker 2: a decentralized way for people to post news, indie media,
Speaker 2: which more or less invented citizen journalism in the Internet era,
Speaker 2: and as a direct precursor to Twitter, which is of
Speaker 2: course not specifically a leftist project, but it was at
Speaker 2: least interesting until that was captured by fascism and rebranded
Speaker 2: as x which is to say, capitalism could fucking recuperate anything,
Speaker 2: and it's a nightmare. But I find that through line
Speaker 2: very interesting that radicals critical of the coverage of these
Speaker 2: sorts of things invented a worldwide infrastructure of direct communication.
Speaker 3: Sometimes. You know, in my research into sort of fascist
Speaker 3: movements of this era of the you know, the seventies, eighties,
Speaker 3: and nineties, come across old primary source leftist and anarchist media, right,
Speaker 3: so like old Marxist newspapers, old anarchist zines and sort
Speaker 3: of capturing these moments in time. And it is striking
Speaker 3: how different the coverage is, because I mean some of
Speaker 3: them are fairly professionalized. These like little newspapers that came
Speaker 3: out quarterly or this or that or the other. It's
Speaker 3: real journalism, it's a real newspaper. But it's so different.
Speaker 3: You can read coverage of the same protests from an
Speaker 3: old New York Times archive and then from the anarchist newspaper,
Speaker 3: and it is it's a different story.
Speaker 2: It's a different reality that people are creating, and both
Speaker 2: are biased.
Speaker 3: And these histories get buried and lost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's yeah, I mean that's like literally what
Speaker 2: keeps me going with doing the show constantly. That and
Speaker 2: my desire to feed my dog on a regular basis.
Speaker 3: See those histories alive. And yeah, sure of course they're
Speaker 3: all both biased. The Anarchist newspaper and the New York
Speaker 3: Times are both if you read both, and that's a
Speaker 3: lot of what I do, right as you sort of
Speaker 3: read these primary sources that were written by nazis, right,
Speaker 3: So you can't take them at face value. You're not reading, yeah,
Speaker 3: for truth, but you can piece together what the truth
Speaker 3: probably is. Yeah, And I have found that the leftist
Speaker 3: and anarchist newspapers are closer to it.
Speaker 2: I have largely found that to be the case. It's
Speaker 2: also it's more transparent when they go into their like
Speaker 2: now I'm soap boxing mode, which any listener of this
Speaker 2: show is fully aware of. I try to get all
Speaker 2: the facts right, and I digress and my opinions are
Speaker 2: very clear, you know. But there's an interesting thing. I
Speaker 2: think the idea that mainstream media is inherently pro status
Speaker 2: quo is an out moded idea. And maybe I say
Speaker 2: this because I produce a podcast for iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3: I try not to think about it, like.
Speaker 1: I was, like, huh, sounds sur reilier.
Speaker 3: To be fair, I've never even met anyone who works
Speaker 3: for iHeartMedia except for Sophie, and I don't clam them.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing is I am a freelance contractor
Speaker 2: and they put ads into the content that I make,
Speaker 2: and they don't control that content, and so I say
Speaker 2: what I believe, and they can make money from me doing.
Speaker 3: That, and I bank on the fact that they just
Speaker 3: don't listen to my show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty much what to count on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm like the less people that know we exist but
Speaker 1: keep signing our checks like the.
Speaker 3: Better Yeah, yeah, listening to our shows now.
Speaker 2: But I think that a thing that has happened, and
Speaker 2: I'm using us and a lot of my friends who
Speaker 2: work in media as an example, and also like shows
Speaker 2: like and Or where there's a generation of people that
Speaker 2: are genuinely anti capitalists largely anti authoritarian that has become
Speaker 2: media professionals. The fact that some of the best labor
Speaker 2: reporting consistently is from teen Vogue, right, and often they're
Speaker 2: doing it actually with more nuanced than some of old papers,
Speaker 2: like old leftist papers and stuff. Anyway, this is like
Speaker 2: a thing that I think about a lot, is the
Speaker 2: way that our relationship to media has shifted dramatically over
Speaker 2: the decades.
