Antifascist Roundtable, Part 2

So we'll pick up our conversation basically right where we left off, talking about the modern state of anti fascism, anti fascists and like, you know, the left quote unquote in general right now is kind of in a weird place. You know, like a lot of people were you know, extremely kind of catalyzed after Charlottesville, and that led to a like massive resurgence of anti racist action, anti fascist action.

And I think the quote unquote like antifa movement of the twenty teens abs like was is probably one of the largest like politically radicalizing forces for people, especially people my age, people a little bit older. It's you know, it's very influential in what the kind of the modern like anarchists or you know left, you know scene is. And there's like there's a lot of positive parts of that. There's also you know, there's some some drawbacks for that

as well. Kind of one one kind of recurring thing is that like when your only tools a hammer, then everything is a nail. And there's certain elements of of like and and this like antifa notion, like people who like grew up with with like anti fascists and being their primary kind of mode of practice. Then it can be very easily turned horizontally. But you know, it's after after j six, after after Biinen's been inaugurated, we have had this very weird lull, but there's still been you

know a lot of fascist mobilization. But this response to it that you know was very normalized in twenty eighteen has has definitely shifted. We we've seen, like you know, the one thing that's been new is, like you like you mentioned regarding you know, Charlotte Spell, there's lot of like debate around if people should show up armed. We now have like the Drag Time Story Hour kind of defenses, like armed defenses with John Brown, gun clubs becoming more popular.

But you know, the one the kind of occurring things that everyone's kind of been talking about it I've been hearing, Like there's so many parallels for what we've been going through the past like five ten years to other kind of things in the past. Like while all of the John Brown anti Clan Committee stuff, there's just a lot of cyclical notions. I mean, even I'm here in Atlanta right now, there's this Rico grand jury indictment. Everyone's thinking

about like green scare stuff. Even even John Brown Anti Clan Committee did grand jury resistance back in like the eighties. Like it's this this these things have happened before. And I think one thing that you know, the quote unquote after anti fascists sometimes they're kind of bad at is actually passing down the history. There's this tendency that when people get involved, we're kind of forced to reinvent the

wheel every time. But it's like completely like unnecessary, but we tend to just keep trying the same things over and over again. So there's even people younger than me who weren't even old enough to get involved in anti fascist stuff in like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and they're now kind of growing up. There's still this fascist mobilization.

You know, liberals are kind of passive because they have their guy in the White House, and we're going to be reaching a really interesting tipping point in twenty twenty four. So for these types of people who are like either wanting to get involved or who are like just just starting to realize that, hey, maybe we should actually do something about all this stuff, especially as you know, trans existence is one of the main things under attack right now.

What is kind of some like lessons from the passage you would like to be passed down to people.

John brand Ask and Anti Clan Committe left. One of the first actions we did was there was something called the American Spring at the Mexican Border, which was a neo fascist element. It kind of grew out of the previous Clan Border Watch that David Duka done, and they were trying to you know, build up a base of support for you know, very you know, close the borders. And so we did bring people from la and joined

up with San Diego. And actually at one of those rallies somebody drove a car at and nearly hit someone from the the the you know, the anti fascist forces. So I think that's an important piece of we should be thinking about the other thing in terms of killings and shootings. You know, somebody from the Red Nation was just shot in Albuquerque, and you know, I think that again, the question of indigenous sovereignty and indigenous rights is a

leading edge of struggle. A lot of the struggles around missing and murdered Indigenous women have to do with the you know, fossil fuel industry and in the back in other places where you know, women have disappeared and been killed by you know, people in the fossil fuel industry basically, And I think bringing all that to bear is really critical to have the breadth of consciousness and the understanding that there is a global struggle that's going on and

Indigenous people in particular are part of that, about the survival of humanity and of the planet in a sense, and to situate anti fascist struggle in that context, I think is really really important and relates to who are our allies, who are leadership, where is the struggle being led by and so you know, one of the things we uncovered here is that the people involved in the militia movement started their operations by supporting Christian militias in

Guatemala and the Philippines, attacking left forces in those countries

and indigenous forces in those countries. And you know, having that global perspective, I think that's one of the really great strengths of the book, by the way, that I thought was really amazing, as the coverage of anti fascist movements all around the world, and you know, the anti fascists in India and so on, and having that sense that it's not just you know, people of European descent or you know, African Americans in the United States who are post to fascism, but there's a very very broad,

you know, movement around the world and inside this country of people who are experiencing fascism literally all the time that you know, gives a strength to anti fascism.

