From Below

From Columbia to the University of California Santa Cruz, the Palestine solidarity movement has moved on to college campuses across the United States. In most cases, students are pressuring their institutions to divest endowment funds from corporations which maintain financial ties to the state of Israel—a demand which ties into the broader Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) strategy.

The student movement on campuses has generally taken to the tactic of occupying public space with tents and other semi-permanent structures. In so doing, these encampments have become hubs of round the clock activity. Included in the maintenance of the encampments are efforts to deepen political education, typically through teach-ins and other programming on a variety of topics.

In this episode of From Below we bring you into the student encampment at Stanford University, where receently members of Black Rose Anarchist Federation helped to organize a panel discussion on indigenous revolution. This panel discussion featured a Palestinian healthcare worker, a Kurdish graduate student, and a Mapuche healthcare worker; each of whom offered a different—and at times divergent—perspective on indigenous organizing.

Here is our conversation with author and historian Zoe Baker. Until recently, Zoe was perhaps best known for publishing YouTube videos on anarchist theory and history under the moniker anarchopac. Zoe's new title from AK Press 'Means and Ends: The Revolutionary Practice of Anarchism in the United States and Europe', takes the thorough research and accessible prose she's known for in her YouTube commentary and expands it to book length.

Means and Ends covers the period of anarchist activity and theory between 1868-1939 in both Europe and the United States. In our conversation we discuss Zoe's dual roles as revolutionary and scholar, political historiography, the relevant lessons to be drawn from anarchism's past, and much more.

You can find Zoe's YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/@anarchozoe

You can purchase Means and Ends from AK Press at: www.akpress.org/means-and-ends.html

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From Below is a podcast produced by members of Black Rose / Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation. To learn more about Black Rose / Rosa Negra visit: blackrosefed.org

In this episode we speak with Jamie Edwards, president of the independent labor union Trader Joe's United (TJU).  In our conversation we cover a range of topics, including the strategy that Jamie and their coworkers have pursued in organizing the grocery chain, the realities of being black worker in a predominantly white workplace, and the ways that the union has survived and thrived in spite of management's union busting tactics.

As we mention in the introduction, Jamie recently experienced the brunt of this anti-union retaliation when management targeted them directly. Read more about this incident in this article from The Shoestring.

To learn more about how you can support Trader Joe's United as they negotiate with the company, you can visit their website at Traderjoesunited.org or by following them on Instagram.

Your favorite podcast covering political, social, economic, and cultural issues from a libertarian socialist perspective is back! In this episode you meet your new hosts, Robin and Cameron.