Speaker 3: And I think it's something really importantly going back to
Speaker 3: what you're talking abot with the manufacturing consent, it is
Speaker 3: important to interrogate the viewpoint of the author of the
Speaker 3: publication totally, because, like you said, burning the precinct pulled
Speaker 3: higher than the president, and that's not what the newspaper
Speaker 3: tells me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, because you're like, oh, we want to show
Speaker 2: both sides, so you like, well, they don't show the
Speaker 2: pro burning side usually anyway, Oh no, it's ads.
Speaker 3: Oh god, and we're back.
Speaker 2: So media presented a certain image of the black block
Speaker 2: and it was not a sympathetic one. Black blockers only
Speaker 2: care about destruction and have nothing to offer the movement.
Speaker 2: It's just purely negative and they are the ones responsible
Speaker 2: for the violence of the police. Which is always an
Speaker 2: amazing thing. Like the headlines are like the violence started
Speaker 2: after someone throw a water bottle.
Speaker 3: And you're like, seems like an unnecessary escalation.
Speaker 2: Yes, the violence was when people started hurting people, which
Speaker 2: was the police hurting or like the violence started when
Speaker 2: people yelled at the police. You're like, no, it was again,
Speaker 2: it was when they hit people with sticks. And yeah,
Speaker 2: somehow police hospitalizing people's responsibility of an angry kid wearing
Speaker 2: all black. I think The Onion nailed this the other
Speaker 2: day with the headline protesters urge not to give Trump
Speaker 2: administration pretext for what it already doing a.
Speaker 3: Right because like, oh, don't give them any excuse. They
Speaker 3: don't need an excuse. Plus, it's already happening. It's already happening.
Speaker 1: That's great, well done, the Onion.
Speaker 2: I would never be able to write Onion headlines because
Speaker 2: I don't grammatically understand why headlines will say things like
Speaker 2: for what it already doing instead of for what it
Speaker 2: is already doing. I don't understand it. I think it's
Speaker 2: a way that headlines are written.
Speaker 1: It is a way that headlines are written.
Speaker 2: And I think that the Onion is always satirizing headlines
Speaker 2: so they're going to like play into sort of an
Speaker 2: old timing journalisty.
Speaker 3: Journalism school.
Speaker 2: No, I mean, I'm totally professional. Oh wait, I'm not
Speaker 2: even pretending to be a professional tru I do pop history.
Speaker 3: So now I've been pepper sprayed by enough cops in
Speaker 3: enough situations to know it was always their fault.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Yeah, even when cops get pepper sprayed, it's
Speaker 2: their fault because it's them doing it to them.
Speaker 3: They love doing it to themselves.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Within the movement of movements, opinions about block were a
Speaker 2: lot more nuanced, and you saw a rise of what
Speaker 2: I might call the heroic black block, where black blockers
Speaker 2: work in solidarity with people with other tactics and outfits.
Speaker 2: And actually, you mean that's kind of how it started, right,
Speaker 2: It's like as a spiky exterior to a larger march.
Speaker 2: But people realized, if you're aware of how your presence
Speaker 2: attracts police attention, and if you ever want police attention
Speaker 2: out of protest where black block, the police will pay
Speaker 2: attention to you. And you're good at staying mobile in
Speaker 2: this situation, right, And so rather than smashing bank windows
Speaker 2: near people doing nonviolent civil disobedience in the middle of
Speaker 2: an intersection, like people like locking the lock boxes in
Speaker 2: the middle of intersection. You don't run up and break
Speaker 2: the window right near them and then leave. That's a move.
Speaker 3: You just go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Right, And then you're actually helping because the police are
Speaker 2: now drawn away from your allies, and you're much better
Speaker 2: equipped to fight back and to get away then other
Speaker 2: people might be. And because of that, and because of
Speaker 2: interpersonal relationships and years of intense organizing, and we talked
Speaker 2: about this as the opening bonds of solidarity arose between
Speaker 2: the block and other groups. And during the entire ultra
Speaker 2: globalization movement, the Black Bloc continued, and so did the discourse.