Right there's movements that are going on elsewhere that are facing a much deeper sort of repression than what we see in the United States, and they are still finding ways to organize. I like to do you know when we talk about like the attack on queer rights, and you know, things like all of these hateful laws that are being passed which will almost certainly be thrown out in the courts, and that's you know, it's going to

be a couple of years. But you know people are saying, well, this is going to make pride illegal, and this is you know, this is the worst thing. This is like, you know, a step towards genocide and all of that stuff. And I think it's actually important for us to put things in perspective. Istanbul has a much stricter set of restrictions on we are organizing quirkeet demonstrations. Pride happens every year Pride is attacked by cops every year, they still

continue to persist. What can we learn as Americans from that movement. I think that's a really important thing for the American anti fascist scene to really start to to think around and try to take this moment. As you mentioned, there's a lull that is happening now, both in the organizing and in the popular support. We need to take that moment to reflect on what is working, what is not, to regroup and to find new approaches, new tactics. This is something that I write about in the chapter I

wrote on TRANSI anti Fascism. Right, we need to, like we need to absolutely bring in historical contexts and comparative analysis into our into what we're doing, But that does not mean that we need to say that everything is literally the Holocaust. What we need to do is look at what are the factors, what are the causes, what are the root causes of the things that are happening, and how can we strategically organize to disrupt and to

bypass those forces. So I think it's really important to have that multifaceted perspective.

been so successful. It is because we don't wait for the fascists to do something. We do something to them before they make a move, and we know when to do it because they basically send us signals out courtesy of their free speech, that they want to do something, and we just take those cues and say, Okay, here's how we are going to go forward. We're going to let people know about you, We're going to let people know how to keep you at bay. I mean, that's

the kinds of things that we need to do. We need to just basically say we are establishing this institution, we are establishing the security around that institution, and you are not going to be able to breach this institution.

The other thing that we do need to do in that while we build that is also make it clear to some of those that, for lack of a better term, or wishy washy on the subject, are more mainstreamers and liberals and such who are quick to defend the fashions that they say they don't believe in before they defend us. We gotta start telling them to chill, and you gotta start telling them to pick a side and stop getting

in everybody's way. Stop being a bulwark because you're too cowardly to put up this fight or you're too interested in protecting your other interests as opposed to being concerned about what's coming down the pike. The book starts off with a discussion about a three way fight. We definitely are in one. Do you want to explain what a

three way fight is? Well, three way fight is not only you're dealing with you know, the obvious enemy, so to speak, but you're also dealing with those that are hesitant to do something about that enemy to the point that they will fight you more, to the point that

they will fight you more. And frankly, it's frustrating. It is a frustrating thing, but it is there and it has been there through our history, and I mean even the mo I mean, I'm surprised I'm actually referencing a Mel Gibson movie, but even the movie Brave Heart brought

that up. Now, I don't think that we need to smack people upside their head with a mace, but by the same token, we do have to let people know that we do have to be a little bit more I should say, assertive in our efforts as we go forward and basically try to rout this particular fascist element, and an assertive means blowing past those that are supposed

to be on our side. I mean, because I was thinking about the fact that this is now the twelfth anniversary of Occupy Right, and Occupy was trying to do that. Occupy is still trying to do that, and respects the folks that were in Occupy, but some of the folks, because what you also saw at Occupy were a lot of folks who thought that they would be able to take advantage of the progress that we were making in this effort and turned it into a more fascist thing.

I mean, I was just looking at a lot of the characters that come out of Occupy that went to the fascist side, and when you look at who they are, you realize that you had a whole bunch of opportunities that were within our ranks that were looking for something totally different than what the rest of us. We were looking out for each other and Occupy The true people that were dealing with Occupy Wall Street were looking out

for each other in our communities. These guys just thought, Hey, perfect opportunity to just say that we're one with them and drag them over here to the right. That's strasserism, that straight up stratsifism. But when you look at it even further, it's just a bunch of people that only cared about themselves ultimately. And we've seen it after year

after year in this fight. So I think that it's going to be very important to build and protect our institutions and recognize what it is we are protecting them from. And it's not hard. We have shown over and over and over again that we are prepared to weigh that kind of war. We just have to basically recognize it within ourselves when we have to do it, and that's just and do not wait for people to die. I mean, Heather Hire did not have to die. No one in

January sixth. Regardless of how I feel about any of them had to die. That should not be the thing that we should respond to. We already know what to do, we just need to do it.

bombs and stuff. You get attacked by far right groups, you had to have a defense development. There was no other choice.

all kinds of component pieces. So those things require that kind of back and forth, and I think that also begs to how do you get people in We're talking about a lot of problems with people on like the moderate left, not kind of taking those next steps, those defensive steps that are necessary, but also how do we

find a pathway for them in. You know, if we're talking about mass participation in something, if we're talking about like a revolutionary movement with huge masses of people, we have to figure out what those pathways for people are and giving them access to them. And I think also moving past what we've thought of as the far right before. I mean people have talked about this a little bit.

You know, a lot of what we think of as recently anti fascism was built around finding the alt right and other kind of recent short term projects, and what we have now is just radically different, just like it will be in a few years. And so having a deep kind of intersexual understanding of how that works, because when you do that, you have that kind of natural understanding of where that's going to show up again, how it might interact with different communities, and what rule places

for you. How are you able to interact with it as this person coming into a social movement.

It's going to be you know, I was just talking about before how we shouldn't just try to like retread the same ground over and over again without learning the

histories from the past. But like this, for a lot of people who have just been doing like street politics the past few years, figuring out how they're going to oppose like fascism in this much more like electoral setting, it's gonna be an interesting shift because, yeah, you can like punch Richard Spencer and no one really cares too much, But if you punch someone like, you know, DeSantis, that is going to be a different thing to kind of

sort through it. And so yeah, I think that is kind of one of these shifts that you know, maybe maybe coming up here soon and whatever kind of evolves on the anti fascist side to kind of meet that it is going to be interesting to watch and take part in.

fascist elements in power in this government right now. And you know, the fascism has come to power in quite a number of you know, in Italy, neo fascists as the Prime Minister, and you know in the United States Matt Gates, and that element has a clear you know, they're in power within the Republican Party, they control the House representatives in a way, and I think that that's a critical understanding. But also it speaks to the fact that fascist practices and elements exists in a lot of

different places. And I think one of the things I've always tried to put out to people is that this is an aspect of the nature of imperialism, central colonialism and I want to emphasize that because I think there's a fractal character to what we're dealing with or holographic, you know, there's any element of this society that you attempt to deal with, you're actually facing the entirety of imperialism and fascism.

trying to organize it. If you look what happened to the Amazon union, or just the fact that again going back in history, you know, the Taft Hartley Act was written to criminalize you know, communists and and also solidarity with the labor movement outlaw. You know, solidarity strikes, and

that's fascist, that is you have to understand that. And you know, one of the reasons that the Puerto Rican in Dependence movement attack Congress was that the US attempted to put the Taft Tartly Act into practice against the labor movem in Puerto Rico, and the Nationalist Party said no, we're going to counterattack. So I think that that's a really critical understanding. We started out talking about the prisons, and you know, there's nothing more fascists that's in prison.

And one of the things they do in prison is they use privilege to try to divide the prisoners. You know, and we haven't talked much about privilege and how it operates in the society, but you know, it's a key factor in how people are are organized by the system to collaborate to you know, get along by going along

and so. But even inside the prisons we've seen here in California and elsewhere, and you know, the Alabama, Georgia elsewhere, prisoners are able to organize under conditions of fascism that exist in the prisons. They have ways to communicate with each other, they've built into racial solidarity in many cases.

So I think those are examples of anti fascism that we need to embrace and understand the same way that people organ you know, if you're organizing a union, you're operating on a certain level clandestinely, because if you're open about it, you're going to get fired. And they're going to retaliate and they're going to anybody you talk to

is going to get fired. So we need to have an understanding of ways to organize that are not always I'm not talking about arms struggle, and I'm saying that people have to organize below the radar when you're dealing with fascism, especially when it's in power, and fascism isn't in power, and a lot of sectors of the society right now and people are dealing with it, as Emily said about you know, Istanbul and Pride marches, you know, so you know, I think we need to make those

connections into the labor movement, into the prison movement, into the you know, formally incarcerated people's movement, you know, the solidarity with indigenous struggles that are going on against that's just the colonization of their lands and struggles. And I think that if we understand that that's an aspect of anti fascism, I think it actually strengthens what we're engaged in.