Speaker 2: The discourse was actually fairly nuanced. It wasn't like is
Speaker 2: everyone doing this tactic evil or good? Right? It was like, hey,
Speaker 2: in what context is this appropriate? How much are we
Speaker 2: simply acting out our pre assigned role within the same
Speaker 2: story over and over again? Right? You kind of like
Speaker 2: fetishize a tactic and then you're like, we're just going
Speaker 2: to do it, and you're like, is it the right one?
Speaker 2: Do the cops know you're going to do it? Because
Speaker 2: if you if the cops know you're going to do it.
Speaker 2: It's not what we should do like overall, you know.
Speaker 3: Well, and the president said that all those people have
Speaker 3: to go to prison.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah wow. An anonymous zone from the time from
Speaker 2: two thousand and two, I think had a really good title,
Speaker 2: if you ask me, the black Block a disposable tactic.
Speaker 2: I like that, and that piece describes the state's way
Speaker 2: of responding to anarchists and the block during the ultra
Speaker 2: globalization movement and talks at length about how the state's
Speaker 2: strategy is to criminalize all the militant protesters as terrorists.
Speaker 2: It's the same shit, right like Trump is different. But
Speaker 2: Bush did this too, right, and especially in the wake
Speaker 2: of nine to eleven. Everyone's a terrorist now and specifically,
Speaker 2: the state strategy at the time, at least according to
Speaker 2: this analysis and I fully agree with it, was to
Speaker 2: try to convince the rest of the movement to distance
Speaker 2: themselves from the block Banko and people started moving away
Speaker 2: from black block tactics were rather diversifying into different types
Speaker 2: of blocks within radical mass mobilizations. We'll talk more about
Speaker 2: this one seeing because I really like it, and so
Speaker 2: I have to throw it in. Have you ever heard
Speaker 2: of the padded block. No, no, it comes from these
Speaker 2: like Italian tute Blanche White Overall's movement, I think is
Speaker 2: how you say it, I'm cute.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well they start off being like, we're gonna wear white
Speaker 2: overalls to protests and if I get this history wrong, sorry,
Speaker 2: later they will be the subjects of a thing. But
Speaker 2: then they started wearing padding, and specifically they turned a
Speaker 2: block style formation into a purely defensive thing where you
Speaker 2: would be silly as hell covered in like pillows and
Speaker 2: pool floaties and like helmets, and you would just be
Speaker 2: like the Michelin man, like lumbering up to the cops,
Speaker 2: and you'd have hundreds of people doing this and you
Speaker 2: would literally just push the police out of the way.
Speaker 3: I need to see this with my eyes.
Speaker 2: This there is video of there's so much good riot
Speaker 2: porn from this has mostly happened in Europe in like
Speaker 2: ninety nine, well I guess mostly two thousand, two thousand
Speaker 2: and one.
Speaker 3: Looking this up immediately after we're done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, the padded block is fucking amazing. They'll hit
Speaker 2: cops of pool noodles and shit.
Speaker 3: An American cop would just shoot you if you hit
Speaker 3: them with anything.
Speaker 2: I know, it's like one of those things where was like,
Speaker 2: there's that footage of some protesters recently, and I think
Speaker 2: California where the cops are trying to evict I think
Speaker 2: a Palestine occupation at a campus and someone is just
Speaker 2: like bonks the cop with an empty five gallon water
Speaker 2: drum and you can hear the bonk noise.
Speaker 3: Oh god, yeah that was all. There was a music
Speaker 3: video then somebody made a song.
Speaker 2: I hope that person is free, is all I feel.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I just feel like I don't know, maybe
Speaker 3: the European cop has a sense of humor but the
Speaker 3: American cop does not.