And one thing I enjoyed about your book is that when we talk about fascism, and we'd already mentioned Michael's mentioned the border as a sort of a location for fascist experiments within the United States, which I think it's very hard to argue against living on the border. If you protested in twenty twenty against police violence, you were surveiled using technology that has been used for years where

I live, against migrants and citizens who live here. But I really liked your perspective on looking at global fascisms, because fascism is it's very easy to spend too much time defining fascism, especially as anti fascists, right, Like, it's extremely easy to be like, it's not fascism unless it comes from the Fascia region of Italy, kind of like this like cheese or champagne. Definition of fascism, but they've

focused on, for instance, fascism in India. Like, if I go to the border, I was at the border a couple of days ago, right that there are tons of Punjabi Sikh people camped out in the desert right now because border patroller are holding them in an open air concentration camp, essentially because of what's happening in India that they turn up here, right and as well as bringing sort of migrant detention, resistance and migrant mutual aid and

to any fascism, I think it's important anti fascists also like we can take concrete action to protect and like to care for victim survivors of fascism. I guess people who fled fascism, and like, when I think about what my backgrounds in the study of the Spanish Civil War,

right that that's what my PhD is about. The thing that radicalized young often Jewish men growing up in the same part of New York that you did, was often seeing people fleeing fascism coming to their communities and then being like, we can't allow that not only to not happen here, but the crucial step that like, we can't allow that to happen anywhere, and that being what kind of motivated them to travel to Spain, and many of many of them died fighting in the Spanish Civil War, right,

But I think we could do better to do that as well. Like now, I know not all of us are living in the United States right now, but sometimes, like Emily said, American anti fascism can be very exceptionalist or whatever. But I think that we have so much

to learn from anti fascists. In my sort of formative experiences, we're in Catalonia, in Spain, but also in India, also in Russia, right, And I wonder if anyone could shall like sort of I guess concrete ways that people listening can help to expand that solidarity into an international anti fascism.

it domestically. And I think what that actually does is create a certain bridge between two communities that there's now a point of connection where they can relate. That doesn't mean they're in the same situation, right like it doesn't mean that like someone protesting in the United States is in the same situation as someone in to call in my space, But having that shared system that actually binds us together in that sense of solidarity, that's a new

model of safety. That's a new model of community. So it's now seeing my strength in that alignment with someone else, of connecting with communities internationally, learning from what they're doing, but making real connections between them, ones that have a real sense of weight between them, where someone's success in international social movement has real effect on your lives and

back and forth. I think committing to that is actually the kind of biggest thing we can do that creates an international movement, and it makes everyone stronger everyone, more effective.

think that that really is an important element. And again what I said is that we need to understand that, you know, similar to what Lennon said about the the Russian Empire, that is the prison house of nations, that there are captive nations inside the borders in the United States, and that you know, indigenous sovereignty, uh, you know, Puerto Rican independence and you know Hawaiian sovereignty and a lot of other issues. And I think those are things that

you know, the fascists try to exploit. Also, you know, they present themselves, you know, fascism presents itself in the Third World as a strategy for you know, national dependence. When the Japanese you know, empire, but it so forward. It was the the you know, they presented themselves as being opposing British and US imperiless in Asia. You know that, and you know then they were employing their own imperialism. But you know that that internationalist element I think is

really critical. And uh, I think the same thing in labor. I think that the labor movement, you know needs in this country needs to think about uh, you know, prison struggles as part of the labor movement needs to think about the internationalists uidlarity with labor struggles elsewhere. One of the things I raised with in relation to the uh, the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild here is that you know, they're based this whole thing about artificial intelligence.

And I don't know if people are aware, but artificial intelligence depends on tens of thousands of people in the Philippines and elsewhere that are working, you know, as gig workers, processing stuff to put it into artificial intelligence. And you know, the same thing you're saying about the border, the technology of self driving vehicles is based on the same technology using to you know, for motion detection on the border.