Speaker 2: I will say there's a moment of some European cops
Speaker 2: being real and cool about some stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean there's still cops.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And the padded block is a great media image and
Speaker 2: it can be just as radical, especially when your goal
Speaker 2: is storm the hotel of world leaders. It's a fairly
Speaker 2: effective way to move through a police line. It's not
Speaker 2: good for causing havoc and rich shopping districts, but that's
Speaker 2: that's not always the goal, right And to quote author
Speaker 2: Mark Levine about this quote, simply put routinized violence against
Speaker 2: property costs. The anti corporate globalization movement significant support in
Speaker 2: the US and Europe, precisely because the vast majority of
Speaker 2: people in these countries were not suffering enough under the
Speaker 2: existing system to support the level of chaos and disruptions
Speaker 2: such violence was intended to generate. And it's a mouthful,
Speaker 2: but it's basically it's like, look, people's lives aren't hard
Speaker 2: enough that like, most people aren't necessarily going to look
Speaker 2: at a smashup shopping district and be like, hooray, tack capitalism.
Speaker 3: Because they have the crumbs and they went.
Speaker 2: Home, right, And I don't think that's a universally applicable thing.
Speaker 2: I'm not just meaning as a condemnation of property destruction
Speaker 2: in all contexts, but it was a way in which
Speaker 2: people saw that that was happening within the movement and
Speaker 2: started shifting.
Speaker 3: What it's interesting to think about in the present moment,
Speaker 3: right like, have things shifted enough where there is enough
Speaker 3: visible suffering the balance has changed. I agree that people
Speaker 3: are not going to look at that property damage the
Speaker 3: same way they would have ten years ago.
Speaker 2: Right Like, if you read anti capitalist stuff from the
Speaker 2: late nineties, like Adbusters magazine, the problem that they present
Speaker 2: that their reader might have is that they're bored, Like
Speaker 2: Fight Club is a movie about being bored by capitalism
Speaker 2: and problems dealing with homosexuality and pent up Maile Anger.
Speaker 2: But people's problems isn't that they're bored anymore.
Speaker 3: You know, the cost of food is getting out of control,
Speaker 3: like there's going to be a breaking point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And not that everyone was having a good time
Speaker 2: in the nineties, but it was a substantially more up
Speaker 2: and coming time, and when you look at the larger
Speaker 2: picture of the economy, it's just a very different time. Well,
Speaker 2: an intense thing that happened in July two thousand and
Speaker 2: one the Group of Eight, which is a neoliberal decision
Speaker 2: making body of the leaders of the eight richest countries.
Speaker 2: I think it's the eight richest countries plus Russia. I
Speaker 2: don't remember off the top of my head. It was
Speaker 2: like Russia, you have nukes, so you're like in, even
Speaker 2: though you're not like next, you know, I think that's it.
Speaker 2: I might be wrong whatever, I'm never going to find out.
Speaker 2: I used to know all of this. I used to
Speaker 2: write zines about it, like talk to people at demonstrations
Speaker 2: about it. I just like don't remember all the Shelffs
Speaker 2: on my head. In two thousand and one, the Group
Speaker 2: of Eight, the G eight, was meeting in Genoa, Italy,
Speaker 2: and the police shot and killed a twenty three year
Speaker 2: old anarchist named Carlo Giuliani. Carlo at the time was
Speaker 2: armed with a fire extinguisher when cops fired live rounds
Speaker 2: at him and then ran him over. And his death
Speaker 2: has been filmed and it was very impactful on the movement.
Speaker 2: A few months later, planes hit the World Trade Center.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you knew that this happened.
Speaker 3: Oh, tell me more about that.
Speaker 1: What is that?
Speaker 2: I can't remember. I lived in New York City at
Speaker 2: the time. I will absolutely remember it a scarred on
Speaker 2: my brain.
Speaker 1: Never forget all of us traumatized.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, totally, except Garrison, who wasn't born.
Speaker 1: Fuck so real.
Speaker 2: The US mobilized for war, and it started rounding up
Speaker 2: Muslim and without due process, and suddenly everyone was a terrorist. Supposedly,
Speaker 2: at this point, the ultra globalization movement fell apart. That's
Speaker 2: always the version of the story, including within the movement.
Speaker 2: I joined the movement months later in February two thousand
Speaker 2: and two at protests in Manhattan, and I did not
Speaker 2: feel like I was joining a failing movement. I felt
Speaker 2: more alive than I ever have in my life. By
Speaker 2: that point, the movement did indeed still exist, and I
Speaker 2: came up in the middle of the movement awash in
Speaker 2: Zine's self critique about everything we did wrong. You know,
Speaker 2: we were like, oh, our movement fell apart? Why And
Speaker 2: it just turned into this like discourse. Hell, And what
Speaker 2: I think we did wrong was assumed that winning is
Speaker 2: a static thing. We accomplished an amazing amount of things.
Speaker 2: We thought that smash neoliberalism was a like static thing,
Speaker 2: like done, you beat the boss, The little cheering music happens,
Speaker 2: and then it's never over. Yeah, it's never over, and
Speaker 2: that's beautiful. The alter globalization movement ended eventually, and in
Speaker 2: the US the anti war movement began, which imported tactics,
Speaker 2: if not activists, directly from the previous movement. By two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, a lot of the discourse around the
Speaker 2: Black Bloc and diverse tactics within protest movements felt settled.
Speaker 2: Because it didn't stay settled, but it should have been.
Speaker 2: And everyone, this is my opinion. I'm now in a
Speaker 2: soapbox because in two thousand and eight, when people agreed
Speaker 2: to disrupt the Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Speaker 2: They got together all these different movements. How are we
Speaker 2: going to do this? We all have different ideas, abouw
Speaker 2: we should do this? And it came up with a
Speaker 2: four point program called the Saint Paul Principles. You heard these?
Speaker 3: Oh we still use those?
Speaker 2: Cool. The Saint Paul Principles are One, our solidarity will
Speaker 2: be based on a respect for diversity of tactics and
Speaker 2: the plans of other groups. Two, the actions and tactics
Speaker 2: used will be organized to maintain in a separation of
Speaker 2: time or space. Three, Any debates or criticism will stay
Speaker 2: internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations
Speaker 2: of fellow activists or events. Four. We oppose any state
Speaker 2: repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption, and violence. We
Speaker 2: agree not to assist law enforcement actions against activists and others.
Speaker 3: Good rules, yeah, rules to live by.
Speaker 2: Yeah. People are going to do the shit in different ways.
Speaker 2: No one way is right. Make sure we don't step
Speaker 2: on each other's toes directly, it's never going to be perfect.
Speaker 2: And try to keep a united front against the enemy.
Speaker 2: And the press alike, especially once we step on each
Speaker 2: other's toes, which we will.
Speaker 3: Like, whatever disagreements you have within the movement, it's not
Speaker 3: worth getting the cops involved. Is not worth letting the
Speaker 3: cops in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because your problem is with other people who share
Speaker 2: your goals and not your tactics, and so talk about
Speaker 2: that amongst each other, not with people who have completely
Speaker 2: different goals that are counter to yours.
Speaker 3: Really, the state is not a mediator here. They just
Speaker 3: want you both to die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 3: I do love that. You know, it's Saint Paul because
Speaker 3: of like Saint Paul Minnesota. But it makes it sound
Speaker 3: so religious. It gives it like a biblical haft. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: this is the Bible.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading this like I hate the Saint
Speaker 2: Paul's Principle piece the other day and it was like,
Speaker 2: Saint Paul, what is this Catholicism telling us what we
Speaker 2: have to do? And I love they use anti authoritarianism
Speaker 2: to justify authoritarianism, you know, because they're.
Speaker 3: Like many such cases with an anarchists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this person wasn't an anarchist. Oh I think
Speaker 2: this person was. I'm rudely assuming that this person was
Speaker 2: a Marxist Leninist.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's fair too. I'm just saying that there are
Speaker 3: more authoritarians and a room full of anarchists.