And the reason they're doing that is also because the people driving self driving vehicles is not just Google and uber, but it's the US Army Tank Division which wants to have automated self driving tanks the same way they have drones. And having that understanding that it is up against the global system and the fascists or a piece of that, but they're not the only piece of that, I think is really really critical to understanding what we have to deal with.

into a political situation that gets muddled. I went to the border twice in Ukraine when the war broke out. I would relive Unite the Right one hundred times before I had to go back to that again. We don't understand scales until you have seen it, until you've seen the hundred or the thousand yards there from hundreds of people, you know, poring over the border. I'm sure James, you're you're you're very familiar with this, with the border work

that you're doing there. These things are so often distant and abstract to us that we we lose sight, that we think that we can influence things within our own spaces that will then have an impact on these bigger, bigger systems, and we can't write. So I think that you know, to go back to you know, what would be the call of action? You know, what would I want the listener to take take away from this. I think that this is about, as somebody said earlier, listen,

listen more, and speak less. Right, try to read, Try to to see what people elsewhere are doing, how they're organizing, what their needs are. You know, how do we do mutual aid in earthquake and flood stricken areas? How do we do mutual aid for refugees who are fleeing a war and things like that. There's just so so much

out there that we need to bring into perspective. And if you think that you can fix any of it, or even just a small part of it simply through speaking up or you know, awareness campaigns, I think that you're a misled So I think my call it action is go out, read books, meet people, get off of Twitter. Scrass for me to say it. But the master's tools can't dismantle the master's house, right. We can't keep this

pattern of outrage cycles up. In order to move the issue forward, we have to come up with something new. My challenge to people is to put your brains together and figure out what that news going to look like.

you know what, we don't need them. We need to just go ahead and do what we need to do. So we can benefit what it is we want to do, and that's the attitude that we got to have. We got to have that hip hop attitude, got to have that punk attitude, and we just simply got to build the institutions that will address the situation. And I will say it again, that's what Occupy was about. I think we need to continue to learn the lessons from Occupy

in order to go forward. And once we start doing that, first of all, when we do that, we're going to see again people trying to either co op or or take it down. And we got to also protect ourselves from from that as well. I mean, I know I'm repeating what I had said earlier, but I think that the solutions and you know what I didn't say. I think the solutions are already being implemented. I think that

we are all have been working and doing this. Folks that aren't on this folks that aren't on this podcast, folks that would never be on any pockets are just basically putting their time and to make sure that the things are done properly. I just got I just saw on the news that they had in Delaware they just passed the law against I guess what they call panic panic killings in regards to the LGBTQ community. You know that what they call back in the day, the gay panic thing defense. Yeah.

Jenny Jones. Uh, somebody expressed their feelings towards another man, and that person after the Jenny Jones show had murdered that person, and the killer, instead of getting first degree murder, got second degree murder because he used a gay panic defense. So people initially, so that was where everything started, and everybody was saying that we got to do something about that.

If it was not for us putting together the mechanism and the institutions to breasically basically voice our concerns, voice our issues, and say we got to do something about this today, would that have happened. It should not be seventeen states, By the way, it should be all fifty. But that's the kind of things that we need to do. These are the things that it's all going to depend on us, and how we act to things that is

going to make all the difference in the world. So when everybody's ready, let's rock and roll.

piece and pathway for folks. I mean right now, I think considering what we're dealing with, climate and economic collapse, mutual aid networks or a natural central piece of that.

absolutely important, and we have those relationships now. So it's about sort of finding a place to be able to reproduce those social movements and grow them and again like Daryl said, people are doing that, and I think like as there are shifts, people have to kind of redefine that a little bit. But having that adaptability is what we've kind of learned over this rapidly changing environment the last few years.

but it was a community organization. And I think that we have to rebuild that, you know, from the bottom up, and it is happening. There's a lot of you know, young people involved in labor organizing. I think that again what I said earlier about the fractal nature of the system. I think one of the things people left in the name is anything they're trying to do, they have an enemy. It's not just a problem that they're trying to face,

they have there is an enemy. Out there that is trying to enforce the system that we have as it collapses, and I think that that's critical. So yes, the mutual aid and the kind of things Emily was talking about, I think are critical. I think people are working on people's assemblies. I was at this dual Power gathering and the Midwest and there was just one up in Portland recently.