Speaker 2: It's true than you would want them to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, than you would ever suspect.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Consensus based decision making means we're going to sit here
Speaker 3: until you all agree with me.
Speaker 2: Oh god, I am kind of glad that we learned
Speaker 2: that not everything needs to be consensus decision making.
Speaker 3: I'm talking a lot of shit for somebody who doesn't
Speaker 3: leave her house, don't listen to me.
Speaker 2: Oh that's the other thing that every now and then people
Speaker 2: are like, come give talks about organizing. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm going to take a time machine back to what
Speaker 2: I knew what was happening. I read history and talk
Speaker 2: about pop history.
Speaker 3: For my safety and the safety of others. I'm not
Speaker 3: in those rooms. I haven't been in years.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, oh real.
Speaker 3: So right.
Speaker 2: All Then, during a series of global uprisings started in
Speaker 2: twenty eleven with Arab Spring, the Black Bloc found a
Speaker 2: new and maybe more fertile ground, places where people had
Speaker 2: been suffering enough with the existing system to be down
Speaker 2: with a more destructive method of confronting that system and
Speaker 2: you get a really major black bloc movement in Egypt.
Speaker 2: And again, it was a way to have these huge,
Speaker 2: spicy protests without turning to actual armed urban gorilla clandestinity.
Speaker 2: The protests around Tarrear Square and Egypt made extensive use
Speaker 2: of black block tactics, largely introduced through soccer hooliganism.
Speaker 3: I mean they're already organized, you know, they have matching outfits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they like fighting, they love fighting. Yeah.
Speaker 3: God, we were just those horrible videos coming out of
Speaker 3: La of the police horses trampling people, right, Yeah, we're
Speaker 3: looking at those, and my husband was reminding me of
Speaker 3: the Interior Square. There was that moment where you can
Speaker 3: see the idea occur to a man that you can
Speaker 3: if you walk up from behind or the side, like
Speaker 3: when the cavalry is in a dense crowd, you can
Speaker 3: just pull him backwards off the horse and there's nothing
Speaker 3: you can fucking do about it.
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that Anderson fucking hated
Speaker 1: those police cop horse things.
Speaker 3: Like cavalry is frightening when it's facing you. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: you can pull him down.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They used to just like prance around in the Hollywood,
Speaker 1: near where the old ieart office was, and when Anderson
Speaker 1: was out doing her concrete shit, which is what I
Speaker 1: used to call it. Sanderson's like I'll drop heat anywhere
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and so we'd be doing the concrete shit dance. Sorry, Anderson,
Speaker 1: I'm really like outing your life, really putting her own blasts,
Speaker 1: really put No, I'm proud of that. Okay, my dog
Speaker 1: could ship on concrete, thank you very much.
Speaker 2: My dog can not sh on concrete.
Speaker 1: My other dog absolutely not. She's she loves having her
Speaker 1: little on sweet bathroom at my house. Anyway, we would
Speaker 1: see those exact horse cops and Anderson would let them know,
Speaker 1: like you we include you an.
Speaker 3: A cab horsey horse behind this look. As a former
Speaker 3: horse girl, I'm looking at their form. They're not stable
Speaker 3: on those horses. They are at risks. Also a former
Speaker 3: horse girl, I have questions.
Speaker 1: This is great.
Speaker 3: The deep lore. So yeah, I love this.
Speaker 1: We did upset Anderson.
Speaker 3: She did leave the room when we started. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: there's some incredible, incredible videos from Treer Square. Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: I know. You're just like interested in what you should
Speaker 3: do if there was mount to Cavalry.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, continue Magpipe please.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, And and one of the things I
Speaker 2: really like, because I really like when everything is connected globally.
Speaker 2: And a lot of the Black Block activists in Egypt,
Speaker 2: or presumably their supporters as well, would change their Facebook
Speaker 2: pages to list their university background as u NAM, which
Speaker 2: is the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It's a way
Speaker 2: of saying we're related with the Zapatistas, and I think
Speaker 2: that's cool.
Speaker 1: That is cool.
Speaker 2: Black Block was also contentiously part of Occupy Wall Street
Speaker 2: and the broader occupy movements. Once again people presenting and
Speaker 2: almost amusing ignorance on the part of some of the critics,
Speaker 2: where they're like, where do these anarchists come? Ruin everything
Speaker 2: at Occupy Wall Street. Occupy Wall Street was built by
Speaker 2: alter globalization veterans, including the late anarchist author David Graber
Speaker 2: and many other people, not just anarchists, but very heavily,
Speaker 2: and soon those ideas generalize across the country and people
Speaker 2: would get involved without knowing.
Speaker 3: The orgas can you shull up late to the party,
Speaker 3: mad that the host is there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. Movements come and go, but discourses forever,
Speaker 2: which is why I want to remember always the litany
Speaker 2: against discourse, which is me rewriting the Litany against fear,
Speaker 2: which is a piece by Frank Herbert. It's a way
Speaker 2: to remind yourself not to discourse. I must not discourse.
Speaker 2: Discourse is the mind killer. Discourse is the little death
Speaker 2: that brings total obliteration. I will face the discourse. I
Speaker 2: will permit it to pass over me and through me.
Speaker 2: And when it has gone past, I will turn the
Speaker 2: inner eye to see its path. Where the discourse has gone,
Speaker 2: there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful, Margaret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, Yeah, you just replaced the word fear, and
Speaker 2: that's the actual thing.
Speaker 3: I just mind my business. Yeah, I see someone I
Speaker 3: don't like it, a protest, I mind my business.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's not about me. Yeah. Yeah. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about this today because I don't want people to
Speaker 2: get caught while they're trying to stop fascism. And the
Speaker 2: black block is one way to avoid getting caught or
Speaker 2: things like it. And it is not just for people
Speaker 2: who want to commit crimes. It is very good for
Speaker 2: people who want to make sure that people who do
Speaker 2: commit crimes, rather that people who do physically interfere with
Speaker 2: the state apparatus, for example, don't get caught because you
Speaker 2: are part of a crowd that they can disappear into.
Speaker 3: You know, even if crime is just totally off the table,
Speaker 3: Like that level of anonymity is useful to you for
Speaker 3: a variety of reasons, state surveillance, arrest after the fact,
Speaker 3: just for having been there, being docks by right wing groups, Like,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of reasons why. Maybe you just want
Speaker 3: to be a little anonymous, Yeah, totally. And if somebody
Speaker 3: wants to break the window, it's not your fucking business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not you.
Speaker 3: Oh and if you were the massed anarchist who grabbed
Speaker 3: me by the collar and pulled me back because I
Speaker 3: was looking down at my phone while walking and tweeting
Speaker 3: into a riot line, thank you.
Speaker 2: And So if you want to go to an anime
Speaker 2: convention dressed in the following style ways to do it,
Speaker 2: just real quick. This is not your actual guide, but
Speaker 2: I promised you some some fashions.
Speaker 3: It's just like a costplay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you want a costplay in groups affinity groups.
Speaker 2: We discussed them earlier. You put on normal clothes that
Speaker 2: don't attract police attention, and then you put black block
Speaker 2: clothes on over that. As much as there's different ways
Speaker 2: of doing it, this is one way to do it,
Speaker 2: and you want that as uniform of your group at
Speaker 2: the anime convention. So avoid logos, patches or anything else
Speaker 2: identifiable unless everyone has the sailor moon. Don't put sailor
Speaker 2: moon on it. And be willing to get rid of
Speaker 2: this clothing, especially if something happens while you're out. And
Speaker 2: some people like raincoats because they're thin and light and
Speaker 2: easy to take on and off. You might want to
Speaker 2: put another layer on on top of this, which is
Speaker 2: your get there layer. A bandana mask is not adequate
Speaker 2: in the modern era. Do not look at old black
Speaker 2: blocks and think that is how to do it because
Speaker 2: they had different threat model around surveillance. A ski mask
Speaker 2: or a T shirt is a much better way at
Speaker 2: the anime convention to make sure that no one knows
Speaker 2: what you know that you're secretly. It's the way I
Speaker 2: go to avoid getting mobbed by crowds.