And I think that the understanding that all the power and all the wealth that this system possesses is actually stolen from the people that it oppresses and exploits, and that it's our power and it's our power to take it back. We have the creative power. I think that's critical, and that their power is exploitive and power over an

hour is the power, you know, to create. I think that understanding and that concept of solidary and I do think that, you know, against Stephen Beko, part of the Black Conscience movement in South Africa, said the you know, the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is

the minds of the oppressed. And I think to the extent that we can wage to struggle for a different consciousness that is not based on privilege, is not based on getting along by going along is not based on individualism, you know, but is based on collective solidarity, and that actually disempowers the people that we're dealing with and threatens them in ways that you know, they're they're they're freaked out. They understand better than we do the tenuous nature of

their power. And you know the reason for fascism, the turn to fascism is that they want to try to intimidate people and you know, you know, break people, people sell clarity up. And I think that that, you know, we need to understand there's a dialectic there and to the extent that we can create those connections between people that actually disempowers them, the fascists and the state. You know, I have a different perspective on the three way fight.

I think the three way fight is versus the fascists, you know, the self declared fascists and against the state and the capitalist the bourgeoisie. And you know, they're not identical. They have contradictions with each other and we can exploit

those and drive wedges of our own. I think we have to find wedge issues that peel people off from their identification with the oppressor, with white supremacy and with imperialism and you know, pull people together and then who've been you know, separated from that identification with the state and with white power and bring them into solidarity with you know, the global majority of people who are struggling for you know, survival and a better world.

some stuff we didn't get to. So it's a really good overview of some of the different conversations happening in the anti fascist movement and hopefully where it goes in the Future.

Yahoo dot Com. I was also involved with although I did not edit or anything, but I contributed a lot of material to we Go Where They Go, which is from PM Press. It's the history of AAR and it's chock full of incredible material about you know, specificity. One of the things we didn't talk about aras involved in was cop Watch. But you know, just a lot of you know, cultural material and other stuff there that it's well worth reading.

current time. We Don't Walk in Fear is the latest documentary that I've been involved with. Some students in Villanova University wanted to do a documentary about me, and it's not exactly available to the public. What I've been doing. You can probably find it at film festivals and things like that, but what I've been doing is showing it at various events that I've been invited to, whether it's some sort of speed engagement or what have you. So

it's only a half hour long. But if anybody's in a university or in a bookstore or whatever and would like me to come out and show show the documentary to folks and talk about it later, please feel free to give me. Hit me up over at our website

One People's Project dot com. We also have a newsline that's adevox dot com, both of them on threads and on ig We also have also the last thing that I would like to hype is also in twenty eighteen, there are There was the movie Skin where Mike Culter who played Lue Cage and it's in the TV show Evil. He plays me. It's about a neo Nazi, someone from the villain the Social Club, one of the nastiest and

forces who got out thanks to myself and others. And it's a it's a beautiful story and it's been now since twenty eighteen. The short film is a different story. I'm not going to say too much about it because you need to watch it. You can find it on YouTube, or you can find a feature Amazon feature Skin on Amazon Prime. But you can find they find a short film on YouTube. It actually won an Oscar in twenty nineteen, and I'm listening as a consulting producer, so I guess

I have an oscar. And that's about it. I mean, if you want me to speak, come to your colleges or whatever to speak or show the documentary We Don't Walk in Fear. Feel free to give me a ring. I'll be happy to see you. I love traveling.

and a bunch of stuff actually from earlier. I put some of the stuff from Brother Reform from being Sexism but I worked on in the seventies up there, including a letter from Michelle McGee was just recently released finally after I think forty eight years in prison, survivor of the Mare in Courthouse Rebellion.

with the tiki torches. We have sort of successfully convinced the local prosecutor to do something about these fascists who have obviously terrorized the community and continue to do it in their other communities. And whether or not you agree with that approach, the community in Charlottesville and Alcamoll still needs that support and that witnessing. As this all heads to trial this winter, we're expecting some renewed fascist attention.

So I'll just give a shout out for the community and ask for your awareness.