Speaker 3: And anime because you're so famous, yeah with.
Speaker 2: The anime fans. Tie a T shirt mask. The way
Speaker 2: that you do that is you hold the neck hole
Speaker 2: over your eyes and then you tie the sleeves around
Speaker 2: the back and people like to cover tattoos. Be friendly
Speaker 2: as hell with the other people at the convention who
Speaker 2: aren't in block. Your goal is to make their lives
Speaker 2: better and have a more enjoyable convention experience, and be brave.
Speaker 2: Courage is instead not the absence of fear, but the
Speaker 2: willingness to act despite it. And before you leave the convention,
Speaker 2: you d block where others can't see. This can be
Speaker 2: accomplished by bringing together a large group of people, especially
Speaker 2: with umbrellas to hide from overhead cameras. But also if
Speaker 2: you're able to scout the convention area ahead of time,
Speaker 2: you can figure out alleys and camera blind spots and
Speaker 2: such inside the convention center and ideally talk to people
Speaker 2: who have experience and go with experienced people. But if
Speaker 2: that's not possible, read about it. Crimeting dot com has
Speaker 2: a lot of different guides on this matter other places
Speaker 2: due to I'm sure and always remember this is not
Speaker 2: the best or only way to be militant or radical
Speaker 2: or whatever. This is one that I find the history
Speaker 2: fascinating of and wanted to present. It's just one way
Speaker 2: that you can help yourself and other people stay safe
Speaker 2: doing what you might want to do when you're getting
Speaker 2: those signatures, you know, you can go into line as
Speaker 2: many times as you want if you're in block, because
Speaker 2: they're going to be like I've never seen you before,
Speaker 2: and you're like, that's right, please sign a lot of
Speaker 2: better things for me, and then you can sell signed
Speaker 2: copies of the books. That's what I got. That's the
Speaker 2: history of the Black Blog.
Speaker 3: Make your own choices, mind your own business, and be brave.
Speaker 2: Those are some good maxims. Yeah, the Molly maxims. Well,
Speaker 2: if people can, well, you can do your own plug.
Speaker 2: I don't have to do your plug.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, yeah. Listen to my podcast We're Little Guys.
Speaker 3: It's about the opposite of this show, things that are bummers,
Speaker 3: bad people who did bad things. You can listen to
Speaker 3: it wherever you listen to podcasts. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 3: loads several podcasting applications on your phone and download it
Speaker 3: on all of them.
Speaker 2: What could go wrong? Literally, nothing, nothing will go wrong.
Speaker 3: If you do that, no more downloads, and Sophie will
Speaker 3: be proud of me.
Speaker 1: Always right, it's not downloads based downloads help.
Speaker 2: And if you like ad transitions but not ads, you
Speaker 2: can and you have an iPhone, you can subscribe to
Speaker 2: Cooler Zone Media and just give us money to do
Speaker 2: this directly instead of it going through ads instead. That's
Speaker 2: the thing you can do. You can also take care
Speaker 2: of your friends. Shit's hard.
Speaker 3: Yes, I would like to plug the idea of having
Speaker 3: solidarity with your friends and neighbors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and remember that community and neighbors doesn't mean the
Speaker 2: people you like, like sometimes it's just literally the people
Speaker 2: who are there. Whether or not you like your neighbors,
Speaker 2: they should not be disappeared. And well, actually I have
Speaker 2: no problem with any neighbors who would be in that
Speaker 2: kind of throat, but like whatever, Like, it's not about
Speaker 2: like just your friends. It is about the people around
Speaker 2: you and the people who aren't around you what could
Speaker 2: be around you. It's just take care of each other,
Speaker 2: all right. Hi, roond bye.
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